What's your favorite alternative fuel?

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Hydrogen. Hydrogen. Hydrogen.

by Launchpad_72 May 3, 2007 3:34AM PDT

Hydrogen is by far one of the most efficient forms of alternative energy, not to mention the cleanest.
When H2 combusts, not only does it release a very large amount of energy compared to other alt-fuels, it also emits a by-product: H2O. That's right. Water. Pure & Clean, no contaminates.

I will admit, however, that there are a few cons to this fuel.
New infrastructure will have to be placed throughout the country to support this fuel, as it is not a liquid by nature and would not be distributable by current liquid pumps.
Also, we currently don't have a great method for producing hydrogen, as our current methods either take a large amount of electricity to molecularly split water, or we tap natural reserves, making it no better than fossil fuels.
I believe, however, that as hydrogen becomes more popular, we will find a much more effiecient way of producing it. We just need to find it.

Oh, and as a side note, gas prices in Vermont are currently around $2.89/Gallon, and my current car is a Toyota Yaris, a sub-compact that gets about 45mpg. I spend about $20 a month in gas. Not bad.

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not never noway hydrogen

by impala May 3, 2007 2:00PM PDT

hydrogen is extremely inefficient to produce in a form appropriate for earthbound transportation. Thanks to thermodynamics it always will be. Technology can use thermo in novel ways, but it cannot thwart it.

To produce hydrogen as carbon neutral will require many mega nuke plants or massive solar arrays. There are better uses of that electricity.

it is also extremely dangerous at extreme pressure, and the most leak prone substance possible.

biodiesel can be carbon neutral and require little new infrastructure or vehicle changes.

oh, and if you combust H2 + Air in an IC engine you get some NOx.

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Best fuel

by Robert Erickson May 3, 2007 3:37AM PDT

Greetings,

The only viable fuel - long term - is dimethyl ether ( CH3OCH3 ) . Volvo did a very compredensive study a decade ago proving that, and nothing has changed. Ethanol is not viable until you can use the whole plant in ethanol production, which may never happen, and so ethanol is a subsidy to the agricultural interests; hydrogen is a net contributor to greedhouse gas emissions because of how it is produced. No other fuel comes close when all factors are considered. Awazing most folks have never heard of it... but not really. The oil and gas, and agriculture industries are stuffing their chosen solution down our throats and these "solutions" are about their profit agenda not about solving the problem all of us face.

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Ammonia -- The "Other" Hydrogen Motor Fuel

by craigola May 3, 2007 3:39AM PDT

Few folks think of anhydrous ammonia. It has no carbon, it already has an infrastructure, engines are already starting to use it (in California, for agricultural pumping purposes), it's clean, it's cheap, we can make it from domestic sources, and it runs in internal combustion engines with only some slight doping neeeded to change its combustion characteristics.

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Tires

by Vince53 May 3, 2007 3:39AM PDT

It sounds like a joke, but properly inflating your tires will increase your mpg, decrease pollution, and save wear on your car. A few decades ago, it was pointed out that if Americans would all inflate their tires properly, it would save us more oil that what we import from Iran.

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that little?

by impala May 3, 2007 2:05PM PDT

we don't import much oil from iran, if any.

Still, check 'em tars. Don't forget the spare!

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By far Electricity is my favorite.

by Nargg May 3, 2007 3:47AM PDT

You know what really kills me is so many people here are screaming 'Hydrogen', when all that does is create... you got it! Electricity! So, that's where the focus first needs to be is on the electrical part of the problem. Electrical vehicles still have some, ok a lot, of room to grow. But growing they are. No matter how the energy is produced to get that electric drive to turn, electricity is the mode of operation we need to focus on.

I really think my next car is going to be electric, especially if they continue the good advances that have been made lately.

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Methanol, for Racing

by DaveMcLain May 3, 2007 3:50AM PDT

Methanol is a great alternative fuel for racing use, makes good horsepower and torque, it's low in cost and is easy to tune. It also works well at high compression ratios. It's downfalls are that it's very sensitive to moisture contamination and with moisture present it becomes quite corrosive. It is also used at approx. 2 times the rate of gasoline.

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REMEMBER WORLD WAR II? VICTORY WITH HEMP.

by winetaster May 3, 2007 3:56AM PDT

I call for an accelerated switch from fossil fuel to hemp based fuel. The oil companies would negotiate prices with licensed American farmers instead of the OPEC nations.

