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Car Tech: What's your favorite alternative fuel?
- 4/24/07 5:45 PM
algae-made biopetroleum does not release NOx
by rdif-embedded - 5/3/07 2:34 AM In reply to: most favorite: BIODIESEL by impalaIt's true. Check this article out: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=34239
you're wrong, read your link, it doesn't mention NOx
by impala - 5/3/07 1:03 PM In reply to: algae-made biopetroleum does not release NOx by rdif-embeddedThat is an interesting article. Thank you for linking it.
However, nowhere does it mention NOx. It mentions biodiesel is SO2 free (acid rain) and CO2 neutral but does not mention NOx at all. NOx is a byproduct of high pressure combustion using air as the oxidant. Nitrogen and Oxygen are both present in air, and thus present in the combustion chamber, and during high pressure combustion they combine to form NOx. NOx pollution from gasoline and diesel engines is attenuated but not eliminated using catalytic converters.
If you could feed a gasoline or diesel engine with a gas mixture free of N then you could almost eliminate NOx emissions.
I think (could be wrong) that NOx emissions help create ground level ozone.
Hydrogen past and future
by engnrng - 5/2/07 8:17 PM In reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel? by wcunning
In 1970, I heard a talk by an excited engineering team about the prospects of hydrogen powered cars. Although they were still 5 to 10 years in the future, they were very promising because of all the technology that had been developed for the Apollo program (the one that went to the moon). In 1985 I heard an engineer from DOE talking about the promising prospects of hydrogen powered vehicles, although they were still 5 to 10 years away. I read another almost identical article in 1998 and again last year. For those of you not math whizzes, that covers nearly 40 years and we are still 10 to 20 years away from you and me driving hydrogen powered cars. Get the idea?
Hydrogen is now...
by JeffDeWitt - 5/2/07 8:33 PM In reply to: Hydrogen past and future by engnrngIt's not off in the future any more, Honda has hydrogen fuel cell powered cars on the road NOW, and just leased one to some little Hollywood cutie, and they are planning on having a car on the market next year that normal people can buy.
Jeff DeWitt
We need alternative transporation, NOT alternative fuels!
by mlcgruhlke - 5/2/07 8:19 PM In reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel? by wcunning
We made a big mistake when Henry Ford began his assembly line factories...we forgot about trains and mass transportation. Most of Europe has trains as does the Far East...these trains are successful transportation alternatives. I've ridden trains in Italy, Spain, France, and Japan...it's a great way to travel from one place to another. Why use a car all the time??? We Americans are not only spoiled with the automobile, we demand our automobiles take us everywhere we go. It's time for a change...we need mass transportation in this country and we need it before we and the rest of the world use up all the oil reserves this planet has to offer.
We don't need alternative fuels....we need alternative transportation!
Trains don't go door-todoor
by FredMars - 5/30/07 2:55 PM In reply to: We need alternative transporation, NOT alternative fuels! by mlcgruhlkeWhen was the last time Amtrak picked someone up at their house? Living in a metro-area makes on e think personal transportation is no more than a bicycle or moped. Some of the urnaites think that a hybrid can handle their needs without high fuel costs.
You are right in that we don't need alternative fuels, because those are also wasteful of energy, either in their production or in their burning as a fuel. It would seem to methat either more energy needs to be extracted from a single gallon of fuel (that is not wasted)or an alternative power source needs to be introduced.
Enter ELECTRICITY. Contrary to popular dogma, elctricity is not produced from fuel. Electric is always on, and all we are doing is tapping into it. The problkem is we have very poor conductors of that electricty. Our current methods waste more electric than what is used, hence we pay for its "production" costs in our bills, not our actual usage. Our usage is computed based on some formula that determines how much it costs to produce and deliver that electric.
What if every home in America had either a solar PV array on their roof or a wind turbine? How much energy would that produce without relying on coal, gas, nuclear, or hydroelectric dams?
On of the comments (rhetoric) reggarding electric cars is that all of the industies that support internal combustion engines would go belly-up and it would bring down the American economy. Autos replaced horses and that didn't bring down the economy. Computers replaced lots of arcane calculators and pencil pushers, but it didn't bring the economy to its knees.
Electricity is always on, always radiated from the sun, and always available for use. All we have to do is provide the path for it to flow. The problem is not a technological one, but a political one. It wold mean our total freedom from energy needs. It would meanthat energy would not be a major factor in manufacturing or transporting goods. It would mean that we would be more self reliant, with a decentralized source of energy that could not be taken out by terrorism.
When I first started to read this discussion I thought that it would appeal to those that have real ideas about energy. What I have gleaned is that most people believe too much of what the media tells them. Try researching "free energy" technology or folks like Henry T. Moray and Nikola Tesla. Read what they discovered about energy and how they tapped an "alternative" source. This is real science, not science fiction. The science fiction is what we have been living with for the past hundred or so years.
OK if you live near a train station...
by Cooltruth - 5/30/07 3:14 PM In reply to: We need alternative transporation, NOT alternative fuels! by mlcgruhlkeA train can be useful between towns or when you live near a train station & your destination is also near the train station. Otherwise a bicycle would be more practical than mass transit! Used to bicycle to work before I had a car and could hitch the bicycle closer to the entrance to work than I could park my car! They had the employee lots about half a mile from work like they expected people to catch the shuttle bus. I'd park & walk in before I'd wait for that bus...
My favorite alternative fuel is oil
by gabrielep - 5/2/07 8:20 PM In reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel? by wcunning
But not the fossil kind. There's a guy who is turning waste of biological origin into oil (look here: http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/2003/Anything-Into-Oil1may03.htm) It's carbon neutral since all biological carbon comes from CO2 in the atmosphere converted by photosynthesis into more complex molecules. It is renewable and sustainable. What's not to like?
