When the fuel is gone

[Ghosth]

Renuable rescources

Ethenol, which btw does not take a lot of power to produce. You can produce ethonol in your kitchen with a 5 gal bucket, some sugar, water, & yeast.

The trick is seperating it from the water afterwords.

I think the answer for that would be a semipermiable membrane that lets alchohol pass through, but stops water.

Vegetable oils, what the original desel motors ran on. Sunflower, soybean etc.

Yes these take a bit of power to crush & press to get the oil out. Could use a better process here as well. Something that removes more impuritys.

Mix of Veg Oil & alcohol, perhaps the best of both worlds.


Hydrogen, this one has major potential.
Anyone read Clive Cusslers novel "Blue Gold"?  Has lots of answers!

The key to unlocking hydrogen is not brute force electrolisis like we do now.

Its finess, the right catylist, the right container and frequency is going to be the key. Instead of high pressure Hydrogen (which is dangerous) Think small gas producing cylinders in the car.

Fill up with water, it produces hydrogen & oxygen which you burn and away you go. NO by products worth mentioning.

You can catch, cool & drink the exhaust, its pure water.

[Holden McGroin]

Originally posted by AVRO1
I doubt that a nuclear reactor only heats water to 100° C (212° F). I think it creates higher temps which gives very high pressure. More pressure means more energy with turbines.

Fuel efficiency is the best thing about nuclear energy.

Most power generating nuclear reactors boil water to make superheated steam about 500 psi.  You need superheated steam to run through steam turbines.  Any water droplets that would be present in saturated steam passing through turbine blades erodes the vanes and blades quickly, destroying the turbine in short order.

Some coal plants bring the steam to 3000 psi, Geothermal plants use steam in te 50 to 100 psi range.  Some geos need to use a working fluid other than water (like ammonia) due to heat source conditions.

Geos can put out a tremendous amount of nasty gasses...  Sulfer dioxide, CO2, and a slew of others are released as those gasses are in solution in the subterrainian water.

Obviously Hydro dams rivers and effects fish migration, fossil fuel releases CO2 and is non renewable.  Wind turbines makes noise that neighbors do not like in the rural locations.  The Audibon (sp) society has sued wind turbine farms in Cajon pass due to bird kills.

Nuclear's best facet is that none of the above problems apply.  Breeder reactors and especially fusion could be powered indefinitely.

[rshubert]

Originally posted by Meatwad
IMO the future of fuel rests in hydrogen.

I saw a working, moving hydrogen fuel cell vehicle--fully developed for producibility--at the Detroit auto show this January.  The GM people are setting it up as a modular vehicle, and it looks viable.  The only issue is hydrogen distribution, and the potential danger of having pressurized liquid hydrogen fuel escape in an accident.

I like the idea of a steam powered car, by the way.  If the condenser is under a serious vacuum, a steam system can be very efficient--much more so than any internal combustion engine.  Look up the numbers on the internet, if you like.  The real drawback to any new version of the Stanley Steamer (a real car from the early 1900s) is the delay in getting going, what with boiling the water and all.  I propose that we use a steam-hybrid system, with a small steam boiler and engine charging a storage battery.  The storage battery can be used for quick starts, and the steam plant can fire up and recharge the battery...similar to the diesel-electric plants used on submarines.  A singular advantage of using the steam plant is the ease of providing multi-fuel capability.

Any entrepreneurial takers out there?  We could get RICCCCHHH.

[Maverick]

Gosth,

You need more than sugar water and yeast to make ethanol. Those are just some of the ingredients for the process. In order for them to work you need someting to use to ferment. That would be some kind of starchy product, corn, potato's and so on. Now that means you have to have a FARM to get those items. Since a farm is required, it will also require fuel to run the equipment on the farm. The farm also has to grow food for consumptionj as you can't take all the corn to run cars and so on.

How many barrels of ethanol are you going to get per acre and how many yielsd per acre are you expecting vs how many millions of barrels per day will be needed to maintain the economy at it's current level? Lastly how much fuel will be needed to produce the crops, distill the ethanol, move it to distribution and store it for use?

Renewable? Maybe, but a viable possibility, not at this time.

The recycled restaraunt iol. Yep one McD's poduces about 250 to 250 gallons per month. That wouldn't supply the usage of more than a couple cars and certainly not nearly enough for a single larger truck. ( A semi uses that much in a day or so) Now how many McD's are there in your town? How many gas / diesel stations. How many THOUSANDS of gallons of fuel do those stations dispense in a week? Check the math there.

Now couple that with the fact that the oils still has to be provided to the restaraunt. It doesn't magically appear. It comes from a farm crop. likely corn oil. But wait, the corn is being used for ethanol isn't it. HHHMMM seems to be a conflict in supply here not to mention there is a cost in fuel to produce the vegatable oil again. I agree that the use of the oil is a good thing but some power plants also use it to make electricity so now you have an additional competition for a small level of product.

None of the vegetable products come close to providing the lubricants and other chemicals used in making modern things like plastic and other products that use petroleum. Still it shows some thoughts on the subject.

Frankly IMO we need something along the lines of the "Mr Fusion" reactor they stuck in the movies Back to the Future. Granted it was a fantasy situation they put in there, but less than 100 years ago space flight was a pure fantasy as well.

[Ghosth]

Maverick,

You could use virtually any product that contains sugar, or starch/carbs that can be converted to sugar. Anything from tree sap, corn squeezings, whole grain, sugar beets, Sugar Cane, potatoes, the list goes on & on.

Barley runs 2.25 $ a bushel, that much barley made into malt could easily produce 10 - 20 gallons of mash. Using a good yeast figure 20% alcohol production.

In a good year in my area Barley will run from 60 to 75 bushels per acre. Barley prices have not really changed in over 50 years. My dad got the same price for the last bushel of barley that he raised as he did for the first.


Granted it takes some time, to brew good hootch. But you don't need to worry about the farmers.
If you could buy a plastic film like Saran Wrap that would seperate Alcohol from water they'd make their own juice!

We don't need to reinvent the wheel.
But yes we could invent a few things that would seriously help.

BTW just in case your wondering where I'm coming from,  ask how the beer manufacturers make light beer.

They "filter" the excess alcohol out of it.


As to maintaining the economy at its current level. Quote me where I said we
need to switch over tommorow?

Alternatives are just that, alternatives.
Something to work towards.  If we had a true alternative that was 100% fuelproof, and cost effecient you think you'd still be burning gas? I know I wouldn't be.

As to the plastics side, Every gallon of gas that we do NOT make, leaves more oil for those materials that we can not live without. Like Plastics.

Although a lot of stuff is being made out of soybean meal, cornstarch, & other similar products.