Alternative fuels - my gripes...

[meesa]

I find it annoying that people in general want to switch to alternative power sources NOW... yet... they do not like the idea of hydrogen powered cars, ethanol, biofuel, electricity, or any other possible source. They think electric cars don't perform well enough, hydrogen is too expensive and dangerous, ethanol damages the engine, biofuel is just dumb, etc. But, they have to have something else NOW!

 

 

 

Last time I checked, when technology comes out, it is not perfect right from the start. Now that may not be a big deal for the first of a kind, i.e. when cell phones first came out, they were unreliable, had a very short battery life, and were monster sized. But that was not a problem. People would accept those limitations for the ability to talk away from home. I am sure people complained about size, etc, but for the most part it was not a big deal.

 

 

 

Again, to change to a different main fuel, there will be many problems. People will have to decide whether they want expensive, reliable fuel, or whether they want a cheaper fuel that maybe does not work as well. And when a fuel comes out that we can viably use and switch to, people need to understand that it will not be perfect. Yes, it will be annoying. But, they've either got to stop demanding that we switch to something else NOW! or, wait and accept the problems as they come. Welcome to the imperfect world.

[Phil]

In regards to fuel for cars. It's not really the fault of the general car user that they are still using oil/petrol. The car users will just follow the major trends.

 

The people to blame are the governments and the large oil companies.

 

Why would they want to change from oil to other stuff when they are getting rich off it at the moment?

 

I think only when the large companies start to invest in more renewable sources then the normal users of cars will start to change.

 

 

 

But of course I don't think it is easy to change just like that. It will take a lot of time.

[Bubsa]

Companies are changing. BP spent I think ÃÆââ¬Å¡Ãâã800million just to change their logo into the eco-friendly flower.

 

 

 

To be honest, changing now won't make a difference, we're already in damage limitation territory. That isn't to say we should carry on burning a hole in the o-zone layer, we do need to act now.

[Mercifull]

Another question to ask is what if someone invented an engine that would run on water?... What would happen to all the millions of jobs around the world in the energy industry? What would happen to the economy? I personally think that in this current day and age, a water powered car would be a cataclysmic disaster for the world.

[Barihawk]

Another question to ask is what if someone invented an engine that would run on water?... What would happen to all the millions of jobs around the world in the energy industry? What would happen to the economy? I personally think that in this current day and age, a water powered car would be a cataclysmic disaster for the world.

 

 

 

What happens in 70 years when all the fossil fuel on earth is gone and the ENTIRE world's industry fails because it has no fuel?

 

 

 

We need to worry about this now.

[Phil]

Another question to ask is what if someone invented an engine that would run on water?... What would happen to all the millions of jobs around the world in the energy industry? What would happen to the economy? I personally think that in this current day and age, a water powered car would be a cataclysmic disaster for the world.

 

Water is probably just as important, too valuable to use for fuel I woulda thought someone from South England would know that, aren't you in a hose-pipe ban? :P But yeah I get your point you're making

 

 

 

But more renewable sources of fuel would still require a lot of people to make/process/whatever it. Take for example Ethanol, it could improve the agricultural economy and there still is a production stage to be done.

 

Where you would lose some jobs when oil goes, more jobs would be created with the new fuel.

[meesa]

Another question to ask is what if someone invented an engine that would run on water?... What would happen to all the millions of jobs around the world in the energy industry? What would happen to the economy? I personally think that in this current day and age, a water powered car would be a cataclysmic disaster for the world.

 

 

 

But thats one of the changes that needs to be accepted.

 

 

 

People say, "But this, but that, but this will change". Look at it this way:

 

 

 

Lets say you were in a car accident. Your car is totalled, but every one is fine. Now, the insurance company proveds you with a rental car until you find a new car to buy. You can either:

 

 

 

accept the rental car, even though it may not be the $35,000 car you had before.

 

 

 

Or:

 

 

 

You can scream and throw a fit saying its different, and refuse to drive it.

 

 

 

 

 

If you take the second route, you will be stuck at home for a long time.

 

Thats what people are doing with the oil. "But its going to be different if we switch do a new fuel". Yes, it will. People do not like change. Humans are wired that way. But, when push comes to shove, you have to accept the changes.

 

 

 

Also, new jobs will be created if they use water as fuel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My only question with water is, what happens to it? Turn into vapor, or disappear?? If its #2, 500 years from now, we will all be wondering what the heck happened to water. :lol:

[MyPurpleCrayon]

We need to worry about this now.

