Which alternative future fuel technology should U.S. automotive companies adopt?

Question

The possible fuels/technologies are: hydrogen, natural gas, fuel cells, biodiesel, hybrids, E85 ethanol, steam, and electricity. Is one better than the others? Why?

Answer 1

hydrogen-maybe in 30 years, natural gas- not a lot of it left either,  fuel cells-hey isn't that just hydrogen,  biodiesel-If a plant that yields large amounts of biodiesel on poor soil and minimal land,  hybrids- plug in hybrids will help a lot,  E85-**** no.  Highly inefficient and drives the price of food up which means more starving children in africa,  steam-??? geothermal?,  Electric- a good bet the technology is already there for electric cars that can get through our everyday commutes.

I think electric and hybrids should be produced for now until we can develop technology to make hydrogen vehicles cheap and have a more efficient process of extracting hydrogen.  You forgot to mention compressed air cars which are becoming very advanced.

Answer 2

one that pollutes the least and is the most easiest to replace our depenency on non-renewable energy sources

Answer 3

In a heartbeat, I'd buy a vehicle that is a plug-in-flex fuel Hybrid.

You'd have several fuel choices (E85, regular gas, electricity), fantastic mileage, and be Green.

E85 should be based on sugar cane, like in Brazil, so as not to drive up wheat and corn costs.

See:

http://www.fresh-energy.org/publications...

Answer 4

let me start off by saying Hydrogen is a great option for the concept of free energy.     I built my first hydrogen cell about 5 years ago. Have converted over 50 vehicles in the last 10 years (gydrogen and EV) and now currently run 2 trucks (and another EV), my home hot water heater, home stove and home generator on hydrogen for free with caught rain water and the help of a $10 solar panel.  I offer a step by step DIY guide to walk anyone interested threw the process. You can find it at www agua-luna com or you can email me.

There are basically 3 safe ways to make and use it... chemically, electrically and molecularly, the first 2 being easier so I'll only discuss them here. The fallowing steps were taking directly out of a DIY guide I offer to those who would like to run their vehicles or home on hydrogen safely. The entire guide is available at www agua-luna com

    On demand h2 generators are a bit different from the Hollywood versions like seen Chain Reaction with Keanu Reeves, that tend to explode violently every time a film is being made. However when used in an on-demand system there is no storage of hydrogen and oxygen in its gas form, only liquid (water) and is only transformed into gas “on-demand” in small cylinder size amounts. It’s actually safer then gasoline as it doesn’t evaporate, creating explosive fumes in the tank like gas. the following were actually taken out of my $5 guide available at www agua-luna com

    Chemically

    1. You’ll need a 6inch x 1ft schedule 40 pvc pipe. With pvc cement glue a cap on the bottom and use a s***w on cap for the top. Drill a small hole (1/4inch or so) in the side close to the top, s******g in a small copper shut off valve. Place a few feet of stranded (food grade is good) flex hose to the valve and into the air intake of your engine (carburetor or fuel injections).

    2. Now crunch up a couple aluminum cans (beer cans, soda cans etc) and drop them into the pvc pipe, along with a couple cups of lye (Red Devil drain opener has lye in it, some Clorox and Drano’s do to).

    3. Then simply add water, s***w on the top and wait a few minutes.

    What happens in simplicity is that aluminum and lye don’t really get along so they battle, and as always the innocent civilians (water H2O) that the most casualties, by giving up its hydrogen and oxygen. This then builds up in the void of the pipe and is ready to be vented into your engine, by opening the valve. You may need to start your engine on gas then switch it off after the hydrogen starts burning.

    Electrical is a bit easier then Chemically.

    1. Simply take a small solar panel 1.5 amps is what I use ($9 at harborfreight.com), connect the 2 wires from the panel +- to 2 conductors (carbon cores of batteries work well, just be careful removing it from the jacket), but any conductive material will work ie. Copper, aluminum, steel, etc.

