Currently, the most promising alternate fuel?

Question

Haven't read anything in depth on current alternate-fuel developments, and I'm just wondering which fuel options have the most potential to be widely used in cars say 5 years from now.

Answer 1

Electric cars the technology is there but it seems that

Ignorance , Greed and stupidity from Government and oil companies stifle this.  The c**p is hitting the fan and the little guy suffers.  The rich don't care, they can afford the extra costs and most of them have their money in oil so why should they care.  You're right it's time for an energy revolution we must demand better from our greedy politicians.  Either we have them work for us or we  should protest BIG TIME!

Answer 2

you actually dont need to go as far as to use electric. it is now possible to make a car that runs on water seriously here go to this link its a guide on how to change your car from gas to a water fueled car, step by step so that even the general public can achieve this. it will cost its says from 60 to 150 dollars.

http://tinyurl.com/5o2gyz

Answer 3

Waste Vegetable Oil.Been driving free 2 years.

Answer 4

Hydrogen in about a week.

Answer 5

I prefer natural gas, because it's here already and that's what my 2 cars run on right now! Not one drop of foreign oil goes into my cars, and they were made by Ford in 1999 and 2000. The technology isn't new, and the carmakers know how to build these cars. Just gotta get a better infrastructure for refueling them in place. That's up to your local politicians (ummm...that's probably why there's a problem in the first place, eh?). Anyway, natural gas gets my vote. It's cheap, domestic, and is way cleaner for the environment than gasoline.

Answer 6

Biofuel is the alternative more feasible...

Ammonia as car fuel has great problems even if its price would can be energetically low.

Answer 7

Nobel laureate Dr. George Olah has a book entitled "Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy". I like methanol for a variety of reasons but he explains it much better. Here's a link to an interview with Dr. Olah:

http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents...

There's also the ultra-capacitor EV design from AFS Trinity. Evidently, battery makers grapple with the trade-off between range and peak-power. This design combines batteries with this special capacitor to achieve up to 150 MPG. This is their own link, so expect some bias &, if interested, google some 3rd-party input.

http://www.afstrinity.com/press-release-...

Imagine the above technology, but with a MUCH cheaper, longer lasting battery. Caterpillar Corp. has begun a subsidiary called Firefly Energy. It actually began as a freak discovery by an engineer Cat had hired simply to improve the performance of their lead-acid batteries, a bit. He did more than a bit! The first link below is 3rd party and the following is Firefly's official site. I've read most of the official site but none of the article.

http://www.electrifyingtimes.com/firefly...

http://www.fireflyenergy.com/index.php?o...

As for the electric grid, I'm leaning toward new developments in solar as well as a geothermal technology called "EGS" (Enhanced Geothermal Systems) and works by increasing the permeability of rock at the proper temp/depth by sending cold water or acidified fluids to that depth.

With increased permeability comes greater surface area for water to contact and become super-heated, creating steam for power-plants on the surface. Wikipedia has a good intro article on it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hot_dry_roc...

It could provide 100 gigawatt's of power by 2050 in locations not currently conducive to affordable geothermal power, today. Imagine THAT chargin' up your Firefly/Trinity SUV!

...

Answer 8

hydrogen

Answer 9

Professor Newton's Cold Light Process

(oops...sorry, that just causes your spaceship to become invisible)

Answer 10

The most promising that I've read about is Ethanol produced from Switchgrass and bio-waste, mostly because it can be used with existing fossil-fuel-burning infrastructure with little to no conversion.

From what I've read, switchgrass can also be processed into a solid fuel and used in coal-fired electrical power plants.

Not so sure about five years, but I think it is one of the most viable options.

Answer 11

It depends on..

In tropicaL isLand (Indonesia) I think the best is Sun...

In other country sucH as HoLLand, It use Wind..

In many modern country, it use Plant's oiL, Hydrogen, WaterFaLLs, and so on.

Do you know..?

In my country (It stiLL contoversiaL), peoPLe find out that they can use ocean (hydrocarbon) to make any source energy.. But many peopLe said that that's buLLshit or something.. :(

ActuaLLy there's a Lot of aLternating energy.. But it seems that peopLe Like (much!) oiL or some rare energy source..

Answer 12

Stop gap fuels such as biodeisel and ethonol are currently being used but the future of fuel is abit more cloudy. There are companys promising thrid and fourth generation biofuels but those fuels will still be hydrocarbon based so they aren't long term solutions. I have heard of testing with methane for use in fuel cells but that really might not be a good idea since methane is a really bad green house gas. The future rests in either a really effecient battery source that isn't toxic to the enviroment or my all time favorite Hydrogen, we are close to becoming more dependent on hydrogen. There are new ways to store it which has been a problem in the past and there are 2 new ways to make hydrogen that makes it energy effeicent one using modified bacteria and the second artifical photosythesis. Next we need a better fuel cell for hydrogen since current fuel cells are to expensive but we could just convert all the exsisting cars to hydrogen combustion which would be CO2 nuetral and you get better horsepower and fuel economy for slight increase in the weight and cost of the vehicle.

Answer 13

Every alternative comes at a cost (start-up, carbon load, diversion of resources, etc).  All of those mentioned above are under study but each has it's own set of issues. For Hydrogen it's production (you need massive amounts of electricity to produce it), infrastructure and safety.  For ethanol it is environmental damage (increased use of petroleum based fertilizer and CO2 released during fermentation, remember fermentation breaks down C6H12O6 into ethanol + H2O+CO2, also when you burn ANYTHING, the final product of combustion is CO2+H2O) and diversion of a food resource to an energy resource. Even safety is an issue with ethanol, right now the City of Alexandria, VA is trying to block the transfer of ethanol from trains to trucks in a local rail yard, since ethanol is more combustible than gasoline and requires special firefighting techniques that the city does not possess.  But since ethanol is actually in use, it is the most promising at the moment.

Answer 14

The very BEST is fossil fuels as the plants recycle it for us.

Answer 15

Biodiesel and E85

Answer 16

the most promising alternative fuel is air cars, because they are ready for mass production in France and have the least amount of down falls compared to the other alternative fuels as of now check out ConvertToAir.com for information on how air cars work

Answer 17

'fuel' wise would probably be Switchblade grass or Ethanol