What's your favorite gasoline alternative? [Archive]

GodsPetMonkey

09-07-2005, 08:31

My current favorite alternative to petrol is gas (as in LPG). But that doesn't really solve the problem, as it is still a non-renewable energy source.

The most promising IMHO is hydrogen, but we still have a ways to go before it will be ready for the mainstream, many other alternatives (LPG, Hybrid, Diesel) just shift to a new limited source, or extend the use we have left of what we have now (which makes them good bridging technologies). Some of the recent developments around diesel though, may provide yet another alternative.

Spetulhu

09-07-2005, 08:41

Alcohol. The technology to make it is common, it doesn't pollute in the same way and it is useful for other things too. Besides, you don't have to modify the gasoline-powered cars very much at all. Basically just some rubber/plastic parts that need to be swapped for alcohol-resistant types.

Pro: easy to manufacture, current cars don't need any drastic modifications.
Con: less energy per liter so the engine drinks a bit more. Needs some additive (like 15% gasoline) in cold climes to ensure the engine starts.

Bartix

09-07-2005, 08:52

In short term, bio-diesel and ethanol. ~:cheers:
This is renewable and can use on existing cars. ~:)

May be same with electric hybrids (toyota Prius type) in mid term. ~:cool:
or even "more electric" http://www.gizmag.co.uk/go/3945/

In longer term we shall see ~:handball:

bmolsson

09-07-2005, 09:25

I would say bio-diesel / Ethanol as well. Distribution is so well worked in over the world so it would be the best way to get it up and running fast.

Phatose

09-07-2005, 12:33

Is there some technological reason we can't go bio-diesel/electric hybrid? Seems the hybridization works with gas and improves efficiency, should work with diesel too, which is a more efficient starting point.

As for hydrogen...is there some way of actually getting this hydrogen that doesn't eventually lead back to using fossil fuels?

English assassin

09-07-2005, 12:36

Alas, the area you would have to put to crop to supply even a small fraction of our need for petrol with biodiesel makies it impossible as a replacement for petrol.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/11/23/feeding-cars-not-people/

Road transport in the United Kingdom consumes 37.6 million tonnes of petroleum products a year.(5) The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape. The average yield is between 3 and 3.5 tonnes per hectare.(6) One tonne of rapeseed produces 415 kilos of biodiesel.(7) So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel.

To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares. There are 5.7m in the United Kingdom.(8) Switching to green fuels requires four and half times our arable area. Even the EU’s more modest target of 20% by 2020 would consume almost all our cropland

Being realistic, we have to work within the existing transport infrastructure, which means roads, private cars, and filling stations. In the short term the only viable solution seems to me to be hybrids (or people could maybe just buy regular petrol cars that do more than 30 MPG, hmm? Its not that much to ask). In the long term, hydrogen.

As for hydrogen...is there some way of actually getting this hydrogen that doesn't eventually lead back to using fossil fuels?

We need to grow up about nuclear. The French have the right idea.

CBR

09-07-2005, 12:37

As for hydrogen...is there some way of actually getting this hydrogen that doesn't eventually lead back to using fossil fuels?

Sure there are. Nuclear, wind or solar power to get the electricity needed to get the hydrogen from water ~:)

CBR

Xiahou

09-07-2005, 13:19

Alas, the area you would have to put to crop to supply even a small fraction of our need for petrol with biodiesel makies it impossible as a replacement for petrol.Well, the nice thing about diesel engines is that they can run on bio-diesel, regular diesel or some mixture of both with no modification in most situations.

Plus they're already more fuel efficient than gasoline engines as is.

Big King Sanctaphrax

09-07-2005, 13:32

I agree with English Assassin, in the short term we should with hybridised or fuel-efficient petrol cars, until we have the infrastructure and supply for hydrogen cells to be a viable option.

I really don't see what people's beef is with nuclear power plants-they don't consume fossil fuels and are far cleaner than plants that do, aside from the nuclear waste they produce, which can be dealt with more easily than CO2 emmisions and the like. They're really the only viable option for power in the time we have left, barring some kind of miracle fusion breakthrough.

Ja'chyra

09-07-2005, 14:01

English assassin

09-07-2005, 14:12

Biodiesel may not be a runner but I see it looks as if biofuels for electricty generation is worth investigating:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4220790.stm

KukriKhan

09-07-2005, 14:31

-Nuke, solar & wind for industrial & home energy
-Better urban planning to greatly reduce the need for personal transport
-Hydrogen for the few times personal tranportation is unavoidable
-Biodiesel for commercial long-haul transportation

All of them hard-to-sell, large R&D investment solutions.

