What will be the new alternate fuel when we come to our senses?

Question

What will be the new alternate fuel when we come to our senses?

Answer 1

i am watching this subject closely.it seems to me that we are reluctant to get away from the internal combustion engine.why dont we have big trucks that have to pull 100 cars behind them.the trucks are electrically driven.

Answer 2

We are already starting to come to our senses with hybrids, which are a step toward plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles.

The alternative fuel we will begin to rely on more and more is electricity.

Many people said that hydrogen will become the alternative fuel of choice, but this is highly unlikely for several reasons.  The first is that the technology for efficient hydrogen powered cars is still several decades away.  Even when we have cars capable of running on hydrogen, we still have absolutely no hydrogen infrastructure.  You need a way to transport and store hydrogen in order to refuel a hydrogen car, and that infrastructure will cost billions of dollars.

On top of that, as Adam's link points out, hydrogen is inherently less efficient than electric power.  This is because you need to use electricity to seperate the hydrogen from natural gas or water or whatever your source is.  In the process, you're using energy to get a fuel source, and thus losing efficiency.  Why not use the electricity to direcly power a car?  Electric engines are extremely efficient.

On top of that, we already have the infrastructure to refuel electric cars - the power grid.  In order to recharge them rapidly you need a special high voltage station, but these are available for about $8000 and could easily be installed anywhere with access to the power grid.

Plus we've already got electric vehicles, and will soon start seeing some very good ones which will be able to go highway speeds and long range for more affordable prices.

http://www.zapworld.com/electric-vehicle...

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/08/...

http://phoenixmotorcars.com/

http://www.autoneato.com/2008-electric-j...

Electric vehicles are the cars of the future.

Answer 3

I believe we are going to turn to hydrogen being that it is so plentiful and easy to obtain . Its everywhere even the air that we breath has it even in the dry desert there is some kind of moisture in the air .

As it is now they have figured a way to combined two hydrogen atoms together with sound waves and a laser that creates a small blast of helium three or more hydrogen atoms at a time creates that much more helium thus it can push a piston much like gasoline or diesel but without the heat or the pollutants beside helium and its so lite it floats out of the atmosphere  .

They are running carbonated motors on them now and developing a way to run the newer motors on them the ones that are computerized because the cartridges they use take the place of the spark plug so now they have to bypass the sensors in order to correct the timing ,

This thing will be out as soon as the kinks are worked out of it so that all vehicles on the road  today  can be adapted to them   . Once the IPO starts get your money together and buy some stock its going to  come threw like a storm and just in time to full fill allot of dreams and put America back on top .

Stock are not being offered yet and they have more investors then they know what to do with so hold on its coming soon . May we all prosper.

Answer 4

Ethanol.  It is far superior to gasoline.  It is cleaner, we can make it here, and we'll never run out of it.

http://www.drivingethanol.org

Answer 5

The oil palms (Elaeis) comprise two species of the Arecaceae, or palm family. They are used in commercial agriculture in the production of palm oil. Palm Oil Based Biodiesel has greater potential for longevity

Answer 6

Among the alternatives?

Most Feasible Alternative Car: Electric-Powered http://www.autoneato.com/

Most Sustainable Power-Plant: Renewables

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 7

There is (and only really ever has been) one source of energy on Earth, and that is the sun.

fossil fuel is just stored sunlight.

Hydrogen has to be produced by another primary energy source, it is only a transfer medium, and pretty inefficient at that, as it is bulky and leaks easily.

electric motors are the most efficeint traction devices, the first car to exceed 100kph was electric http://www.speedace.info/jamais.htm

and check out latest high power drag bike http://www.killacycle.com/

and can be refueld at home or work from electric produced by any alternative fuel source over the existing >90% efficient grid, or home micro-generator (Tesla http://teslamotors.com).

There is existing capacity in the network to meet most of the need and the stoarge capacity of all these vehicles will help improve the utilisation of renewable energy sources http://www.acpropulsion.com/reports/ACP_...

Answer 8

Electric vehicles are BY FAR the most efficient means of transportation we can use (aside from pedal bikes).

Here is a good comparison between electric versus hydrogen cars: http://www.neutralexistence.com/blog/200...

Answer 9

The next Big thing is Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.  In Iceland they are already on the road.  Iceland has hopes of be free of petroleum vehicles by 2015.  Brazil uses ethanol produced from sugar cane.  Brazil is already free of foreign oil imports.  There are alternative out there.

Answer 10

The amount of missinformation or dissinformation contained in most answers to this question is simply alarming.  To set a few things straigth:

It is true that Brazil uses a considerable percentage of ethanol in their transportation fuel mix.  They have cars that are designed to run on pure ethanol, flexible fuel cars that can run on anything from E85 to pure gasoline (which actually does not exist in Brazil) and conventional cars that run on E10.  But, this is not why they are independent of foriegn oil imports.  Along with all of this development of fuel grade ethanol, Brazil also had a massive program to find and develope domestic oil reserves and over the past 30 years have gone from producing essentially no oil domestically to producing sufficient petroleum to fuel their growing economy and to in fact export some oil.