YOUR OWN TWO FEET!
by sicx13 - 5/2/07 8:21 PM In reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel? by wcunning
honest to god, if you guys want to go super environmental, god gave u two feet to depend on it. People naming HYDROGEN, BIO-DIESEL and ELECTRICITY or what not, but think about it guys, they might burn clean and renewable, there are other side effects that might be worse than just the green house gas that gasoline is producing. Not to mention the price tag that will be attaching later on when government subsidies are depleted. I am not saying it is impossible, all I am saying is that current available technology and the consumption rate is just making it inviable alternative. When people are talking about these hydrogen, bio-diesel and alternative fuel, they get all excited and start thinking they will get rid off the gasoline completely. Like I mentioned in above, there might be other side effects that are worse than green house gas to produce hydrogen that we haven't discovered. So why not choose the lesser evil of the two and stick with what we know and at least have some control over it rather than being a sitting duck and wait for the unexpected thing to happen. If you really want the alternative, then take the bike, or walk... make a good use of your own two feet. Now that will make it super clean because you are feeding and producing the same waste whether you use your two feet or drive!
PAPP PLASMA ENGINES!
by CathodeRayTube - 5/2/07 8:26 PM In reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel? by wcunning
im all for hydrogen and electric too..but if what iv read is true, than "plasma engine" technology may be the answer...google "papp plasma engine" for more info...theres allsow a video on youtube about this that got me thinking..
basicly its a perpetual motion machine. you have an engine with pistons like any other car..but the cylenders are compleatly sealed and have no intake or exaust valvs..the piston chambers are filled with a mix of inert gas wich, when electricity is applyed, expands with intense force and then contracts with the same force when power is removed...there are electrodes in the cylinder head that are used to exite the gas.. and the electricity used by the engine is generated via a normal genorator attached to the engine..
thats how it works from what i understand...i dont know what the gas mixture actualy is but its supposedly a mix of helium,argon,krypton,neon,xenon and some other ones...iv herd that the whole thing was a hoax but it seems like it would work...
What's your favorite alternative fuel?
by walt554 - 5/2/07 8:28 PM In reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel? by wcunning
Diesel (bio-Diesel) electric.
A Diesel-electric is a very efficent system. I'm a little suprised the auto companies came out with a gas-electric system, what a bad choice. Should fire the designers. Gas-electric is inefficent and I'm sure this will go by the wayside and you will see Diesel-electric come into it's own.
WORST alternative fuel: HYDROGEN
by impala - 5/2/07 8:32 PM In reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel? by wcunning
Before you flame me READ THIS:
http://www.physorg.com/news85074285.html
HYDROGEN is a fully synthetic FUEL. It is not a new ENERGY SOURCE unless you use it for fusion as the Sun does.
HYDROGEN has a much lower energy density than any other fuel. You have to invest much energy to compress and cool it and store it at enormous pressure to even get it close.
HYDROGEN will cost (much) more energy to use than you get out of it. This is based on fundamental thermodynamics. No technology yet invented has thwarted thermo. READ THAT LINK!
HYDROGEN is the most leak prone substance possible and it's corrosive.
HYDROGEN is worse than batteries.
We would be better off converting to CNG. REALLY!
I live in South Carolina, home of the hydrogen economy - D'OH!
http://www.energy.sc.gov/index.aspx?m=6&t=41&h=162
Hydrogen...
by JeffDeWitt - 5/2/07 8:45 PM In reply to: WORST alternative fuel: HYDROGEN by impalaStrictly speaking hydrogen is not a fuel (at least until we figure out how to build fusion reactors) but it's infinitely renewable and works FAR better to power vehicles than batteries. It's doubtful that a battery powered car can ever work as well as even the cheapest current car. You can get in that car, drive for 300+ miles, stop for 10 min to refill the tank, and drive on. No electric car anyone has even come close to that, and it's doubtful they ever will.
Jeff DeWitt
it is a synthetic fuel, it is not an energy source
by impala - 5/3/07 9:05 AM In reply to: Hydrogen... by JeffDeWittFuel is any material that is capable of releasing energy when its chemical or physical structure is altered. It doesn't have to be naturally sourced and it doesn't have to give you a net energy gain. It simply has to release usable energy in a controlled manner. Hydrogen is definitely a fuel on earth.
hydrogen is not naturally occurring in quantity on earth, so I used the adjective 'synthetic' to mean it is man-made or artificial, not naturally occurring.
So, I stand by my use of the word fuel, but would like a better adjective than synthetic to use to describe hydrogen.
An energy source gives you a net gain of energy within the confines of your system, which is is less than the universe. You can consider all human activity on earth a system of sorts which needs various energy sources. Unless you do fusion, hydrogen is not an energy source on earth.
Your are very wrong about electric!
by FredMars - 5/30/07 3:06 PM In reply to: Hydrogen... by JeffDeWittThe problem with elctric vehicles is the type of energy storage not the technology itself. The $92,000 Tesla Roadster gets about 200+ miles between charges, and with a 200HP elctric motor is can get 0-60MPH in around 4 seconds. Can your turbo diesel or hybrid do that? So far the "weak" link is the batteries. Yes, it takes time to charge chemical batteries, and that may soon change as new solid state "batteries" called ultra-capacitors are mass produced. They can hold more eletric charge than chemical (Lithium Ion) cells of similar size, they don't have the same overheating/explosion dangers, and they can be recharged in minutes instead of hours.
Tesla is planning an "afforable" electric vehicle by 2008 or 2009 (I would imagine they mean $30,000) And they are currently discussing a new capacitor technology with a Texas company to replace the 900+ Lithium Ion cells currently used. In addition to reducing the vehicle's weight, the new cells would increase the range and reduce the charging time.
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