What's your favorite alternative fuel?

Many alternatives say "we can't get enough for all the cars", but that doesn't mean we shouldn't use them. Some ethanol, some bio diesel, some hydrogen (ha ya right!), it can all make a difference. My self - I have a very special S-10 pickup electric vehicle that was a project between Clark High school and Nevada Power, so ELECTRIC is my clear choice and I live near Hoover Dam for my clean power at 4.5 cents/kWH. If I need to go farther than the 40 miles range I use a Toyota Echo that gets 48 mpg with synthetic engine oil and fully inflated tires. If there were easy places to recharge I could go farther.
GO ELECTRIC!!

TO: CNET.COM CAR TECH FORUM

April 27, 2007

You are posting a reply to: What's your favorite alternative fuel?

H2 Solves Economic, War, Environment, and Cultural Needs

When Americans finally wake up to the need for EFFICIENCY in our culture, to protecting our Home Earth, to Less Imports of BLOOD OIL, HYDROGEN will turn out to be the new OIL. California is leading the way with its aggressive HYDROGEN HIGHWAY Program.

General Motors has spent close to $2 Billion in their new hydrogen-fuel cell vehicle. The OIL FAMILIES that dominate how this country is run are moving their holdings to RENEWABLE FUELS. Terrorists cannot easily destroy a home grown biofuel such as ETHANOL; nor can they destroy an INFRASTRUCTURE from a new DISTRIBUTED ENERGY program such as HIGH EFFICIENCY fuel cells next to each home and business (N.R.E.L. reports distributed power fuel cells are 5% more efficient than central generation current model).

Sources of Clean HYDROGEN are plentiful: Sugar Cane, Corn, Grasses, Waste, Water Split by Solar, and even (G.H.U.) nuclear. Why? Why because HYDROGEN is our most plentiful element in the universe and is a clean energy transfer agent. We have the true answers NOW. All we need is AWARENESS on ALL AMERICANS part, and our Capital Leaders will eventually COMPLY. Why continue to release CO2 to our peril? Why not take the sun directly, every day, and store it as HYDROGEN, for use in Stationary Power and in Transporation?

When retail gasoline reaches $3 per gallon it makes ETHANOL to HYDROGEN more efficient economically. This fact will cause OIL and COAL companies to change their mission to being ENERGY companies.

What will force Americans to Wake UP? That?s easy. The MEDIA. Also, it will be continued degradation of our Culture (?the American way of life?), and to the fact that the hydrocarbon age is over and INTELLIGENT USE OF RESOURCES is IN! Anti-waste and Anti-CO2 will be our new ETHOS.

PS: There is only one way to cut our use of OIL in half QUICKLY. We have this answer NOW. Yep its BROADBAND and tax incentives to businesses to USE TELE-COMMUTING for most service functions. How many of you sit behind a workstation, a telephone, or a networked pc to do your work? YOU are a candidate for TELE-COMMUTING. Think about it.

RANDOMOTION in Spring House, Pennsylvania USA

My favorite alternative fuel? Something Americans refuse to acknowledge and would opt to die given the option. Funny folks, Americans. Public Transport is the way to go albeit I won't hold my breath assuming I still have some. Len Norris, cosmicfoole@bellsouth.net

I read some of the posts suggesting electricity and I was wondering how 'clean' is the electricity we use? Leaving out wind generated / solar / hydro power do we substantially reduce pollution by consuming more electricity instead of burning gasoline??

Fagun

Hydrogen is a good ways off and will require a whole new fuel distribution system as will E-85. For this reason alone, cellulosic butanol is the most promising alternative.

Ethanol poses a substantial set of problem for motorists. It isn't really that much "greener" than regular gasoline and the vast majority of cars can only tolerate a 10% concentration. We're not going to get off the petroleum bandwagon that way. E-85 is suitable for only a very small percentage of vehicles and the mileage is substantially less because ethanol has a much lower energy content than gasoline. To the long list of negatives a poor EROI and a high degree of corrosiveness must also be considered.

Cellulosic butanol seems to answer all of these problems. It is essentially interchangeable with gasoline so a separate distribution system is unnecessary and it has about 90% of the energy content of gasoline. Most, if not all cars can use butanol in a much higher concentration that ethanol thereby allowing everyone to help reduce oil imports.

Of course, cellulosic butanol will require considerable development before it becomes a commercially viable alternative to gasoline and ethanol. Research into enzymes and advanced production methods will still have to be developed but even a small part of the money the government spends now for ethanol subsidies could substantially speed up the process.

Butanol delivers on the promises that ethanol makes.

Cold fusion is the holy grail for cheap, pollution free energy.

Nuclear fusion powers the sun and scientists around the world have been trying to harness the power of fusion for decades with limited success. The latest results from an establishment in the UK has produced fusion power in a small reactor for 1/10th of a second. Quite amazing really, but also quite useless. They needed massive amounts of electricity to get there, and the reaction was unstable.

But, some years ago, in the early 90's I believe, some scientists reported that they had produced "Cold Fusion", needing little energy input, and promising massive energy output. It was created, they said, by vibrating minute bubbles of hydrogen in a liquid with ultra sound.

The scientific community was amazed and millions of dollars were poured into trying to duplicate the results at scientific labs all over the world.

Regrettably they all failed. The initial experiments were found to be flawed, and so Cold Fusion froze to death. Which is a shame because for a few months back then the world was looking forward to the prospect of cheap, plentiful, pollution free energy.

