Making gasoline obsolete? (1 Viewer)

[Paladin]

All of our candidates for governor are touting themselves as the one to make Iowa the leader in alternative fuels. This might help.
ted

Hydrogen Engines

ALGONA, Iowa - While much of the world fumes over escalating fuel prices, a small company in north central Iowa is quietly hoping to make gasoline obsolete as an engine fuel.

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The engine can run on a number of fuels including hydrogen, ethanol, natural gas, propane or digester gas from landfills.

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While the engines drive a revenue stream for the company, engineers are working to improve the technology of engines that run on hydrogen and other clean fuels.

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He said there are obstacles to making cars powered with hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engines. To carry enough hydrogen, the fuel tank would have to be under extremely high pressure, he said. In addition, tanks made to that specification cost as much as the engine to power the car.

 

[tryreading]

All of our candidates for governor are touting themselves as the one to make Iowa the leader in alternative fuels. This might help.
ted

Hydrogen Engines

I ran across information about butanol the other day. When it can be produced in large quantities, I think it will be the most promising alternative fuel for internal combustion engines. It can replace gas in car engines, gallon for gallon, with no engine modification needed. It can also be mixed with diesel fuel. It comes from the same biomass as ethanol. Also, a gallon of ethanol contains almost as much potential energy as a gallon of gasoline, 110,000 btu versus 115,000 btu. And it pollutes much less than gas.

Hydrogen will be our main fuel at some point, but not anytime soon.

http://www.osti.gov/bridge/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=843183
http://butanol.com/

 

[Jay R]

Hydrogen will be our main fuel at some point, but not anytime soon.

Making engines run on alternatives is the easy part, with no economic reason for carmakers to build them that way or for forecourts to supply those fuels the situation seems bound to remain stalled. Government needs to take the lead and legislate the change into effect.

As far as I'm aware Hydrogen is really being hindered by the insistence on the fuel cell concept, BMW have had big V12 internal combustion engines burning it quite effectively, they'd be better off running with that considering the costs of components and manufacture of fuel cells.

Of course great British ingenuity has had cars converted to run on the used fat from deep fryers.:smile:

 

[faithful_servant]

Butanol, ethanol and hydrogen all have one thing in common, they take more energy to produce/extract them than they produce. When will you people figure this out? For an alternative to oil to be viable it has to have that key characteristic of oil - it has to provide more energy than it requires to produce.

Everyone keeps going on about the different alternative energy sources and yet they fail to assess these proposals from this most basic approach. Right now, the only energy source I know of that could compete with petro sources is the burning of biomass for electrical power (basically wood fired power plants, although there are lot of other agricultural waste products that could be burned as well). Solar is nowhere near as efficient as it needs to be and the processing of solar panels is really nasty stuff. Wind is too undependable. Nuclear is only economically viable if you sell the power at exorbitant prices or depend on the Feds for subsidies. Hydro is running out of viable locations and the eco-nuts will tie up any project in court for the next 10,000 years. Until fusion is developed into a viable source of energy, the best source we have is petro. Yes, I'd love to cut that pipeline, but the reality is that right now, it's the best energy source available.

 

[tryreading]

Butanol, ethanol and hydrogen all have one thing in common, they take more energy to produce/extract them than they produce. When will you people figure this out? For an alternative to oil to be viable it has to have that key characteristic of oil - it has to provide more energy than it requires to produce.

Everyone keeps going on about the different alternative energy sources and yet they fail to assess these proposals from this most basic approach. Right now, the only energy source I know of that could compete with petro sources is the burning of biomass for electrical power (basically wood fired power plants, although there are lot of other agricultural waste products that could be burned as well). Solar is nowhere near as efficient as it needs to be and the processing of solar panels is really nasty stuff. Wind is too undependable. Nuclear is only economically viable if you sell the power at exorbitant prices or depend on the Feds for subsidies. Hydro is running out of viable locations and the eco-nuts will tie up any project in court for the next 10,000 years. Until fusion is developed into a viable source of energy, the best source we have is petro. Yes, I'd love to cut that pipeline, but the reality is that right now, it's the best energy source available.

Right now, you're right. Best to think ahead, though. I've read that butanol can be produced from biomass, not just the 'fruit' of a plant, and there was a recent breakthrough on production of it. More research needs to be done to make it viable, of course.

Its time to be serious about research on alternatives, and make sure we don't drop the ball again like we've done since the 1970s.

 

[Jay R]

Right now, you're right. Best to think ahead, though. I've read that butanol can be produced from biomass, not just the 'fruit' of a plant, and there was a recent breakthrough on production of it. More research needs to be done to make it viable, of course.

Its time to be serious about research on alternatives, and make sure we don't drop the ball again like we've done since the 1970s.

Well said. The problem with the 'head-in-the-sand', there's no problem attitude that some people have is that it stifles development of new technologies that would be useful in their own right, regardless of global warming. I swear if it was up to some people cars wouldn't have seatbelts.

 

[FallingPianos]

Butanol, ethanol and hydrogen all have one thing in common, they take more energy to produce/extract them than they produce. When will you people figure this out? For an alternative to oil to be viable it has to have that key characteristic of oil - it has to provide more energy than it requires to produce.

even so, it is advantagous to be energy independent when all your main energy source is from a country you're not on good terms with.

*edit*

this need not be an issue anyway. when ethanol is made from sugar cane as it is in brazil, it produces more energy then it takes to create it. the problem is with making it from corn as is done in the united states.

 

[scottyz]

this need not be an issue anyway. when ethanol is made from sugar cane as it is in brazil, it produces more energy then it takes to create it. the problem is with making it from corn as is done in the united states.

Corn is not the best plant to use. Sugar cane, sugar beets and some types of grass are better.