Future alternative fuel options?

[RossiT]

Hi,

I'm after a some information, I've been out of work for a while now but made it through to the final stage for a sales position with a large car dealership. I have to give a 10 minute presentation about future alternative fuel options. Apart from the curent Hybrids does anyone know of anything in the pipeline for the next few years or currently being developed?

Any help would really be appreciated.

Thanks

[nottyash]

Hydrogen powered cars is the way ahead. The by product being H2O (water) and readily available!
At the moment its expensive but there are Hydrogen fueling stations in Calafornia.
Honda and BMW have produced them.

[john banks]

E85, algae/alternative hydrocarbons, hydrogen, fuel cell, battery power (batteries with higher energy density), turbine running at constant speed to charge battery etc.

Issues include: price, range, weight, recycling, maintenance, emissions wheel to well, taxation, political acceptability.

[Jayho]

nottyash said:

Hydrogen powered cars is the way ahead. The by product being H2O (water) and readily available!
At the moment its expensive but there are Hydrogen fueling stations in Calafornia.
Honda and BMW have produced them.

Thikn there was a TG Episode which covered this. I think the main problem is storing Hydrogen and transporting it.

[nottyash]

john banks said:

E85, algae/alternative hydrocarbons, hydrogen, fuel cell, battery power (batteries with higher energy density), turbine running at constant speed to charge battery etc.

Issues include: price, range, weight, recycling, maintenance, emissions wheel to well, taxation, political acceptability.

I think I saw a BMW engine that ran on Hydrogen, so eliminating the need to store it in batteries. The Honda system I think uses batteries.

[Chris71]

This is a huge topic, but here are a few bullet points to Google:

• As I'm sure you're aware there are two problems with electric cars. One, you have to generate the power and most power generation is still fossil fuel based. Two, you need to store it. We've been waiting for a miracle cure to make batteries smaller, lighter and cheaper for decades now and it hasn't really arrived
• Range extended EVs and range extended seem like a good bet for the time being. They provide a conventional petrol/diesel safety net when the current limitations of electricity storage threaten to bite you. Don't forget get the range extender could be something other than a reciprocating engine (as in the Jaguar C-X75)
• Sustainability and specifically any competition for space with food crops is a major issue with current bio fuels. Look into cellulosic ethanol - I believe that's the type created from waste wood pulp etc.
• A rather far out suggestion was to genetically engineer algae that would photosynthesise alcohol. You could set up great big vats of the stuff in the desert taking in CO2 and sunlight and producing a carbon-neutral alcohol fuel to go into conventional combustion engines
• Going back to electricity storage, you can store quite large quantities of energy mechanically in high-efficiency flywheels and then use a motor/generator unit to put it in and take it out electrically. You probably wouldn't use this for long distances, but it's great for short boosts in a hyrbid sytsem as Porsche (or Williams Hybrid Power) will tell you
• Oh, and there are ways of improving the chemistry of gasoline-type fuels to make them burn much more cleanly. Look into alkalyte petrol

Drop me a line if you're stuck, I write about this sort of thing for a living.

Edited by Chris71 on Friday 3rd December 17:58

[thinfourth2]

nottyash said:

Hydrogen powered cars is the way ahead. The by product being H2O (water) and readily available!
.

No its not

Its bloody expensive to produce and quite inefficient

Add in it makes petrol look like some for of fire extinguisher and its quite a crap idea

[V88Dicky]

I think we'll see a move away from diesel and on to another combustion liquid called 'petrol' or 'gasoline' iirc.
Apparantly, this wonder fuel can be made from common or garden crude oil (and there's trillions of barrels of that muck in the ground), and it can be used (with some mechanical modifications) in place of diesel, with fantastic results. Early tests show it to be very potent, with large power gains over diesel and much quieter running. Imagine that!
I can't wait, the future is truly bright, I tell ya.

[Wattsie]

Synthetic petrol and diesel?

From my limited knowledge, the main reason it's held back is the energy input required to create it (similar problem with hydrogen), but unlike hydrogen, we already have the infrastructure for it.