Sad,

Mark

While the concepts of Hydrogen, BioDisel, Electricity are good options, they all have costs to them. They all cost money to make or produce. I, like every single person who drives a car, am sick of having to pay to fuel my car so often. The BioDisel is probably the best option for high power, performance cars in the next 50 years or so. There was a "Pimp My Ride" recently where a 1965 Chevrolet Impala was modified to have a 850 horsepower engine, and had BioDisel. The Impala beat a regular gas powered Lamborghini in a drag race! (http://domesticfuel.com/?p=1876) However I like the idea of an air powered car the best. Since this car will have a truly never ending resource (it just emits air!), they can never charge money for this! While the car on their site might not look like the most appealing, their will certainly be improvements. They might not go 200 mph right now, but the technology will get better. We really needs to bring this to the attention of everyone! http://www.theaircar.com/

Hybrids, aka "George Jetson Cars" are a cruel environmental joke. First, I drive an American-Built Mercury Mountaineer SUV, with an E-85 Flex-Fuel engine. I use E-85 and at the 100,000 mile period, I will have used 40% LESS FOSSIL FUEL than some wimpy 55 mpg Prius that is made in Japan and I won't have to worry about the DISPOSAL OF BATTERIES into the environment. As far as processing the E-85 fuel, producers are using methane gas, from steer and cow manure (no bull and no pun intended) for powering the generators. As far a the food supply goes, there is a process for saw-grass and other waste materials (such as cheese whey at Land o' Lakes) for ethanol production. I'd worry more about the price of cotton shirts than an impact on ther food supply. Corn production will increase since a number of farmers are switching from cotton to corn production this next year. Oh yes, E-85 is made in America, by Americans, so the money doesn't support nut-cases like Hugo Chavez or international terrorist organizations.

In a previous e-mail, I alluded to a show that came on the Science Channel that discussed alternate fuel sources. Well, it came on again on the Discovery Times Channel a little over a week ago. It was called Green: The New Red, White and Blue. One of the possible power sources explored on the show was wind power.

After reading some the e-mail submissions and looking at current research, I think that electric cars might be a more viable option than hydrogen now. But as I pointed out in my last e-mail, with all the open land and ocean we have in and around our country, why can't we construct enough wind turbines to supply all the free electricity we need. In a recent interview, Rudy Gulliani said that wind power isn't dependable because sometimes there is no wind (I'm paraphrasing). That's not true. Wind power is just converted solar energy. The sun's rays heat the earth. The earth is heated unevenly because of it's geography, water, etc. So the temperature differences of the earth along with it's rotation cause the atmosphere to move. It is free energy 24/7/365. And if enough wind turbines are built all over the country and in our surrounding bodies of water, you wouldn't have to worry about the wind not blowing in one area of the country (which is highly unlikely anyway). When it's cloudy...the wind is blowing. When the sun goes down...the wind is blowing. When there is a storm...the wind is really blowing. When somebody farts...the wind is blowing (although you may not like it).

I would like to search some research done on how many turbines would have to be constructed to supply our energy needs. Additionally, a nationwide land and body of water use study should be done to give some idea of how much area would have to be dedicated for wind turbine farms. The benefits are no dependence on ANYONE for energy sources, a cleaner environment, and fewer wars fighting over oil thereby saving lives.

This is the most viable stopgap measure until someone invents a viable nuclear fusion reactor a century or two from now.

Looking at your choices for alternative fuels, I think another one will beat them all. It's called bio-petroleum and it's made with phytoplankton or algae. It doesn't produce any kind of cardon dioxide: it actually eats it. There was an article on some spanish university last summer who proved it can be done and it is so much more efficient than corn(what a laugh), soyseed, or any other kind other plant. It grows so much faster and makes so much more per pounds it leaves all the rest in the dust.

Hydrogen fuel can put up a fight to this technique if you lower the cost of the NASA system that makes hydrogen from magnesium, since this mineral is the 3rd or 4th most common mineral on the planet. If you don't know, the biggest problem with hydrogen is making the stuff economically and environmentally sound and then transporting the stuff where people need it which is everywhere.

Maybe 100 years or later: Every human body carries electric charge. If this charge could be captured,amplified and used to run machines; if fat can be converted into some form of energy without opening a skin; if heartbeats could be used to create some form of energy.

Never mind...if we cannot fast develop solar_energy as alternate source, there is more than science & technology controlling the possibility of alternate fuels. Oil Trillions win against any other form of energy.

Do your homework more thoroughly prior to writing...

I love how you boohoo'd Biodiesel, stating that you don't think we eat enough fried food, as if leftover or straight vegetable oil were the only source for biodiesel.

Biodisel production plants can use soy beans and leftover animal products from chop houses to produce this a much more environmentally and self-sunstainable fuel than you led on (actual Biodiesel, not SVO), your biases deeply influence what you write, and that's okay to an extent, just don't mislead people.

Message was edited by: admin to remove personal attack

Because the average surface temperature is rising on Mars as well, and I'm sure we are responsible for it. And in the 900's Greenland was actually green and good for farming and the average global temperature was much hotter than today, and there was no industry at all.

So why don't we all feel guilty and buy meaningless and fraudulent carbon offsets to make our miserable consciences feel better.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4boaEbtjByU

Scientists disagree with the political religion of Global warming.
The ice caps show that heat cycles did not increase with the increase of CO2.... Rather it is just the opposite. Large CO2 was coincident with lower temperatures...

I prefer telecommuting; my alternative fuel is no fuel.