Fuel choices, Global Warming & Polution

Amen, to all you said.

 

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By the way. I just talked with a Chem. E. friend of mine who does biofuels research (probably the source of my bias towards biofuels). I asked him about alcohol v. veggie oil. He says that there is nothing wrong with oil-based biofuels, but that the yields/acre are much lower. In other words, you can take just about any sugar and make it into alcohol. With some pre-treatment you can even take cellulose and make it into alcohol. Plants, even the oil producers, tend to put most of their energy into sugars and celluloses. The net result is that you can get less joules/acre of plant oil than alcohol.

Perhaps we could increase the oil yield through genetic engineering, but again, that would be a future technology.

-Dale

 

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Hello Dale,

Your friend has told you correctly. (Biology is my other field, remember.)

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The thing is that it doesn't have to be an either/or situation. Oil or alcohol. The oil can be extracted and the sugars directly fermented AND the celluloses (primarily lignin) can be hydrolyzed into starches (then converted to sugars) and also fermented. The technology is very simple, well understood, and the majority of the entire biomass converted to fuel.

The same could be done with cane - the bagasse converted - but it's needed as fuel to evaporate the sugar slurry (juice) extracted from the cane. That's also true of sugar beets as well.

 

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Hydrogen is the answer don't you think. I have had the experience of riding in this vehicle with Bob Lazar and it works quite well.

http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

 

Sorry, Starman, but no - it isn't. The problem is that it takes energy to produce hydrogen. And unless we can come up with a different, very cheap way to produce it, we'd actually be going backwards.

There are already several ways to produce hydrogen and the most common is electrolysis of water - and that means using electricity. And where does that electricity come from? Right now it's produced by generating plants that burn coal, natural gas and oil. So that's two stages of energy conversion right there (fuel -> electricity -> hydrogen) and each conversion has efficiency losses. And on top of that we are STILL using fossil fuels at the head of the process. We've gained nothing except moving vehicle pollution out of the cities into the countryside AND we've lost energy in the process.

So by converting to hydrogen we've actually done nothing toward achieving the primary goal which is to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels.

 

Light

If you look at the link I provided the Lazar system uses Solar Energy to create the hydrogen.

The system totaly relies on Solar Energy.

 

The Greenhouse Problem is partially solved by any and every solution which both absorbs solar radiation and also eliminates or substantially reduces the profusion of net greenhouse gasses into the environment.

 

If you have clear weather long days and drive less than 5 miles per day. They seem to be honest and factual, unlike many charlatans in this field: They provide the following information about their not yet ready for sale system:

“…it takes over 2 days of our generator running at full power, 24 hours a day, to fill our smallest "short range" tank.“

Bill T comment: Not very clear what their “short range” tank will provide, but their “standard tank” claims to give 75miles in some cars. If really a solar only system during a week without clouds, you get to drive 10 miles per day in the summer and about 5 in the winter. (Bold emphasis above added by Billy T. They know it is really only interesting if using the power from the electric line, and here I think it comes off second best to a battery powered car.)

“Our kits heat the Hydride tanks electrically, and as soon at the Hydride is sufficiently warm, Hydrogen is released from the tanks and the on-board computer detects the presence of Hydrogen pressure.”

“Solar Panel - 80 Watt - 21.3 volts (open circuit). Approximate panel size: 2' x 4'. UPS shippable. All weather construction - full 25 year warranty from the manufacturer. Note: 5 solar panels (400 watts total) is the minimum amount of power required to operate the H2 generator.” - US$425 each x 4 = $1,700

Their estimated price of the “conversion kit” plus H2 generator, but not solar panels or kit installation costs: 7,000 to 10,000 dollars.

Billy T comment: I expect the higher cost limit is more like to be the case, and with installation costs and the minimum solar panel (800W in full noon sun) the total cost is approximately $13,000 dollars. If this money were invested at 6% that would buy more than $2 of gas each day, 365days per year. Even with high cost of gas, $2 will take you a hell of a lot farther than 5 miles.

Summary: Yes, it is technically feasible to drive a solar powered car, but not economically feasible. Alcohol powered cars are cheaper to drive than gas now an OLD (at least 10 million cars on Brazil's roads during the last 30 years - proven, CO2 reducing, cheaper technology.

Starman's link:
http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/

 

All energy comes from the sun (except geothermal, starlight, and fision/fusion...). Biofuels are produced via photosynthesis; it's probably just more efficient than any human-built solar panel so far.

The only other option is fision/fusion; the former produces nasty wastes and the latter is difficult to contain. But we've got a huge fusion reactor in the sky contained in its own gravitational field - the sun - why not use that?

 

Thanks Light, I hadn't considered that. You are completely correct, I mentioned that even "oily plants" spend most of their energy on carbohydrates but didn't consider that even "sugary plants" will spend some of their energy on lipids. Here in the states probably corn and wheat would be the two big crops, and even though corn is quite starchy there is still a lot of corn oil in there. I guess the thing to do would be to use both methods together and find out which crop gives the largest total yield in Joules/acre. Obviously that would change between Iowa and Brazil, but it shouldn't be too difficult to figure out. There is a fairly limited selection of commercial crops that grow well in any given locale.

-Dale

 

Hydrogen is not a fuel in the traditional sense. There are no sources of hydrogen in the environment. It is much better to think of hydrogen as a battery than as a fuel. Battery highlights the energy-storage concept much better than the energy-source concept implied by the word fuel. In the same way, hydrogen can only be used to store energy that is obtained elsewhere.