Until then: 'Dees'll'...{finger points to walking shoes} "Dees'll get ya dere, an' dees'll getcha back."

lars573

09-07-2005, 15:44

-Nuke, solar & wind for industrial & home energy
-Better urban planning to greatly reduce the need for personal transport
-Hydrogen for the few times personal tranportation is unavoidable
-Biodiesel for commercial long-haul transportation
Hydrogen isn't the savior of transport that everyone thinks it is. The propaganda publication of the military-industrial complex (or if you prefer it's name popular mechanics) made some points that I can't dismiss as pro-oil industry scare tactics about hydrogen. Biggest one was raw hydrogens instability and it's gasesous nature. Bascially you get into a bad accedent with hydrogen cars with a feul tank similar to the ones on gas cars and BOOOM! it explodes. So you have to make the hydrogen tanks much more think and punchure resistant. Also hydrogen is a gas compare a similar amount of hydrogen to the gas tank in a car will take up much more space. So a mid-sized car powered by hydrogen has 50% of it's mass taken up by a feul cell. Now if you talk about liguid hydrogen it saves nothing on space and uses much more electrical power and coolants to keep the hydrogen liquid. Plus it's more unstable in a liquid form. So hydrogen in this day and age is not the answer to our fossil feul problems.

All of them hard-to-sell, large R&D investment solutions.
Very true but it will become less and less of a hard sell.

Until then: 'Dees'll'...{finger points to walking shoes} "Dees'll get ya dere, an' dees'll getcha back."
Glad that works for you but what about people in rural areas that need a car and have shitty public transport.

yesdachi

09-07-2005, 15:47

I think that the ethanol type fuels are the best choice in the short term but electric is the way to go for the long term.

We over produce so many crops in the US that the Government actually pays some farmers to not farm their land. We could easily up production to accommodate an increased need for corn and soy. It would also keep farmers employed and eliminate some of our need to depend on foreign resources. Plus it’s an easy conversion for most current cars.

I have actually done a little research on wind power and it fascinates me to see how much potential there is. Wind could definitely replace/greatly reduce the need for many power plants. Plus it is relatively low tech and requires minimal maintenance and generates no nuclear waste. It seems to me that the benefits of wind power are currently effective only for personal use (home/business) but it is not cost effective to “sell” the electricity back to the power plants because they wont pay much for it. IIRC it was only about 10% of their selling price (needs 30% to breakeven) where the buyback rate for solar generated electricity is closer to 50% of their selling price (Energy bill forces them to pay more for solar). IMO there seems to be an agenda to keep things statuesquo for the power companies. If there is going to be any major shift in what fuel is used by the power plants they will have to be the ones to decide or be forced by the gov. ~:)

CBR

09-07-2005, 17:49

Bascially you get into a bad accedent with hydrogen cars with a feul tank similar to the ones on gas cars and BOOOM! it explodes. So you have to make the hydrogen tanks much more think and punchure resistant.

If a hydrogen tank ruptures its not gonna explode. All you will get is a flame. Just as current cars dont explode unlike Hollywood cars of course, a hydrogen powered car wont explode either. For an explosion to happen that requires lots of oxygen and that means the gas has to be widely dispersed but as its a very light gas it will go up and disperse in the air.

But hydrogen storage is still not as good as we need it to be so it still takes some development to make good and light enough tanks for ordinary cars. The biggest problem with fuel cells is not its mass but the cost to produce them.

CBR

Viking

09-07-2005, 19:39

Hydrogen isn't the savior of transport that everyone thinks it is. The propaganda publication of the military-industrial complex (or if you prefer it's name popular mechanics) made some points that I can't dismiss as pro-oil industry scare tactics about hydrogen. Biggest one was raw hydrogens instability and it's gasesous nature. Bascially you get into a bad accedent with hydrogen cars with a feul tank similar to the ones on gas cars and BOOOM! it explodes. So you have to make the hydrogen tanks much more think and punchure resistant. Also hydrogen is a gas compare a similar amount of hydrogen to the gas tank in a car will take up much more space. So a mid-sized car powered by hydrogen has 50% of it's mass taken up by a feul cell. Now if you talk about liguid hydrogen it saves nothing on space and uses much more electrical power and coolants to keep the hydrogen liquid. Plus it's more unstable in a liquid form. So hydrogen in this day and age is not the answer to our fossil feul problems.

Just wait for the technology to develop, there`s lots of breakthroughs yet to come within this science, not only technology but also chemistry and better knowledge on nano-level.

I hope for either biodiesel or hydrogen fueled cars being the future.

Mikeus Caesar

09-07-2005, 19:47

My Favourite fossil fuel alternative? For cars, Hydrogen Fuel Cells. For general power for homes and businesses, Nuclear Power Plants and Wind Turbines.

