3 alternative fuel sources for automobiles are out there or on the making?

Question

3 alternative fuel sources for automobiles are out there or on the making?

Answer 1

At what cost ?????

the quest for Ethanol is going to destroy nature like nothing we have ever seen before



The irony here is that the growing eagerness to slow climate change by using biofuels and planting millions of trees for carbon credits has resulted in new major causes of deforestation, say activists. And that is making climate change worse because deforestation puts far more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than the entire world's fleet of cars, trucks, planes, trains and ships combined.

"Biofuels are rapidly becoming the main cause of deforestation in countries like Indonesia, Malaysia and Brazil," said Simone Lovera, managing coordinator of the Global Forest Coalition, an environmental NGO based in Asunción, Paraguay. "We call it 'deforestation diesel'," Lovera told IPS.

Oil from African palm trees is considered to be one of the best and cheapest sources of biodiesel and energy companies are investing billions into acquiring or developing oil-palm plantations in developing countries. Vast tracts of forest in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and many other countries have been cleared to grow oil palms. Oil palm has become the world's number one fruit crop, well ahead of bananas.

Biodiesel offers many environmental benefits over diesel from petroleum, including reductions in air pollutants, but the enormous global thirst means millions more hectares could be converted into monocultures of oil palm. Getting accurate numbers on how much forest is being lost is very difficult.

The FAO's State of the World's Forests 2007 released last week reports that globally, net forest loss is 20,000 hectares per day -- equivalent to an area twice the size of Paris. However, that number includes plantation forests, which masks the actual extent of tropical deforestation, about 40,000 hectares (ha) per day, says Matti Palo, a forest economics expert who is affiliated with the Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center (CATIE) in Costa Rica.

"The half a million ha per year deforestation of Mexico is covered by the increase of forests in the U.S., for example," Palo told IPS.

National governments provide all the statistics, and countries like Canada do not produce anything reliable, he said. Canada has claimed no net change in its forests for 15 years despite being the largest producer of pulp and paper. "Canada has a moral responsibility to tell the rest of the world what kind of changes have taken place there," he said.

Plantation forests are nothing like natural or native forests. More akin to a field of maize, plantation forests are hostile environments to nearly every animal, bird and even insects. Such forests have been shown to have a negative impact on the water cycle because non-native, fast-growing trees use high volumes of water. Pesticides are also commonly used to suppress competing growth from other plants and to prevent disease outbreaks, also impacting water quality.

Plantation forests also offer very few employment opportunities, resulting in a net loss of jobs. "Plantation forests are a tremendous disaster for biodiversity and local people," Lovera said. Even if farmland or savanna are only used for oil palm or other plantations, it often forces the local people off the land and into nearby forests, including national parks, which they clear to grow crops, pasture animals and collect firewood. That has been the pattern with pulp and timber plantation forests in much of the world, says Lovera.

Ethanol is other major biofuel, which is made from maize, sugar cane or other crops. As prices for biofuels climb, more land is cleared to grow the crops. U.S. farmers are switching from soy to maize to meet the ethanol demand. That is having a knock on effect of pushing up soy prices, which is driving the conversion of the Amazon rainforest into soy, she says. Meanwhile rich countries are starting to plant trees to offset their emissions of carbon dioxide, called carbon sequestration. Most of this planting is taking place in the South in the form of plantations, which are just the latest threat to existing forests. "Europe's carbon credit market could be disastrous," Lovera said.

The multi-billion-euro European carbon market does not permit the use of reforestation projects for carbon credits. But there has been a tremendous surge in private companies offering such credits for tree planting projects. Very little of this money goes to small land holders, she says. Plantation forests also contain much less carbon, notes Palo, citing a recent study that showed carbon content of plantation forests in some Asian tropical countries was only 45 percent of that in the respective natural forests. Nor has the world community been able to properly account for the value of the enormous volumes of carbon stored in existing forests.

One recent estimate found that the northern Boreal forest provided 250 billion dollars a year in ecosystem services such as absorbing carbon emissions from the atmosphere and cleaning water. The good news is that deforestation, even in remote areas, is easily stopped. All it takes is access to some low-cost satellite imagery and governments that actually want to slow or halt deforestation. Costa Rica has nearly eliminated deforestation by making it illegal to convert forest into farmland, says Lovera.

Paraguay enacted similar laws in 2004, and then regularly checked satellite images of its forests, sending forestry officials and police to enforce the law where it was being violated. "Deforestation has been reduced by 85 percent in less than two years in the eastern part of the country," Lovera noted. The other part of the solution is to give control over forests to the local people. This community or model forest concept has proved to be sustainable in many parts of the world. India recently passed a bill returning the bulk of its forests back to local communities for management, she said.

However, economic interests pushing deforestation in countries like Brazil and Indonesia are so powerful, there may eventually be little natural forest left. "Governments are beginning to realize that their natural forests have enormous value left standing," Lovera said. "A moratorium or ban on deforestation is the only way to stop this."