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more peanut farmers?

by impala May 3, 2007 2:06PM PDT

"licensed American farmers"
Just what we need. More peanut farmers.

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Alternate oil

by limbofrog May 3, 2007 4:11AM PDT

How about all the oil of the coast of Alaska. And while we are using that supply to keep gas prices low, start building nuclear plants as fast as possible to replace most of the fossil fuel plants. Nuclear would supply enough relatively clean electricity to make hydrogen fuel cells more viable. Using hydrogen fuel cells while using the electricity from coal/oil power plants to generate the hydrogen is just plain stupid. It's more wasteful and inefficient than just burning the gas in your car directly. It feels all warm and fuzzy to see water coming out of your tailpipe, but if the fossil fuels are being burned at the power plant to generate the electricity used to collect your hydrogen/oxygen (via electrolysis), what's the difference?

Just perception.

We should build nuclear plants? Where do we get the money to take on such a grand endeavor? Why not use all the taxes currently spent on social security and welfare since those systems are both broken anyway. Or better yet, just take away many of the regulations currently imposed by law and make it economically possible for private companies to do it themselves. Or would that be too capitalistic?

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Plug-in hybrid and then electric

by DrJohnOH May 3, 2007 4:39AM PDT

The next step will be plug-in hybrids such as are coming down the pipe line in 2008 from Honda and Nissan. After that, we should see all electrics similar to the cars from Tesla Motors, but in sedan configurations. Hydrogen, while most desireable and least polluting once a greener way of producing hydrogen is developed since it now takes electricity that must come from somewhere, will still, it seems, be "20 years" from "now."

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never hydrogen

by impala May 3, 2007 2:08PM PDT

due to thermodynamics, there will never be an efficient method of producing carbon neutral H2 on earth.

fuel cells maybe, but that's more like a battery.

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Six percent doesn't sound like much, but...

by fuzzyCWD May 3, 2007 4:49AM PDT

just to refresh, "One interesting factoid I found, from the hemp lobby, is that it would only take six percent of U.S. land to grow enough hemp to convert into vegetable oil for all of our driving needs. Six percent doesn't sound like much, but I would rather see what percentage of land suitable for agricultural production would be required." The thing about hemp is that it does not need agricultural land to grow. as pointed out by many that disagree with the hemp movement, it is a WEED, which means it can grow just about anywhere.

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Alternative fuel

by doadams May 3, 2007 4:56AM PDT

Since we are in a critical stage of global warming, our only real choice is building more nuclear power plants, and not building any more coal or oil powered plants.
I worked at Bechtel in the early 1970's when most of the plants in the US were built. Each plant was individually designed, at an enormous cost. Our plants cost billions of dollars and took up to ten years to build. In France they standardized the design of their plants and built them at half the cost in half the time.
In Europe and throughout the rest of the world, their spend fuel is reprocessed to recover 98% of it. In the US we do not reprocess our fuel, so hundreds of tons of it are now sitting around the country. Perhaps we should follow the rest of the world. This will largely mitigate our nuclear plant problems.

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basically 2 designs in US

by impala May 3, 2007 2:14PM PDT

I thought there were 2 basic reactor designs in the U.S. commercial nuke reactor plants. I forget, Westinghouse and G.E.? Something like that. Not counting DOE plants.

Standard cooling, emergency cooling, emergency power, and seismic conditions would be major site dependent variables in any case.

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Excellent point

by FredMars Jul 9, 2007 10:20PM PDT

EU has been much more open to what is for the greater good of all instead of the industry. It always seemed illogical to me that "spent fuel" was still highly radioactive. It that is true, then why not develop the device and process that will make use of that radiant energy?

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Because nuclear is taboo

by Andy77e Jul 10, 2007 2:21AM PDT

The eco-nuts and environmentalists in government killed nearly all research and production use of nuclear power. If they had not, we would likely be using more nuclear power, and likely be reprocessing spent fuel rods.

Uranium when used in a reactor, forms many isotopes. Many of the isotopes formed are non-fissionable, thus they greatly hinder the nuclear reaction. In order to re-use a spent fuel rod, the Uranium has to be purified. One type of isotope formed is Plutonium that can be used as fuel, or made into a nuclear weapon (key).