Xiahou

09-07-2005, 19:55

Although its off-topic (not a gasoline alternative), I wonder how many of the supporters of nuclear power would still like it if it meant having a reactor complex in their own back yards- that's to say, near your town, 5 or 6 blocks from your home...

Thats the trouble nuke power usually runs into. Sure, looks great on paper, but when the time to build reactors comes around you get the familiar refrain "Not in my backyard!"

Who'd be comfortable with waking up to this every morning...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/images/3miletower86.jpg

Viking

09-07-2005, 20:02

We could build the nuclear power plants on the Moon and get the energy back as laser beams. Or more realistic we build them as far as possible away from civilisation.

Kagemusha

09-07-2005, 20:05

Ethanol,my fellow patrons,ethanol solves everything! ~:cheers:

Mikeus Caesar

09-07-2005, 21:04

Ethanol,my fellow patrons,ethanol solves everything! ~:cheers:

Ethanol's great if you don't mind the large risk of being burnt alive if you crash your car.

Ser Clegane

09-07-2005, 21:06

Ethanol's great if you don't mind the large risk of being burnt alive if you crash your car.

How exactly would that risk be greater than it currently is?

Kagemusha

09-07-2005, 21:07

Ethanol's great if you don't mind the large risk of being burnt alive if you crash your car.

Mikeus.I wasnt talking about Ethanol for cars.Its a waste of good alcohol. ~;)

yesdachi

09-07-2005, 21:10

Mikeus.I wasnt talking about Ethanol for cars.Its a waste of good alcohol. ~;)
Ha! I get it ~D . Of course it could cause me to crash my car. ~;)

Kagemusha

09-07-2005, 21:13

Ha! I get it ~D . Of course it could cause me to crash my car. ~;)

Yes.Its not healthy to drink and drive. :bow:

Mikeus Caesar

09-07-2005, 21:29

'I drank and drove once...i crashed trying to open the bottle...'

-An old friend.

Red Harvest

09-07-2005, 22:02

Hydrogen has plenty of nasty little properties. (Ignoring the problem of there not being any natural supply...other than converting something else.) The biggest one I see is that it leaks easier than anything else. It is extremely flammable, and it heats up when you drop the pressure as memory serves--a very unusual property. It's flame is nearly invisible. Leak enough out into a confined space (garage?) and you have real potential for an explosion.

I've worked with many trickle bed hydrogenation reactors and you have to be particularly careful with them, and the electrical classifications are particularly strenuous. Manually enting a vessel had potential for ignition just from opening the valve. Hydrogen was also bad about causing/accelerating various types of corrosion problems depending on the metallurgy of the vessels and heat exchangers.

I wouldn't be that concerned about collision explosions for the reasons CBR gave. Other accidents are more likely.

The saving grace of hydrogen is that it is so light that it doesn't tend to accumulate. I did see a propane powered farm truck's explosive effect once. A car wash knocked off the tank valve. There was a long enough delay before it found an ignition source that it blew up the car wash, a and adjacent C-Meeks lumber yard and several other buildings. I think it killed half a dozen people. It happened while I was eating lunch a few blocks away.

Zharakov

09-07-2005, 22:05

I like Neuclier power...

Even after all the accedents here in Russia...

BDC

09-07-2005, 22:24

The saving grace of hydrogen is that it is so light that it doesn't tend to accumulate.

Plus when it blows up the fireball just goes straight up. So it isn't as dangerous as it seems.

drone

09-07-2005, 22:43

Someone posted a link on Slashdot today about a company with a hydrogen storage method. They supposedly store the H2 in small pellets, which are safe. The link seemed to be more of an advert than anything else, but the concept was interesting. Missing from the article is how to get the H2 back out.

Slashdot post, with comments from the peanut gallery:
http://hardware.slashdot.org/hardware/05/09/07/1215256.shtml?tid=232

bmolsson

09-08-2005, 02:35

I think that the existing infrastructure for transportation is a to large investment to just leave, therefore biodiesel will be the best alternative, despite some of its shortcomings.

English assassin

09-08-2005, 09:57

I think that the existing infrastructure for transportation is a to large investment to just leave, therefore biodiesel will be the best alternative, despite some of its shortcomings.

The main one being it is wholly impossible to generate anything like enough, which is pretty fundamental.

Probably the most important alternative, which was mentioned above but isn't on the list of options, is simply to travel less. Planning laws could make a bigger impact on the problem than most other things, in the medium term.

As for a nuclear power station in my back yard, unless I worked at it no I would not especially like that, though for aesthetic rather than safety reasons. But why would it have to be in my or anyone elses back yard, any more than a coal or gas station would be? That's why we have a national grid.