 

 

 

Well of course we need to worry about it now, but nothing needs to be DONE about it yet.

[Giordano]

They got to use nuclear energy or some type. Hydrogen would work good too. They say hydrogen can explode to easily, doesn't oil exploe easily? :?

[____]

They got to use nuclear energy or some type. Hydrogen would work good too. They say hydrogen can explode to easily, doesn't oil exploe easily? :?

oil doesn't even come close to the ease at which hyrdogen burns.

[Barihawk]

They got to use nuclear energy or some type. Hydrogen would work good too. They say hydrogen can explode to easily, doesn't oil exploe easily? :?

 

 

 

Nuclear energy is too unstable and dangerous for worldwide use. It might work in isolated areas, but solar and wind power are much more viable in some areas. For example, West Texas recieves an amazing 35% of it's power from Wind Generators. The windmills are only operating at 50% capacity...within 20 years they could fully power West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and the rest of the Dust Bowl region.

[weezcake]

They got to use nuclear energy or some type. Hydrogen would work good too. They say hydrogen can explode to easily, doesn't oil exploe easily? :?

 

 

 

Hydrogen burns at a much faster rate than oil. The explosion is much more powerful too.

 

 

 

There's a professor here at UC Davis that's researching biomass as a source of fuel. Hopefully something will come of it and it'll be an alternative to oil.

[WutangFlu]

someone should make something with perpetual motion.. :P

 

 

 

 

 

like a perpetual motion engine, once you start it, it doesnt stop unless u force it to.

[jak722]

I'd opt for a hybrid instead of a hydrogen car atm.

 

 

 

My government doesnt have a solid plan about hydrogen filling stations atm... :?

[knives669]

It's really something that needs to be addressed, especially since it will take a long time to get everyone on an alternative fuel plan. I have noticed changes in car commercials and other things like that. It seems like alternative fuel sources are always a topic on the news.

 

 

 

I hope it will take less than the planet's fuel supply running dangerously low to get everyone on another plan.

[indy500fan]

Nuclear energy is too unstable and dangerous for worldwide use. It might work in isolated areas, but solar and wind power are much more viable in some areas. For example, West Texas recieves an amazing 35% of it's power from Wind Generators. The windmills are only operating at 50% capacity...within 20 years they could fully power West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and the rest of the Dust Bowl region.

 

 

 

nuclear energy would be viable if smarter people were in control of it, so that no melt downs would happen. if im thinking about it right its stable when done properly. solar and wind dont provide as much energy, but have little to no risk factor, and are easily upgradable. might as well go that way, as long as there is a backup power plant for times when its neither windy or sunny (usually when its not sunny its windy, at least during the day, so it would work most of the time.)

 

 

 

i guess this is as good as place as any to ask, how much would it cost to buy enough solar and wind equipment to power a house? id like to invest in some solar panels at least right now, i know they are supposed to last a long time so i would have them for when i build my own house. anyone here use renewable resources for electricity?

[trunksrs]

Another question to ask is what if someone invented an engine that would run on water?... What would happen to all the millions of jobs around the world in the energy industry? What would happen to the economy? I personally think that in this current day and age, a water powered car would be a cataclysmic disaster for the world.

 

Water is probably just as important, too valuable to use for fuel I woulda thought someone from South England would know that, aren't you in a hose-pipe ban? :P But yeah I get your point you're making

 

 

 

But more renewable sources of fuel would still require a lot of people to make/process/whatever it. Take for example Ethanol, it could improve the agricultural economy and there still is a production stage to be done.

 

Where you would lose some jobs when oil goes, more jobs would be created with the new fuel.

 

 

 

Actually, using hydrogen fuel is using water. Hydrgogen could be "produced" by running a current through water, breaking it into the hydrogen and oxygen components.

 

 

 

The major plus to this is, water is nonexhaustable, even as a fuel. Fuels work by using a compostion reaction to produce energy. Cobustion reactions, by definition, are reactions that combine fuel and oxygen, releasing high amounts of heat and light energy. In this case, they fuel would be hydrogen, and when combined with oxgen in a chemical reaction, the result is water, which in this case would be in a vapor form. It would then go threw the water cycle, and eventually may end up back in a tank to be turned into hydrogen feul again.

[Lageris89]

The fact is they aren't going to introduce new sources of power when there's still billions to be made off of fossil fuels.

[____]

/ stuff about hydrogen + water /

 

That's all well and good if you have enough fresh water to actually pull that off.

 

But the energy required to make that a viable power source, atm, is more than is produced.

 

At least last time I was aware of such experiments :-?