In 1977 Carter, the being the brilliant man he was, signed into law a prohibition of reprocessing spent fuel rods, because in the twisted liberal logic of the day, by preventing more plutonium from being available here in the US, this would somehow limit nuclear weapons world wide.

Of course nuclear weapons are becoming more prolific world wide, yet the US has thousands of tons of spent fuel rods and hasn't reprocessed a single one yet.

The French, which amazingly didn't surrender on this issue, have been reprocessing their spent fuel rods since 1966, and don't seem to have a problem reusing the processed rods at a huge cost savings. No storing radioactive waste, and a lower energy cost because reprocessing is cheap once the initial cost is paid.

It is said that 95% of a spent fuel rod can be reprocessed into usable nuclear fuel.

As to highly radioactive spent fuel: I was greatly confused on this as well. I understand it better now.

Fuel in the nuclear reactor creates a ton of electricity generating heat. A spent fuel rod, creates some heat, but mainly radiation, due to radioactive decay.

I finely learned that this radioactivity isn't from some latent or continuing nuclear reaction. Some isotopes, the by products of nuclear reactions, are left in a highly unstable state. At some point, the isotopes must decay, or lose energy to fall back to a stable state. When that happens, it releases some heat, or radiation, or both.

The analogy I got was pretty good. It's like a ton of snow on the side of a mountain. If there's too much snow, it's not stable. But you never know when, or what, will cause the avalanche, but it will happen.

However, this is too little heat, and too low level of radiation to use as an energy source for commercial electricity.

BUT... they currently do make radioactive energy generators from spent fuel rods for special situations. Known as a radioisotope thermoelectric generator, or RTG, they are used in remote unmanned locations, satellites, and long range space probes. They produce very low wattage <100, and last for more than 100 years. They have limited use though because of the high expense, radiation danger, low power output, and because every RTG made would be a security threat in that someone could possibly get the fuel rod and make a cheap "dirty bomb".

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Radioactivity to electric

by FredMars Jul 10, 2007 2:59PM PDT

Asfter fission reactor fuel is spent, it still can be used to generate electric as you discovered as in classified use, which is what I said is a main obstacle here in the US. The EU not just France is looking at the technolgy of the late fruit bats, Mallove and Brown, to make more efficient use of this spent fuel.

NASA uses batteries that are powered by K40, a radioactive form of potassium. It is not available for commercial use because of the terrorist threat. Truth be known, these devices in smaller forms can power all of out laptops, cell phones, and Ipods for many years. Price? You know it will be kept unaffordable, or EverREady and other battery makers will have to take up a new skill and product.

Instead of picking out bits and pieces, look at the whole thing. Then you may see things in a different context. There is nothing wrong with doing for others and helping out those less fortunate. It is a good way to live, and makes everyone's life richer.

To refuse to look at technology because peer-review says it cannot duplicate it, is still being led by those that have more to lose by proving the truth. ANd please stop with the data analysis. I have read it all and know all the consiracy theories and the numbers that keep telling us that it cannot be done.

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You've read it all

by Andy77e Jul 11, 2007 2:10AM PDT

Well then, forgive me for not knowing I'm in the presence of the divine. (I find this incredibly humorous since you brought religion into the conversation)

Neither do I find such technology not worth looking at. We just came to different conclusions about it. Obviously I did find it worth investigating, or I would not have looked up the patents and information on it. I also bothered to look at the peer reviews to determine what others, more knowledgeable than I, have said about such technologies.

All such is worth investigation. It is profitable to know what is out there. After all, sometimes the greatest products have simply been from someone taking various parts, that have been around for ages, and putting them together in a different way. For example: the Tesla Roadster. You take a Lithium Ion battery, a 4-pole 3-phase induction motor, add in a computer controlled power inverter, and surprise you have a $100K EV, a company likely to make millions selling EVs that have existed for a hundred years now.

The difference, as I said, is we have reach different views on the evidence. You seem to have some sort of conspiracy theory on it. I have come to the realizations that most of these technologies are frauds, some are working but highly impractical, some show promise but as of yet are unmarketable, and a few are just plain fruity.