Xiahou

09-08-2005, 18:25

As for a nuclear power station in my back yard, unless I worked at it no I would not especially like that, though for aesthetic rather than safety reasons. But why would it have to be in my or anyone elses back yard, any more than a coal or gas station would be? That's why we have a national grid.With almost 250 people for every square km in the UK, they're almost guarenteed to be in someone's backyard. In the USA it's about 30/km and there are still many built near residential areas- like 3 Mile Island, which is the picture I posted.

English assassin

09-08-2005, 19:05

We are not all evenly distributed though. There are quite big empty-ish bits. And we've got a lot of coast, where no one at all lives over a 180 degree arc from the station.

I know this will not mean anything to anyone who is not from North Kent in the UK, but you could cover the whole of the Isle of Sheppey with nuclear power stations and it wouldn't be any more crappy than it is today. Actually, you could drop nuclear bombs on it and it wouldn't be any more crappy but I digress...

Even putting that aside, why not just build them next to existing power stations of all kinds. That way the transmission lines are already in place, and its not as if a coal plant looks nice than a nuclear one. If anything local pollution should go down.

bmolsson

09-09-2005, 07:24

The main one being it is wholly impossible to generate anything like enough, which is pretty fundamental.

Probably the most important alternative, which was mentioned above but isn't on the list of options, is simply to travel less. Planning laws could make a bigger impact on the problem than most other things, in the medium term.

As for a nuclear power station in my back yard, unless I worked at it no I would not especially like that, though for aesthetic rather than safety reasons. But why would it have to be in my or anyone elses back yard, any more than a coal or gas station would be? That's why we have a national grid.

I disagree, the acceptance of the new sources will create the needed production capacity.

Marcellus

09-09-2005, 22:03

Hydrogen + Oxygen -> water

No polution. Wonderful.

English assassin

09-09-2005, 23:23

I disagree, the acceptance of the new sources will create the needed production capacity.

For which read agriculturally productive hectares together with the energy and fertiliser to work them. Where, please?

Xiahou

09-09-2005, 23:39

For which read agriculturally productive hectares together with the energy and fertiliser to work them. Where, please?
Yeah, but is there any fuel that the UK wouldn't have to import?

Kaiser of Arabia

09-10-2005, 00:43

less bus's to take up gas.

Red Harvest

09-10-2005, 04:51

Hydrogen + Oxygen -> water

No polution. Wonderful.

Yes, but how does one get the hydrogen? Most sources are fossil fuel based...meaning lots of pollution or CO2 emissions. Most folks don't realize this.

The other way to get it would be generating it by electricity from solar/wind/geothermal/nuke/hydro.

Hydrogen is a derivative source of energy. You have to make the hydrogen first. You aren't "refining" it, you are generating it.

bmolsson

09-10-2005, 10:36

For which read agriculturally productive hectares together with the energy and fertiliser to work them. Where, please?

Sustainable forestry.

Samurai Waki

09-10-2005, 11:17

Hydrogen/Fuel Cells is invariably where the market is going to go these days. California is already planning out a massive Hydrogen Fuel Cell Pumping Station network due to be finished by 2015, can't say if that gets the thumbs up (which it will) that Hydrogen won't take over the market. the project is going to alleviate many many many countries from having to deal with OPEC. The oh-so-poor oil companies have their panties in a bind over this one, aside from the fact that their CEOs will be able to retire with a hefty bank account. Even Oil producing countries shouldn't be cringing at the idea, after all, countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia are starved for water as it is, how about being able to produce it? not a bad benefit for countries starved of clean water.

Viking

09-10-2005, 18:45

Even Oil producing countries shouldn't be cringing at the idea, after all, countries like Iraq and Saudi Arabia are starved for water as it is, how about being able to produce it? not a bad benefit for countries starved of clean water.

Look at the right bar of this page, and you`ll see that finding a hydrogen "source" is not too difficult (http://www.hydro.com/en/our_business/oil_energy/new_energy/hydrogen/index.html)

ah_dut

09-10-2005, 20:23

Marcellus

09-11-2005, 01:13

Yes, but how does one get the hydrogen? Most sources are fossil fuel based...meaning lots of pollution or CO2 emissions. Most folks don't realize this.

The other way to get it would be generating it by electricity from solar/wind/geothermal/nuke/hydro.

Hydrogen is a derivative source of energy. You have to make the hydrogen first. You aren't "refining" it, you are generating it.

I was really referring to the actual combustion of hydrogen in oxygen when I said 'no pollution', but I take your point. The advantage of hydrogen is that it can be used to 'store' energy from a power station. Hydrogen can be created from water using electricity generated in power stations, and then can be used in cars. Power stations can get their power from ways that cars can't (e.g. nuclear, renewable), which cause less polution per unit of energy than petrol (also I imagine that with fossil fuels power stations are more efficient than the internal combustion engine). By using hydrogen as a store of energy, pollution overall does decrease.