Which new vehicle fuel source do you think is the future?

Question

Since the "developing nations" have stronger economies , there is less oil to go around. Scarcity drives prices up. People are going hungry as lands are diverted to growing alternative fuels. Can extracting hydrogen from seawater be more difficult than obtaining gas from oil through a fractioning tower?

Answer 1

CNG, Biodiesel and Electric seem to be the best IMO.

CNG is very clean burning, cheap and easier to store then hydrogen will ever be,it will run in any gas or diesel engine with a conversion kit.

Biodiesel can be extracted from almost any type of organic waste, not just corn and soy. Algae can be farmed and make 10,000 gallons of oil per acre in one year(google the videos). Biodiesel can be run in any diesel engine without a conversion and is also clean burning because even though it has a small amount of emissions, the carbon is only coming from what the plant absorbed while still growing. Ethanol is ineffiect and will only cause your engine to wear out faster and give you 7 MPG. with biodiesel your MPG stays the same as it would be with petro-diesel and your engine will last longer. Not to metion that you can run a diesel off straight veggie oil which means even less refining(unlike ethonal).

Because of great advances in lithuim battery's we now can own EVs that can travel 200 miles on a 10 minute charge(with a commercial charging station). The great thing about electric is that you can find a plug-in anywhere, where as biodiesel and CNG are alot harder to get ahold of at this time.

Ultimately what I would like to see is a plug-in hybrid that uses CNG or biodiesel as a range extender to charge the batterys. Jeep has actually already made a Plug-in biodiesel 4x4 concept which is really awesome.

Answer 2

Ammonia(as hydrogen storage) is a great cheap solution where it's usable...

The problem of its toxicity is solved by some salts as Mg(NH3)6Cl2 that stores 1 litre of liquid ammonia per litre of salt without releasing ammonia at room conditions...

The energetic values of this salt are about 10000 kj/kg and 12000 kj/dm3  so it will can be directly used as fuel for ships, trucks and industrial machines...

Energetically this salt can be considered a coal with an efficiency of about 15%...(Coal ships had/have these efficiencies...).

Answer 3

I think it will be hydrogen . I know of one invention that is getting there ipo started. Lots of obstacles to go around just to get it off the ground  especially with people stealing the idea . You need money to make money . Look at the guy that invented the digital watch he made $ 600 and it was worth millions . Everyone wants a piece of the action even if they have to kill for it.

Answer 4

An alternative fuel source that for a lot of people appears to have been forgotten and is readily available is people power.  It would be great if more people took to their feet to get places or got on their bikes.

Where energy can be taken from the environment, ie wind, wave, sun etc without ruining the beauty of the environment then so much the better, if this can then charge batteries etc then again that's great and would produce much less carbon emmissions than burning oils...

Answer 5

It will be a combination of things. Most motor pools like municipal and civil services like the police, public transportation, taxis and fleets will use fuels like Hydrogen and CNG. Both of those are very green, very efficient, but they are not very user friendly as they need a perfect seal and must be pumped and stored at high pressure and extreme temperatures.

Biofuels like ethanol (from cellulose) and biodiesel (recycled sources) will be the primary fuels for individuals. Both operate very much like the fuels we use now, gas and diesel. They are user friendly and can fulfill most of the demands of individuals.

Electric and hybrid technologies will be used in both categories.

The is no one magic bullet solution that will solve all our problems.

Answer 6

Electricity

Because of nanomaterials and other technological advances batteries are becoming smaller, powerful, safer, long lasting and quick to recharge.

Electric motors are compact, powerful, light weight and do not require complicated transmission system.

There is abundant supply of coal and practically infinite supply of uranium and thorium to produce electricity. Future breeder reactors should make producing electricity really cheap without producing significant nuclear waste.

Answer 7

Petrol, Diesel and Kerosene (the three most important transportation fuels) are pretty good fuels (much better than pretty much every alternative) if you discount environmental effects.

So I personally think that what will end up happening is that we'll make synthetic hydrocarbon fuels that current engines can burn (i.e. we'd make unleaded petrol, diesel and Jet A-1) by taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere (along with some water to get hydrogen) and then using clean energy (probably nuclear although fuel production would be a better fit for the politically correct sources than electricity) we would be able to just make fuel.

Since the fuel would be made from CO2 from the atmosphere it would be carbon neutral, also since the manufacturing would be at an industrial facility instead of a farm it wouldn't have any impact on world food prices or cause any famines.  The other advantage of synthetic hydrocarbons is that the distribution system is already built as are the vehicles that use the fuel which would make a transition very easy to do (since no one would have to buy new cars and the service stations could use the same pumps they already have, all we'd need are new production facilities, other proposals would require very big changes to be viable).

Hydrogen might also work and improvements in battery technology might make them viable as the only source of power for a road vehicle (but I don't see it working for aviation which is a minor source of pollution anyway) although all of them will require a clean source of electricity or process heat (and you'll need a lot).

This of course isn't about prices but about the environment, if all you want is cheaper fuel and you don't care about the environment then mining unconventional hydrocarbons like oil shale and tars would do the job or even converting coal to oil (in fact that's part of the problem, we aren't running out of fossil fuels so there isn't much of an incentive to switch away from it).

Answer 8

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Answer 9

watch the movie who killed the electric car, its on youtube. you'll the figure out that alternative fuels was the past. but with some effort, we can make it the future again.

Answer 10

I don't know that but i have heard that there is one kind of tree which can be use as fuel. I don't mean that wood will be use for that but that tree produce some kind of gum like thing, which is a raw material for fuel.

Answer 11

nuclear fuel is the best choice, yah i know its very dangerous blah blah blah shut up tree hugging liberals, we can fix that.