Any significant break through in alternative fuels?

Question

Any significant break through in alternative fuels?

Answer 1

No we will be burning gas for the next 30 years

Answer 2

Yes, France is coming out with the "World's Cleanest Car" which runs on compressed air.

"BBC News is reporting that a French company has developed a pollution-free car which runs on compressed air. India's Tata Motors has the car under production and it may be on sale in Europe and India by the end of the year.

The air car, also known as the Mini-CAT or City Cat, can be refueled in minutes from an air compressor at specially equipped gas stations and can go 200 km on a 1.5 euro fill-up -- roughly 125 miles for $3. The top speed will be almost 70 mph and the cost of the vehicle as low as $7000.

The car features a fibreglass body and a revolutionary electrical system and is completely computer-controlled. It is powered by the expansion of compressed air, using no combustion at all, and the exhaust is entirely clean and cool enough for use in the internal air conditioning system. "

Answer 3

dont you consider ethanol and bio-diesel to be significant breakthroughs? new technologies are being explored all the time with promising results regarding making ethanol and bio-diesel from sources other than grain and sugar cane.

Answer 4

Lots of breakthroughs, problem is the government keeps meddling and messing things up.

Answer 5

The only one that impresses me was just this morning when they showed a house in Japan that's now heated by hydrogen fuel and actually has a lower heating bill that whatever they used before.

The big secret to getting hydrogen moving is creating the distribution infrastructure, plus also creating it by some means other than burning carbon based fuels.

Answer 6

Yes, the best I've seen in weeks is from a company called QSINano, see the link and below is a quote:

QSI has demonstrated that by using a blend of its nickel and other nano catalysts materials it is possible to exceed the Department of Energy’s target with 85% efficiency while achieving a ten-fold increase in production over all published data seen to date, and without any CO2.  This degree of efficiency now makes hydrogen generation through electrolysis more economical and commercially viable for replacing fossil fuel-based methods.

You could then use the hydrogen in a fuel cell or internally combusted. Ideally in a fuel cell since the only by-product would be water vapor which could then be recycled to produce more hydrogen. Based on a video at their site you should be able to produce the hydrogen as needed instead of having a large tank of it aboard. Since all you should need is their nano-material, a tank of water and an electric current, I don't see why you'd need to build hydrogen fueling stations at all.

Hopefully, Dana is right about the price of electric cars dropping, if they were more affordable and had a decent range I think they'd be widely adopted. I know that Ovonics Corp developed some high-tech batteries for the GE EV-1 that they apparently refused to incorporate, almost as if they wanted it to fail. See Who Killed the Electric Car for that story.

Answer 7

Yeah the fact that they pollute the environment with CO2 during production of ethanol and waste about 30 gallons of pure water (drinking) to make about 2 gallons of fuel. They are also discovering that there is a significant increase in food prices when corn is diverted from food to gas.

  Lastly, there are reports that the deforestation of the rain forests and land that has not been farmed is being destroyed at increased rates.

  Wind power is improving in blade technology

  Solar power now has flexible cells

  Nuclear power is still king

   Geothermal is still in the infancy stage

  Wave power (water waves in the ocean) is in large scale testing

Answer 8

There aren't any significant break throughs needed.  we have the technology, it's available, and it's somewhat almost affordable.  

check out the "tesla roadster."  

Battery technology is steadily increasing at a rapid rate, like computer technology was in the 1990's.  no doubt in just a few years those lythium ion batteries that are all the radge now wil be oblolite.  

it's the creativity and imagination of many many people that is the only break through we need.

Answer 9

Can AL make a movie on this so it can be fact ?

Answer 10

We've learned that biofuels are not the solution on a large scale, because they require too much agricultural land to grow the fuel crops.

We've learned that hydrogen will not be a viable option for a long time for several reasons, the main one being that we have no transportation and storage infrastructure - no hydrogen refueling stations.

The Air Car was mentioned, but it's not the great solution many would have you believe.  It's basically just an inefficient electric car, because you need electricity to power the air compressor, and the mechanical process of driving a piston with the compressed air is not very efficient (far less efficient than an electric motor).  The Air Cars have to be so lightweight that they wouldn't pass US crash tests.

The best breakthroughs are coming in electric vehicles.

Available in California in October 2008, the Aptera typ-1e will cost about $27,000 with a top speed of 95 mph and range of 120 miles per charge.

http://www.aptera.com/details.php

Soon thereafter Aptera will introduce the typ-1h, a plug-in hybrid version of the typ-1e with a 40-60 mile range on purely electrical energy, and a range of over 600 miles total when in electric/gas hybrid mode, for around $30,000.  On a 120 mile trip, the typ-1h will get 300 miles per gallon.  The shorter the trip, the higher the efficiency.

http://www.aptera.com/details.php

Available in late 2009, the ZAP Alias will cost $30,000, have a top speed of 100 mph, and a range of 100 miles per charge.

http://zapworld.com/electric-vehicles/el...

Soon thereafter the ZAP-X will be available at a cost of $60,000 with a top speed of 155 mph and a range of 350 miles per charge.

http://zapworld.com/electric-vehicles/el...

Available in 2009, the Miles Javlon will cost $30,000 with a top speed of 80 mph and a range of 120 miles per charge.

http://www.milesev.com/index.asp#hsv.swf

Phoenix Motorcars will start selling their SUT to individuals in late 2008 or early 2009.  It will cost $45,000 and have a top speed of 100 mph with a range of 100+ miles per charge.

http://phoenixmotorcars.com/