You cannot make synthetic fuels from water and carbon dioxide.  The reaction you are thinking of (the water shift reaction) is between carbon monoxide and water and it yields carbon dioxide and hydrogen.  Syngas is actually a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide and can be use to produce any number of chemicals, from methanol to diesel fuel.  Syngas is actually produced by either steam reforming or partial oxidation.  The shift reactors are used to adjust the CO/H2 ratio.  CO2 produced in either step is removed from the syngas and disposed of.

Hydrogen is a fuel, but its production requires energy, and the production of this energy usually involves the burning of some type of fuel.

Answer 11

Fred has forgotten about the Earth itself.  Our planet has an active and very energetic core.  GeoThermal energy is a cheaper and more efficient source of energy than photoelectric sources currently.  Solar-Thermal heating as an energy source is efficient but most people think of photoelectric when you mention solar.

But those things are not "fuels" they are sources of energy.  A fuel is stored energy source that you use to create an energy source that can then be used.  The cleanest and most powerful Fuel we know of currently is the atom.  Nuclear power plants splitting atoms create the most energy out of any fuel we currently have.  Many people are scared of radiation and what we would do with the waste but the technology is cleaner than anything else on earth. (Out of fuel based processes)

Answer 12

Pedal power.

Answer 13

When we come to our senses:

PLEASE READ THIS

Hydrogen like electricity are not a source of energy but a "secondary" energy or energy carrier. You have to produce them first... and that is the problem.

So you know what to think of the previous answers (I have an MSc in Eenrgy Conversion).

-------------------------------

Where does the energy on the earth surface come from?

- over 99.95% from the Sun. Even the fossil fuels we deplete by far faster than they have been created (300 years vs. millions) have been created by biological source using the energy from the sun.

- The energy we receive from the sun can be harvested in various forms:

* wind (difference of solar radiation between day/night for example)

* hydro power (condensation of water which has been turned into vapor by the sun)

* marine currents (mostly different heat content due to uneven solar radiation arounf the globe)

I believe all previous answers are not accurate and underestimate the variety of future energy and power production. Around 20 different sources will be available and none will dominate the energy field alone.

Future sources of power will have to be:

- cheap

- use a minimum land use

- be largely available around the globe

- produce large quantities and have a large potential which is not used yet.

- do not generate too much greenhouse gases, pollutants or wastes

- be reliable

- be easily transportable (e.G. pipeline or electrical wire).

So far, wind power answers best the described criteria but is not reliable as it is a fluctuating source.

Answer 14

Along with some of your other answers I agree with Hydrogen but with the addition of a fuel cell.

These cars pass Hydrogen and air through a fuel stack which converts the gas to electricity this is then transfer to 2 electric motors which power the wheels

The only emissions are water

Check out the Honda FCX due out next year

http://world.honda.com/HDTV/FCX/FCX-conc...

http://world.honda.com/Tokyo2005/fcx/vid...

Answer 15

I suspect it'll be either hydrogen produced using the Sulphur-Iodine process with heat from nuclear reactors or a synthetic hydrocarbon with much the same properties as Petrol or Diesel (probably closer to the later) produced from water split into hydrogen and carbon obtained from Carbon Dioxide from the atmosphere (so that the whole thing is carbon neutral) and then with some heat input from a nuclear reactor made into car fuel.  Despite what someone claiming to be the Voice of Reason says, we can in fact make synthetic hydrocarbons from water and carbon dioxide though any reaction is going to require quite a large number of steps to complete (I was not at all thinking of just mixing the them in the presence of a heat source, syngas probably will be part of the process though).

There may also be some use of solar power to produce synthetic fuels being that fuel production has less need for reliable power sources and so is more likely to be able to tolerate the unreliability of solar and wind that make them useless for generating electricity without backup power (that is usually coal or methane) although I'm expecting the solar concentrators to produce a small portion and for most of our fuel to come from nuclear power (as will almost all of our electricity at least until we have fusion and microwave transmission of solar energy collected into space down to Earth).

Answer 16

Possibly ethanol as it is already a proven system for the short term !.

Answer 17

We can allready make hydrogen powered cars that are just as safe and more reliable then gas powered. They can be put into car's right now without having to change the look of the car also and the only by product is water that drips from the exast pipe. The oil company's have done all they can to hinder the efforts of this and other alternative fuel cars to come on the market. But if some company can get it out there, then I think that will be the new alternate fuel that everyone will go to.

Answer 18

I like biodiesel. Ethanol costs too much to produce and is not the best use for corn. Ethanol only produces about half of the BTUs of gasoline, so you need to burn twice as much. Also you can not burn alcohol in an unmodified gasoline engine. Biodiesel is easy to make and has 90% of the BTUs as petroleum diesel. Biodiesel can be used in anything that can burn number two diesel with no modifications, not just engines but can be used as a home heating fuel. And it burns much cleaner than petroleum deisel.