Hydrocarbons can be "picked out" from water (hydrogen) and carbon dioxide in the air (carbon) somehow (google it maybe), to create petrol and diesel. But since its components are from water and air, it's pretty well a clean fuel, because it just burns back into Co2 and Water.

Once we go nuclear (fusion rather than fission, specifically), the energy issue is fixed, so synthetic fuel could be a good alternative...






Ofcourse everything I've just written could well be bks and I accept no responsibility for the boss who has better knowledge of the petrochemicals industry going mental about it.

[Engineer1]

Hydrogen is a possibility but to work it needs combining with Nuclear, the Hydrogen fuel Research group at Birmingham Uni, have some clever ideas for storing hydrogen, the production becomes viable if it is viewed in the same way as the Dinorwig hydroelectric station (almost as a battery storing spare power and releasing it when required) well hydrogen could be created during the low demand times.
The real choice of possible future fuel will be economic and legislative, the best fuel from engineering and practical points of view may not be chosen.

Edited by Engineer1 on Friday 3rd December 19:37

[joebongo]

Monkey spunk.












http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mickey%27s_Monkey_Spu...

[anonymous-user]

Fundamental point that a lot of people miss:

Up till now, our cars and in fact entire existance is "powered" by an energy storage medium which did not require human "effort" to make it. Hence ANY "alternate" source of energy, be that wind, solar, biofuels, hydrogen etc, will cost at least double that of conventional hydrocarbon based fuels.

(effectively, nature took billions of years to convert the energy in biomass to energy stored in an easily releasable (by burning) form in oil/coal etc. So, if we don't use oil to power our new vehicles, then we will have to expend effort in at least 2 sets of conversions, (for example, solar - electricity - battery(chemical) - electricity - electric motor.)

The expense and complications in this first step make the secondary choice of storage medium (battery, flywheel, hydogen etc) the least of our future long term issues.

The "trillion dollar" question, is of course, how much hydrocarbon based fuel is left (oil/coal) and can we afford to a) extract it, and b) release that Co2 back into our atmosphere!

(the ONLY fuel that does in fact bypass this inital conversion to some degree is nuclear (fission / fusion) but that has it's own entirely different series of costs involved!)

[RossiT]

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the info, plenty to look into over the weekend.

Just another question, I haven't heard of one but do any cars at the moment have Kers?

[anonymous-user]

RossiT said:

Hi Guys

Thanks for all the info, plenty to look into over the weekend.

Just another question, I haven't heard of one but do any cars at the moment have Kers?

Prius et-al have regenerative braking, (brake energy is captured and stored to use on the next accel, but unfortunately regen is actually relatively pointless in the real world for 2 main reasons:

1) total system efficiency is low, (wheels to generator, generator , DC-DC convertor, battery in, then battery out, DC-DC convertor, motor, motor to wheels. if each of those conversions loses 5%, total energy captured and re-used is only 66%, and typically brake "power" is in the order of hundreds of kW (prius 0-60 in say 12 odd secs, but 60-0 in about 4!!) so it is difficult (and expensive) to deal with these powers.

2) the "More economically" you drive, the more you "coast", effectively converting the cars kynetic energy directly into loses (primarily aero drag and mech friction) so the more economically you drive, the less you actually need regen.


currently a flywheel or supercapacitor "kers" system only make economic sense when the efficencys of scale kick in, so there are some Bus, lorry, and train systems, but not car systems.

[XitUp]

Algae diesel and methane/butanol from organic waste look quite interesting.

nottyash said:

Hydrogen powered cars is the way ahead. The by product being H2O (water) and readily available!
At the moment its expensive but there are Hydrogen fueling stations in Calafornia.
Honda and BMW have produced them.

Yup, just as soon as we have a huge surplus of clean electricity it will be great.
The only problem will be the billions needed for new storage and transportation infrastructure.

nottyash said:

I think I saw a BMW engine that ran on Hydrogen, so eliminating the need to store it in batteries. The Honda system I think uses batteries.

And it only uses three times the amount of fuel as it does running on petrol, while getting nearly 2/3 of the power.

[Fire99]

In summary, I have absolutely no idea at all.

That said, the oil industry (and associated companies that make the profits from it) is huge so I don't doubt they have the world's goolies in their hands.