    2. Drop the wires into a water tank (I use 55gal drums), make sure they don’t touch each other.

    3. Drill a small hole (1/4inch or so) in the side close to the top, s******g in a small copper shut off valve. Place a few feet of stranded (food grade is good) flex hose to the valve and into the air intake of your engine (carburetor or fuel injections).

    4. Then simply add water, s***w on the top cap and wait.

    After a few hours tiny bubbles will form and rise off one conductor (that’s hydrogen) and even smaller bubbles that just looks like foam will rise off the other (oxygen). I don’t remember which likes the positive and which likes the neg hydrogen or the oxygen.

    The third method is more complicated and is what I use for my vehicles. It’s just a modified Joe’s Cell, there’s a step by step DIY guide available to walk you threw the process here www agua-luna com

It also covers the other 2 methods described in more detail.

www agua-luna com

Hope this helped, feel free to contact me personally if you have any questions if you’d like assistance in making your first self sufficient steps, I’m willing to walk you step by step threw the process. I’ve written several how-to DIY guides available at  www agua-luna com on the subject. I also offer online and on-site workshops, seminars and internships to help others help the environment.

Dan Martin

Alterative Energy / Sustainable Consultant, Living 100% on Alternative & Author of How One Simple Yet Incredibly Powerful Resource Is Transforming The Lives of Regular People From All Over The World... Instantly Elevating Their Income & Lowering Their Debt, While Saving The Environment by Using FREE ENERGY... All With Just One Click of A Mouse...For more info Visit:  

www AGUA-LUNA com

Stop Global Warming, Receive a FREE Solar Panels Now!!!

Answer 5

You could also include the "pedal car" that most people have experience with as kids.

The bottom line is that petroleum is cheaper than any other source of energy.

US automotive companies don't really care what the technology is that they sell.  Their just assemble parts and sell.

Natural gas is almost emission free, and plentiful, so if anyone in Southern California was really worried about pollution, they would have adopted this a long time ago.

Answer 6

Hydrogen looks promising, but is still very much an unproven technology. Natural gas/methane/CNG works great in spark engines in place of gasoline, but I'm not sure if we could produce enough of it to drive a country. Biodiesel is here, proven, efficient, clean, cheap and has been for a long time. Why 95% of cars worldwide aren't already burning it is beyond me. Hybrids are useless - period. E85 or 100% ethanol is a good way to reduce our addiction to oil, but not much more than that. It's just a bandaid. Steam is completely inefficient - that's why steam cars quit being produced a century ago. Electric cars seem like a good way to go, but only if that electricity is coming from a clean source like wind, solar or hydroelectric power plants. Burning coal or oil to charge up your environmentally friendly car would kind of eleminate the point.

One thing's for sure - there will be a day when the only gasoline pumps are in museums.

Answer 7

Which ever the market wants.

Answer 8

America has vast resources of Coal.  

Coal can and will be used cleaner in the future.  

Coal is a cheap way to make electricity.

Oil shell rock is vast in Colorado, and could make Colorado the new Saudi Arabia of the world if it could harness the oil out the the oil shell rock.

The newest idea on coal plants is to pump the exhaust into the ground instead of threw the air.

If CO2 was pumped in to the oil shell rock then the oil shell rock releases the oil which can then be harvested.

This process is expensive but if we killed two birds with on stone it may not be as expensive.

Answer.

Battery cars charged by electricity using the latest Lithium battery tech which allows a 25 year battery and at least a 120 mile range and a 10 minute recharge capability.  Throw in a emergency gas charger if you want.

Some day have 25% of the cars on battery power to reduce oil demand and have any new coal plants pump there CO2 into the oil shell rock and have America harvest all it's own oil.

Lets try to have this in place by next year.

Answer 9

Good Job Answer Man

In Colorado there is 8 times more oil than Saudi Arabia, and 3 times more oil than all OPEC countries combined.  Shell oil just got some more permits to pull it out.  Everyone look for oil shale in the green river basin.