One guy made a self powering electric motor. He claimed this and that, and that he had tapped into the "powers of the universe!". Had demonstrations, videos, had people check it out for him. All did very well. Then he moved... away from the high power lines... the motor quit working. DOH!

The fact you can get a 1/100th of a watt from high power lines is not new. Some guy in Australia, lit 2 dozen florescent lights simply by grounding one end, and having a coil at the other, while being directly under high power lines. Shocking! (must be that power of the universe that only shows up near the local high power lines)

I just don't buy the conspiracy theory. The idea that "evil oil" or "evil power company" or "big *whatever*" is going around with their henchmen killing every inventor in the whole country that comes up with this super amazing device that will power the whole planet for free! It is just crazy.

Even the Tucker automobile was not killed by "the big three". Government is what killed the Tucker. If you want to claim Government is suppressing the information, great, but you think the US government is stopping every inventor world wide? We can barely handle a few religious fruit bats in Iraq, how do you suggest we're stopping inventors in Germany, Sweden, Russia, and everywhere else in the world? And what about the governments there? Russia would LOVE to have a free energy device. It would restore their whole economy.

And how would information be suppressed at all? If I, being barely "mildly intelligent", somehow came up with some crazy invention that created free usable practical power, and was somehow being suppressed, I could have the information on how to make it, sent all over the entire planet in seconds. There is no way anyone would be able to suppress this information in era of the internet. I could post it on dozens of forums, dozens of BBS, sent to hundreds of universities world wide, news papers, magazines, and scientific journals, all in seconds without any way of containing it.

So, if I could do this, why do all these inventors with their amazing perfect sources of free unlimited energy to power the world, not do it?

There is two possibilities. One, the technology is a fraud. Two, the inventor is greedy and wants to get paid for their invention. If this is the case, then I don't want to hear "follow the money" or "evil oil" or "greedy energy companies". Don't tell me about how greedy everyone else is, when you have technology information the could free the whole world from middle east oil, yet refuse to release until you get paid. You can't say "show me the money!" and yet claim everyone else is greedy.

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Alternative fuels - What we are steered to believe!

by Dialisys May 3, 2007 4:56AM PDT

There are other alternatives than those that we perceive to be thr "preferred" alternative fuels.

Why do we not hear about them? - Well it is obvious. - Just look at the price of gas at your town pump!

Who is getting rich - and who is getting poorer?

The alternatives that we are being "conditioned" to accept (albeit they are being force fed to us) are under the control of - You guessed! - the fuel companies and Our Big Big Bro!
Why? Well, it is so obvious - but for those who dont get it - It is another way to control, Monopolise the product - market - and the dollars out of our pockets.

We are being blindly led to believe that we can influence our own destiny - Bullcrap! - I say.

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we are being "conditioned to accept"...

by impala May 3, 2007 2:11PM PDT

we are being "conditioned to accept" hydrogen and ethanol.

biodiesel is much better. But you dont hear much about it.

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biodiesel

by Zpunk Jun 25, 2007 1:23PM PDT

biodiesel is everywere in europe. They had it there 4 years ago when I was stationed in GE.

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Sadly, government sucks

by Andy77e Jul 7, 2007 6:22AM PDT

Our government has made, making a diesel car very difficult. I widely support bio-diesel provided there is no subsidies or tax exemptions for it. But first, there has to be a market. Government needs to step back, remove the overbearing and restrictive regulations, and let the free market bring products as they see fit. We'd see a lot more diesels available if that happened.

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Your clean, green car choices - Propane

by aslakeview May 3, 2007 5:00AM PDT

We are now running natural gas in our Toyota 4Runner for the last 6 years and have had no complaints about the way that it runs in our truck. The oil looks nice and clean and have had no major problems because of the conversion, ours is still dual fuel. The only problem with it is there are less and less stations offering it. When we first had the conversation done there were around 7 stations within a 100 miles now there are only 3, one was supposed to close down last year which is very close to us but luckily it didn't. We live near Kelowna B.C. and can make it all the way to Vancouver on Natural Gas. Going towards Calgary there isn't a filling station within 300 miles. At least with propane you can find filling stations all the way across Canada as our first vehicle had that conversion.The other drawback to the conversions here in Canada is the Canadian government had offered a rebate of $3000 which is a great incentive, the only problem is the big conversion company in Vancouver has had their installation price go from $5000 to $8000 after the rebates came into effect. It is getting worse and worse for concerned people to do the conversions since the greedy companies are taking our incentives away by raising our costs and the maintenance costs to the filing stations is so high that is why the fuelling stations are all closing down up here. The next conversion will be propane but it isn't as clean as natural gas. It would be great to have a electric vehicle that would run on propane when the charge wears down.