[rotundra87]

/ stuff about hydrogen + water /

 

That's all well and good if you have enough fresh water to actually pull that off.

 

But the energy required to make that a viable power source, atm, is more than is produced.

 

At least last time I was aware of such experiments :-?

 

 

 

 

 

Thats the main problem with Hydrogen Fuel cells atm (I mean, aside from it being reactive as hell and will explode with the slightest of sparks). The easiest way to get pure Hydrogen (H2 gas) on earth is to extract it from water. The problem is that it takes more energy to get the H2 from water than it gives off by burning it. That means the only place we can get pure H2 without extracting it from something else is in interstellar space where there aren't enough other materials for it to react with :( Okay you could also get it from the corona of the sun but I ain't going in to get it.

 

 

 

Wind and solar power are good, but they have a very low energy efficiency. A good solar panel is like 12 percent efficient and that is on a good day. What happens if its cloudy? :? I'm not sure about wind power efficiency, but its probably a little better. Once again though, it requires certain weather patterns to really work. Don't get me wrong because I'm all for these two methods, they just won't work everywhere.

 

 

 

Nuclear is really pretty good if there's no meltdown. Problem is getting it into the cars (same with the energy created by the solar panels and wind turbines). We don't really have batteries that can store enough charge to really make it worth it right now.

 

 

 

Finally, people like big stupid SUV's and like to drive fast. The first generation alternate energy cars are going to be slower and much smaller which is far to unamerican for most people. (*note, there is absolutly no sarcasm involved here :P )

 

 

 

Personally, I think the next step is going to be ethenol. I know they're using it a fair amount down in Brazil in combination with gasoline and it works well.

 

 

 

We do need to start making prepartations for alternate energy sources now, but until fossile fuels become far less abundent, nothing major is really going to be done about it. :(

[hazardmaster]

They'll probably finish off the coal in the world. I laughed when I ehard of hydroge fuelling cars; if there's a crash...

 

 

 

We've only used up about half the petroline in the world so far, so I guess we still got a century or so left of petrol-fuelled cars. petrol prices are crazy nowadays.

 

 

 

Nuclear power would be too dangerous.

[Death_By_Pod]

 

Nuclear energy is too unstable and dangerous for worldwide use. It might work in isolated areas, but solar and wind power are much more viable in some areas. For example, West Texas recieves an amazing 35% of it's power from Wind Generators. The windmills are only operating at 50% capacity...within 20 years they could fully power West Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and the rest of the Dust Bowl region.

 

 

 

There is very little danger in modern nuclear plants/nuclear energy; more deaths are caused by coal plants and more radioactive material is released by coal plants then Nuclear, not to mention greenhouse gasses. Nuclear power has a lot of misconceptions and unfounded fears only amplified by ÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ãâ¹ÃâenvironmentalistsÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢ (people who rather see fossil plants choke the environment over nuclear, pushing their agenda over actually caring).

 

 

 

Wind farms and Solar panels have major drawbacks: intermittency, scalability, viability (economics), ecological damage (development of large farms on natural, undeveloped land), distribution, reliability etc. You canÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t provide base load power with renewable energy, many industrial processes require interrupted which wind and solar canÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t provide. We need to start moving off fossil fuels, we have proven technology and proven designs and many new designs in the works. It doesnÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t help that America has laws that prevent reprocessing of nuclear waste; about 95% of nuclear material is recyclable, such a waste.

[Death_By_Pod]

And to let everyone know, hydrogen isn't a source of power; hydrogen is good for an energy store. You use something like nuclear or coal to zap water into hydrogen and then you put the hydrogen into fuel cells for use in cars etc (that way you donÃÆââââ¬Å¡Ã¬Ã¢ââ¬Å¾Ã¢t need petrol anymore). You don't burn the hydrogen for creating power; you make it for storage and redistribution.

[dwarfie76]

Iceland are doing some very impressive work converting over to hydrogen. They use their abundant geothermal energy resources to extract hydrogen.

 

 

 

Biodiesel would be my pick for a viable alternative fuel. Hydrogen requires too much in the way of re-tooling manufacturing plants and the like to be readily adopted (aside from the dificulties in producing H2 as a fuel).

 

 

 

 

 

nuclear energy would be viable if smarter people were in control of it

 

Nuclear physicists not smart enough for ya sparky?

[indy500fan]

nuclear energy would be viable if smarter people were in control of it

 

Nuclear physicists not smart enough for ya sparky?

 

 

 

ever hear of chernobyl? have you ever heard of three mile island?