In this case the energy is solar energy. You may as well store the solar energy in a plant and burn it, it is much more efficient, higher energy density, and plus you don't get the environmental contamination from producing photovoltaic cells (arsenic, gallium, etc.). Plus it is cheaper and the technology is better understood. I have no idea why there is this current emphasis on hydrogen cars, but it is a big mistake.

-Dale

 

I believe the small tank is the standard tank with a 75 mile range.

A reduction in cost and increase of performance is usually soon to follow with new technowledge.

When the system is fully charged in the vehicle it is estimated to have a range of approximately 350 miles.

Due to a new flexible solar panel now available, the project is already heading for cost reduction and increased performance.

The inventor admits that Hydrogen is better suited for electric power and believes that piston engines are poor inefficient technowledge.

This product will extremely reduce emissions and gain independence from fossil fuels. Until newer technowledge can hit the market.

It is a quick fix for a serious problem. The cost of the system will certainly be off set by huge tax incentives not to mention saving our environment.

How much are you willing to pay to keep the Earth inhabitable?

 

I would appreaciate a few words a non biologist can understand about "enzimatic hydrolyis" r some think spelled like that. A few weeks ago, when the uniCamp Un. study report was summarized in my newspaper, this was a big hope, and very active resaerch area for greatly reducing the cost of alcohol, perhaps making it out of grass etc.

Note that alcohol is already cheaper than gas here in Brazil. Rather than Starman's solar-hydrogen fuel reference's $13,000 system for 5 miles driving per day, perhaps the grass cuttings from his yard have more potential for practicle car fuel?

 

Perhaps. As i said it is hard to tell, but strange that every where in inarticle they speak of the "standard tank" and only mention the "Small Tank" when the want to say it only take two days to fill with 48 hours at "full power," WHICH OF COURSE IS NOT AVAILBLE FROM SUN AT NIGHT.

That is with four standard tanks. If a two "small tanks" = one "standard tank" then we are talking about 16, 24hour days of full electirc input power to drive 350 miles. That is 384 full charging hours for 350 miles, or less than one mile driving per hour of charging at the full power rate! Any battery car is better.

I am not surprized that they do not like pistons. Hot hydrogen will rapidly disfuse into them and make them very brittle. Probably you need to rebuild the motor ever year or two if running on pure hydrogen. They want to advertize "no need to change your car", but really should be thinking of an all electric fuel-cell car with four regenerative motors in the wheels. Even their metal hydride fuel tanks probably last less time than a battery as each charge/discharge cycle will crack the hydride grains and soon you have a compact, nearly usless dust, unless they have found some solution to this problem which others have failed at.

Yes it could if it were to use solar energy but that is clearly not feasible - more than one hour charging with full solar power available for one (or two at most if "small tank" = "standard tank") mile of driving. Remember that there is no sun at night and only a an hour or so per typical day of "full sun" in many location, especially in winter.

Not a quick fix. Not a fix at all if plugged into the electric grid. Then it is a way to increase CO2 emissions. Yes, you can pay higher taxes (an more burocrates) to pay less for your fuel, but the total cost to society is increased.

$13,000 extra per car to drive a few miles per day can be much better spent if you want to improve the environment. For example, more copper in electric motors would make the give more output per watt hour (produce less heat) When this is backed up thru the electric power sytem's losses, then each watt hour of end use saved means about 10 watt hours of coal energy need not be burnt. - See Amory Lovings article in Sept05 Scientific American for more on how much more effective and economical improvements in end user efficiency can be.

quite a lot, but part would be spent to educate people that think hydrogen is a fuel, instead of a very expensive, impractical, energy storage system.

 

It will neither reduce emissions nor gain independence from fossil fuels. Wide-scale use of hydrogen will require a lot of electricity that cannot be provided by your friend's photovoltaic solution. So we will burn fossil fuels to provide the electricity to hydrolyse the water to power your supposedly clean car. There will be no net benefit to the environment!

Tax incentives do nothing to offset the cost. It merely transfers the cost from the owners to their neighbors. Also, a "quick fix" would be a solution where the technology is already well proven, not a new/developing technology.

The point of this whole thread is that we don't have to. If we go the biofuels route we have a better environmental situation than the hydrogen car, it costs less, and it is current technology.

Hydrogen cars are for environmentalist suckers.

-Dale

 

Exactly. Starman should think

hydrogen == battery
hydrogen != fuel

The only people who can really talk about hydrogen cars as environementally-friendly are the ones who also talk about a dramatic increase in nuclear power.

-Dale

 

Also background radiation enters through the Earth's atmosphere: not all from the sun.

Hydrogen is a good source, except it easily explodes.

 

What in hail does "background radiation" have to do with this?

Hydrogen COULD be a good TRANSPORTER of energy, if the very important problems of PRODUCING it were not in existence. Hydrogen, in no way that makes sense to any thoughtful person, can be called a "source" of energy.

According to SOME theory, petroleum energy CAME from the sun, but right now it has nothing to do with sun energy.

As I might have stated before, fuel technology which ABSORBS solar energy and produces no net greenhouse gasses makes sense in terms of trying to avoid further injury to the environment.

 

Zephyr posted: "All energy comes from the sun (except geothermal, starlight, and fision/fusion...)."

This is not true and I pointed that out. Now as far as "what does this have to do in "hail" with this"? Perhaps there are some intelligent minds out there that can use this info to brainstorm it as a source of energy: and it is!

 

Background Radiation?

Did your hot key to wikipedia break?