If you had a choice of automobile a. solar b.hydrogen c.hybrid d. bike

Question

Let's go green

Answer 1

How about no to hydrogen! I'd say bike!

Answer 2

NONE of the above. Personally every one of these idea's have flaws and stengths, and you'll never find anything past traditional fuel that even compares to the power output of gasoline.

But, putting the "green issue" as to whether turning out economy  and , industrial sector upside down and costing everyone money just for someone's movement ......

I'd say the best economically and green wise is biofuels.....BUT, not from corn...that was a stupid push by envior whacko's, the uneducated and politician's alike.

The fuel i'm talking about is basically a vegitable oil produced from algae. Vertical bio-reactor systems have been proven to work, and we all have seen something here and there about deisel engines that can be transformed to use vegitable oil. Algae is one of the fastest growing plants and can provide fuel for vehicles at less cost and be green at the same time.

Answer 3

Depends on how far I'm going, but I'll always ride my bike if possible.

Answer 4

People who live in cities might prefer to use a lot of mass transit and a bit of walking.

For my own needs, since I need a vehicle to get me the 10 km to the city once a week, I could use an electric car, all battery, and charge the battery  from either a wind turbine of solar panels.

But energy from solar panels I can sell for $0.42 /kWh to the grid, whereas I can buy night power from the grid for under 6 cents/kWh.

So if I had an electric car I would sell my solar power and charge the car battery off the grid at night. ( a combination of hydro, nuclear, and wind at night).

The electric car would need to be able to travel 90 km/h to keep up with highway traffic.

A hybrid would allow me to do a lot of in-city driving, but I do not need that.

I see hydrogen as a different form of battery, and not a lot better than conventional batteries for a lot higher cost.

Hydrogen can be produced from sea water, but for the fact I am not close to the sea so I would use fresh water. I can store my own rain water, so that is no problem. But hydrogen is not wonderfully efficient.

As we have to travel so far on high speed highway, and we have deep snow and ice on the roads I would not be able to use a bike year round. An electric assist double bike (4 wheels) could do the job. It would force me to stay on the shoulder of the road a lot. So, not enthusiastic.

Answer 5

Since this is a "choice" question:

Right now I am operating on B100 biodiesel made from waste veggie oil or animal fat in my VWs, so I am somewhat partial to that since I can subsequently commute longer distances and in inclimate weather. Other than that, definitely bike.

Why?

The idea of personal transportation by means of automobile in general is something that will have to be re-thought. For instance, here in the USA, consumption was fine back in the 1950's, but then came the Hart Cellar Act of 1965 and everything changed. Now, our population growth is exploding and there is really no one controlling it. On a world scale, it is completely unsustainable. Without a MASSIVE reduction in world population, our choices of transportation will no longer be within our control. In this country alone, there are about 200 million more people than there should be. And over 100 million of those are just since the early 80's. 100 million people in a little over one generation.

The world's resources are finite...and I am not only talking about energy for transportation. As the last great vestiges of clean water, air and other natural resources in the remaining moderately populated countries disappear, energy becomes less important.  

Answer 6

a bike would be good since I'd be exercising at the same time.

hybrids are okay but I would still have to use gas.

hydrogen probably wouldn't be that good since I would have use to non-salt water and it would still cause a lot of carbon emissions since the factories would have to make more plastic to hold the water and to purify the water.

solar would be the best for the environment if I wanted to drive a car, except when there are lots of clouds, like during fall and winter and early spring.

Answer 7

You forgot natural gas (methane), which is what my cars run on. It's cheap to fill up ($10) and clean for the environment. Check out my sources to learn about them!

Answer 8

b (if the infrastructure permits) or c.

Solar powered cars are just stunts (single seat, no air conditioning, really lightly built (not very crash worthy), won't work at night and only give their best performance in the Australian desert.

Bikes don't have the distance capability or hill climbing ability needed, they also have a severe lack of stability.

Hydrogen is good, you'd need to generate the hydrogen by something other than steam reforming of methane for it to be environmentally friendly, the sulphur-iodine cycle with a Gen IV reactor would do nicely.  There's also almost no hydrogen fuelling stations which would make things hard on those with hydrogen cars.

Hybrids have the advantage of being able to use existing petrol stations to refuel even if they still use oil.  I suspect hydrogen cars will have some aspects of a hybrid due to efficiency reasons and the slow response time of fuel cells.

Right now a small car does the job.

Answer 9

Actually I test drove a hybrid, the only thing is you have to stay under 35 miles per hour to save on gas, so I'd probably go that route since I've drive for a living and it's all in town....otherwise if possible I'd go with a bike, I'd get my exercise during the day and work at the same time.