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What do we do until electric/h2 cars are practical?

by slipknotts May 3, 2007 5:31AM PDT

I am by no means an expert in the field but I have spent most of the past calender year working on several different projects in biofuels areas. There is a great chance we have to overcome our dependence on fossil fuels, but it will take time and most importantly, money.

We are not that far from being able to generate biodiesel fuel from algae (that itself is grown on power plant exhaust), but in essence it will take a huge up front investment. Oil companies are the few sources of such quantities of money and due to the recent record breaking profits they have been generating there is little to no chance that they will seriously look into biofuels anytime soon. It has been estimated that we as taxpayers utlimately pay $5 per gallon on top of what we pay at the pump for security and subsidies from the government. The costs of growing algae and converting it to biodiesel has been estimated anywhere from $2.50 to $5.00 or more per gallon, but could still be technically less than crude oil due to the domestic rather than international security that would be needed.

I think electric and hydrogen cars are an amazing idea and ultimately will be the answer to the fuel problem, but while those technologies are being developed we could easily switch to alternative, "green" fuels which will be domestically produced and ultimately cut down our overall greenhouse gas emissions.

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This seems interesting; an AIR powered car.

by Arial Lancaster May 3, 2007 5:38AM PDT

I have no real preference as long as the product is reliable.
A friend of mine sent me a link to a company in Spain that has created a car that runs on compressed air www.theaircar.com
They (the cars) seem a little small to me, but alot of people are working on solutions to the GREEN transportation problem.
Somebody (or bodies) are going to figure this out. I would love to be able to come back in 100 years and see what transpired.

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air car is crazy

by impala May 3, 2007 2:17PM PDT

using compressed air as an energy storage medium is extremely inefficient.

I've thought of using relatively small amounts for a specific auxiliary purpose, but not propulsion.

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Electric Fuel

by RayRiley May 3, 2007 5:57AM PDT

Other than the initial financial investment; What's not to like?

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Favorite fuel...hmmm...ground up Al Gore!

by mike48007 May 3, 2007 6:17AM PDT

It was apparent in the CNET article that it's written by folks that have decided global warming is a proven fact. I'm not saying it's not a possibility, but that certainly has NOT been proven and the debate is only beginning (well, not in Al Gore's house...I mean mansion...that burns 20 times the energy that I use in my house!).

They say that kids today are more afraid of global warming than terrorist. Yikes! But I remember actually being scared of GLOBAL COOLING and the coming ice age when I was in elementary school, so I suppose I can sympathize. You see, back in the 70's the media was busy hyping how Earth was cooling. Can't recall ever seeing an ice patch in my front yard here in San Diego! Again, extreme environmentalism, unproven (but eventually proven...incorrect) science driving the hype.

So, my favorite fuel? Well I DO believe we should be good stewards of the planet and take steps to increase efficiency in our energy use as well as make efforts to develop clean energy sources (that make financial sense of course) and most importantly to our country, wean ourselves from foreign influence over the energy we need! For the short term, I'd pick oil. I think we should develop as many of our own sources as possible right now. Next, have a realistic goal of moving more toward bio-fuels to bridge the gap to the next generation of fuels. Brazil, a great example of energy independence! Hydrogen sounds great, I guess that would be my long term choice, but perhaps we haven't even discovered the system that we'll be using yet. A breakthrough in solar panel technology or better batteries could certainly change things quickly.

For electrical power, we need to re-examine the nuclear industry, the reactors of today are nothing like what we had in the 70's and tomorrow's reactors will be safer than ever, reuse their fuel much more than in the past (addressing the waste issue) and really offer the only non-greenhouse gas producing power that generates the kind of energy we will need to continue to grow and prosper. Check out the great article titled "The Next Atomic Age" in the Oct. 2006 issue of Popular Mechanics.

In the meantime, it will certainly help to elect folks that have open minds and are committed to changing the status quo with prudent ideas and solutions based on facts and realistic goals, not HYPE!

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