This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS and IFEJ - International Federation of Environmental Journalists.

© 2007 IPS - Inter Press Service



Source: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/...

Answer 2

Well, let's go esoteric on this one:

Pressure

1. compressed air ... air is stored under very high pressure in carbon fiber tanks similar to the setup for H2 storage for a fuel cell car.  They have similar range to electric cars but are much easier and faster to refill, and no harmful by-products at all ... air in/air out.  Go to YouTube and search for "air car".  I believe they are building them in France or Monaco.

Chemical/Electrical

2. Electric cars have it all over gas powered cars, but the technology could benefit from some more research .. i.e. batteries store power very well but they are heavy, usually slow to recharge compared to other forms of fuel, they wear out and they are expensive to replace.

Education

3.

I can teach you to use between 10 and 30% less gas in your car without changing the car mechanically at all.  This alternative fuel source is smart driving methods, where you the driver take responsibility for the fuel you consume.

Answer 3

Bio diesel which and be made with recycled veggie oil.  These sites explain about them http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/faqs/ ,http://www.green-trust.org/biodiesel.htm

Used veggie oil.  This site talks about what it is and sells converters.  http://www.greasecar.com/

Ethanol, http://www.ethanol.org/

Answer 4

petol, LPG & deisel are alternative fuels to some of the more traditional electric motors http://www.speedace.info/, like the first car to exceed 100mph.

electric motors are more naturally suited to traction power than infernal combustion, smoother, max torque 0 rpm from cold, refuel at home or work (in 10 minutes eee.phoenixmotorcars.com). And battery electric vehicle technology is out there now, unlike compressed air or hydrogen/fuel cell.www.teslamotors.com

Any thing that makes electric can fuel a car - so for alternative ways to make electric:

1. chicken litter

2. waste straw

3. domestic heating boiler

Answer 5

Here is 3 with a few extras added in.

Ethanol

Bio-diesel

Cellulose based ethanol

Hydrogen

Natural Gas

Methane

Electricity

Compressed Air

Sunlight

Answer 6

There's no such thing as a free lunch.  All energy has to come from somewhere and it also has to be available for you to use in a car that can use it.

There is a vast amount of alternative energy that is freely available to all of us right now.  It's called conservation.  Slow down.  Learn to drive more efficiently and intelligently.  Pump up your tires.  Learn to drive a standard shift.  I personally get a minimum of 45% above EPA ratings on my totally unmodified car.

Tune the thing up and make other modifications to bump up its fuel efficiency, like make a grill block and use an engine block heater.  Learn what others are doing.  Lots of people are getting over 85% above what the EPA says they should be getting out of their cars.  Don't wait for some grandiose invention to start making improvements today.

Answer 7

The alternative fuels that I've heard of are ethanol, natural gas, propane, hydrogen, biodiesel, electricity, methanol, and p-series fuels.  All of these are considered alterative fuel by the government, and they all have different availabilities, benefits, and drawbacks.  Check out the website below for more detailed info.

Answer 8

1. hydrogen fuel cells

2. Biodiesel

3. Solar.  This one is a bit of a reach right now but there are solar vehicles right now.  Strictly prototypes.

Answer 9

The diesel engine was developed because Rudolf Diesel did not want to rely on the oil producing countries, and this was back in the 1900's! The first diesel engine ran on peanut oil. I have a diesel engined car and it runs on 50% rapeseed oil (colza/canola). Of course if every car and truck ran on rapeseed oil, the landscape would be pretty dull because of the amount of land that would be needed, but every little helps and at least vegetable oils are carbon neutral and more sustainable.

For petrol alternatives there's bioethanol which would be carbon neutral too.

The problem with Hydrogen cars is that although they only produce water as a by-product, the manufacturing process of the hydrogen is reliant on electricity which is usually generated from fossil fuels.

This area of technology could possibly move much faster, but one of the big problems is money. Many governments make billions in tax revenue from oil and gas, also oil and gas companies are some of the largest businesses on the planet. Many claim to be investing in alternative fuels, however their investment is dwarfed by money spent on exploration...

Answer 10

I always find it interesting that so called environmentalists find fault with everything.  We don''t want oil but when people started to suggest other things like ethanol,hydrogen,etc.  it became chic to oppose that because it will cause the tragic death of plants and herbs and stuff.  We don't want nuke even though it is totally clean because the plant could blow up.  Even though we could take fossil fuels (oil,gas and coal) out of electric production.  Nope.  Recently in WV private investor started making electricity with wind turbines.  Completely clean energy, self sustaining.  Nope can do that because eco dudes said birds could fly into the turbines.  Many demonstrations which are fun for anti people cuz thats what they do for fun.  Can't have hydro power using the major rivers cuz catfish and carp would be upset and become bed wetters.  Seems there is no energy the eco dudes don't oppose (though they use it).  When people got on board for alternative fuels the eco dudes were scared blue that they would not have something to  neg out on and now oppose clean energy.  Go figure.  No wonder people like Cheney prosper.  We are all idiots!