What alternatives to gasoline are being explored or developed?iron?

Question

Brazil burns alcohol created from sugar cane which is cheap, renewable and non polluting.What about all electric cars? What about cars that can run on water?

Answer 1

This is a great site that shows whats being done to make cars more efficient and also as an alternative to gasoline:

Enjoy,

http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Fuel...

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Answer 2

The best current technology is electric-gasoline hybrid, of course.  A plug-in hybrid can achieve around 100mpg, and Toyota is currently exploring this technology.  A number of Prius owners have converted their cars to plug-in, and have reported mileage upwards of 100mpg.

#1 in terms of funding is probably hydrogen power, but it's a poor use of resources because the technology several decades away from becoming commercially viable.  There are still many problems with hydrogen as a transportation fuel.

Biodiesel is a good current alternative.  The main problems with this technology are that there are very few diesel cars in the US, and that it relies on food crops for its fuel.  We're already seeing corn prices increase as ethanol becomes more widespread, and the same problem would occur with biodiesel crops if it became more popular.  There would also be an increase in use of water, land, fertilizer, etc.

Then of course there are electric cars.  The EV1 was a great example before GM pulled the plug on it and destroyed them all.  There are still some electric cars around, but not many that can go very far on a charge or very fast.  Chevy is developing the Volt which will be able to go 40 miles on a charge, then switch to basically an electric-gas hybrid, I believe.

Answer 3

there r compressed natural gas may be more will be discovered in future.many vehicles r also run on electicity and battery.

Answer 4

Driving electric cars only will be a problem.Where do we get the power from? A traditional powerplant has an efficiency of approx 40% of the primairy energy regarding what's coming out of the socket. Putting that into batteries gives a loss again once using that for traction in a car ends up in an all over bad score. If we'd used windmills, hydro  or geothermal power only it should make a difference, but still we could not supply enough.

During the second worldwar some countries did not have fuel available for public use.A serious industry developed who supplied Woodgasifiers for cars. That solved the problem.A company as Volvo has done a lot of research up to the early sixties. Also in the US people got involved in this research.

Pur plant oil is a solution, Woodgasifiers, or BIL( (This is an abbreviation for Biomass Into liquid) All waste biomass could be turned into cude oil That could supply us with some fuel and help industry to produce artificial products without use of fossile oil.)

The development of woodgasification stopped because oil became very cheap and available in large quantities again .

If we all should used combined heat-powerplants where heat is needed, also at the scale of a household, and try in various ways to improve all energy efficiency, we could do more with less. Woodgasification is back again and gets improved in use for Comb. Heat and Power plants.

It is all about a higher energy efficiency and use of all natural resources to cut down on carbon emmision. That ,we can do tomorrow!! And in the long run we need to come up with real new technology. Methanol or biodiesel (RME, TME)for cars is not the answer. Maybe a bit less carbon but it is still a waste of energy due to bad efficiency of engines ,and high infrastructural costs.The  engines we use in cars are far to big. For a normal car 65KW power is enough to do where it's made for: mobility. Do we really need to get to 100km/h in 6 seconds???????

Fuelconsumption of 3 liters to 100 km is reality. Make that to a standard and the world will change rapidly. New developments will create a lot of new jobs as well.

Clemens

Answer 5

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The answer is electric, and I will make my case below.

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- Electric vehicles are here NOW, and can even be found very cheaply, if you know where to look. Here's a website about cheap electric cars (as little as $5000):

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http://squidoo.com/cheap-electric-car

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-Nothing is cheaper to drive than an electric car. This may surprise some people, but it's true. I drive an EV, and my electricity cost is only ONE CENT per mile.

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There is a lot of misinformation about electric cars in peoples' heads, much of it put there indirectly by the oil interests.  To address just a few of these misconceptions:

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- EVs do not pollute like gas cars do (powerplant emissions are far lower than tailpipe emissions, when all factors are considered.)

-EV batteries are not environmental hazards (they are recycled, and pose less risk than the used motor oil coming from gas cars)

- EV motors can be made with the same horsepower ratings as gasoline engines, giving equivalent or even better performance.

- The heavy battery problem has been largely solved. New EVs have ranges of 250-350 miles, 10-minute recharges,  and battery packs that last for 20 years (see the ZAP-X below).

- EVs do not need to be expensive. Electric motors have only ONE moving part, and are much easier to make than gas engines. All it takes to make cheap EVs is mass production.

- EVs are not dangerous. Electricity is safer than gasoline. we have just become used to the dangers of gasoline.

- EVs are not complicated to service - they are much easier and cheaper. Electric motors need NO maintenance, no oil, no coolant, no filters, NOTHING.  Regenerative braking even keeps brake pads from wearing out.

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Finally, look at one of the newest EVs on the market - the ZAP-X:

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http://zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=456...

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The ZAP-X is a 644-horsepower, 155mph electric car designed by Lotus. $60,000, but worth it.

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Answer 6

Alternatives to gasoline:

There are many that are in use today, but Iron is NOT one of them. Hydrogen, Compressed Natural Gas, Methanol, Ethanol, bio fuels (vegetable oil). So far, gasoline is the least expensive (I know that is becoming hard to believe) and the most practical in terms of efficiency, storage and distribution.

Some of the problems with the alternatives are the lack of an infrastructure to deliver these alternatives, expenses of converting existing vehicles to use these and the end cost per mile.

Solutions can be found, but requires someone with a vision to see widespread use of the alternatives, and money to invest in building the infrastructure to deliver such alternatives.

The electric car is a good possibility. The biggest hurdle has been the weight of the batteries needed to store enough energy to propel a passenger vehicle for more than 100 miles.

Cars will never run on water as a fuel. Water is made up of two part hydrogen and 1 part oxygen. It is a great solvent, a good coolant, even a reasonable lubricant, but it is not a fuel.

Answer 7

Do you mean ion? as in Lithium-ion?

This is a type of battery http://www.altairnano.com/markets_amps.h...

which gives high performance, long life, 20+years, and fast, 10 minute, recharge times http://www.phoenixmotorcars.com/

recharge at home or work from your own micro-generator, or from renewable supplies on the grid.

Electric cars are far more efficient well to wheel than infernal combustion engines, ICE, even if the electric comes from fossil fuel, because: ICE rarely reaches optimum load or temperature, large porwer satations constantly maintained & monitored running at optimum load temperature, on unrefined fuel close to source and due to the laws of thermodynamics and scale of energy conversion, efficiency of the national grid, and the efficiency of the electric drivechain, regenerative braking, no warm-up, no stationary power drain, - just a more satisfying and efficient & elegant engineering solution, than smelly clunky, complicated infernal combustion fueled from a limited number of suppliers.

cars that run on water is probably a misunderstanding of hydrogen technology, which uses a primary fuel, like oil or elecrtic to split water into hydrogen or oxygen, then transport the hydrogen, which is very bulky & escapes easily to gas stations, to put into fuel cells to produce electric and water vapour as the exaust gas. Big oil & car companies have been promising for years but is still 10 years away, despite lots of government funding.

Answer 8

hydrogen fuel is being looked at because it' by product is water, however it can be explosive on impact, so while a great idea, that should absolutely explored, I don't think it will be a marketable alternative for a few more years

Answer 9

how about a car that runs on energy from its self like those new flashlights you know the ones you shake?

Answer 10

Cars that can run on water?  Don't know if I'll see that in my lifetime.  As a consolation, I suppose one could say that electric cars in Las Vegas "run on water," since they get all their electricity from the Hoover dam.

Anyway, this might answer your question better than I could: http://media.popularmechanics.com/docume...