Re: Big rigs soon free of fossil fuels?

[sluggish]

The real cost is that when you use food sources to create fuel you drive the cost of food up and the delicate balance sustenance/cost is upset and millions of people around the world starve to death.


or not

[john9001]

long haul trucking is dead, a freight train can haul one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel and it only needs two people to operate the whole train. Trucks will only be used for short trips from the rail depot to destination.

[FrodeMk3]

Fake demand of resources.  I.E. Not a real viable alternative but one which the government is going to spend OUR MONEY on anyway.

The real cost is that when you use food sources to create fuel you drive the cost of food up and the delicate balance sustenance/cost is upset and millions of people around the world starve to death.


or not

Subsidized farms, many of which are growing acres of weeds, or surplus crops, which have very little market value, won't ding the economic balance that actual-producing farms' have, and would be a better way to spend the tax dollars' that already go more or less to waste. Just tell them to grow the crop that is best suitable for your alternative fuel needs.

LS, we already are tending to use more and more ethanol; I don't think that would be fueling a false demand that would lead to economic collapse. And if we go with a free market model, the price of refined gasoline is climbing high enough that shortly, ethanol will be able to compete with Petroleum in the market.

[FrodeMk3]

long haul trucking is dead, a freight train can haul one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel and it only needs two people to operate the whole train. Trucks will only be used for short trips from the rail depot to destination.

Where to start?

Right off the top, Rail freight is slower. Any mountainous region puts' rail shipments' behind as much as 24 hours' behind truck-borne freight, possibly more.

A large enough train, under the right circumstances, can move freight-per-ton as much as what you've stated; That is under the most ideal conditions, however (Station-to-station in the great plains, for example.) Trains' over the Rocky Mountains' or the Appalachians' won't even come close.

There might be two guys' on the train itself, but by the time you factor in switchmen, maintenance, etc. the crew grows.

Purchasing land to expand train routes' has several restrictions, and as well, is pretty much limited to existing routes. Therefore, much of this countries' freight is gonna be trucked for a looonnnggg time to come.

[crockett]

Volvo unveils trucks that run on just about everything, except diesel! In early march at the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference in Washington D.C. volvo officials showcased 7 trucks that run on everything but fossil based diesel. These trucks are all carbon dioxide neutral which means they don't add any cabon dioxide to the air through the combustion process. Here are the fuels these trucks can run on with little or no modifications necessary.
1. Biodiesel
2. Synthetic diesel
3. Methanol/ethanol
4. Dimethylether
5. Biogas
6. Hydrogen and biogas
7. Biogas and biodiesel
Pretty cool stuff but still a few years down the road. The main problems to work out are fuel availability, supply and demand, quality and blends of the fuels, and of course the almighty government has to approve then figure out appropriate taxes and licenses for these trucks.

All of them will be illegal and cause the DOT to give you a ticket. That is until the govt can start charging tax on the fuel. In the land of the free it's only ok to burn taxed fuel if you drive on a public road. People get fined if they get caught with biodiesel, same thing if you try to burn marine diesel in a vehicle on the road.

[WWhiskey]

long haul trucking is dead, a freight train can haul one ton of freight 423 miles on one gallon of fuel and it only needs two people to operate the whole train. Trucks will only be used for short trips from the rail depot to destination.

really well then why are they still there? o and i guess the short distance truckers dont amount too much, they just bring the food to the store, or build the roads or the rails that are already filling too capacity with freight trains now! and how are they going too build the new railroads? in wheel barrows?
Remenber one thing,, if you eat it, drink it, watch it, drive it, brush your teeth with it, sleep in it, or on it,IT GOT THERE IN OR ON A TRUCK!!

[Holden McGroin]

Rudolf ran his first engine on peanut oil.

The diesel has always been an alternate fuel engine.

[wrongwayric]

None of those fuels are illegal and actually are encouraged by the government as viable alternatives. What part of "carbon dioxide neutral" did you miss in my original statement? Did you miss the part were i also said the government had to figure out how to tax them? Something else you miss is the fact that the same bio diesel elements can be used to replace the manufacture of the current petroleum based products, also with little to no retooling required. The benefits of more crops/plants being grown and less emissions and dependance on fossil fuels really will out weigh just about every arguement you can come up with. As for the food situation that will be another thing that will have to be regulated unfortunately, and i can see your point there. I'd say sufficient food sources over fuel would definately be a priority thing to work on. Once again this would be a supply and demand issue but IMO the supply should error on the side of food staples rather than fuel. It's better to have less fuel than not enough food that's for sure. A horse can survive on grass i can't. No pot smokers need to reply to that last part.

[LYNX]

It's already been done.  I mean sorting out other fuels like water that turns to hydrogen.  There's a cottage industry starting to grow around the "hybred".  For a few hundred bucks you can buy or make a hydrogen cell of your own.  This is fed into the air intake and helps your fuel burn better = more MPG.  Depending on the cell mpg increases are available from as little as 10% to 100%.  I think 30 to 40% seems to be the average across this fledgling industry.

A guy called Stan Meyer claims to have gone one step further by driving coast to coast on 23 gallons of water.  His claim is he made a new spark plug "capacitor" affair that by means of fluctuating current destroyed water turning it into hydrogren and oxygen at the combustion chamber= water powered.

Hes dead by the way  Food poisoning. 

How do you tax rain water?

I'll post a link to one of these Hydrogen cell makers.  I'm not endorsing the product their punting just that this site has 2 Stan Meyer Youtube films.....watch and learn.

http://waterpoweredcar.com/stanmeyer.html


Another guy John Kanzuis also made salt water burn with radio waves.  His search was for a cancer cure....truelly amazing. (be sure to google this guy) The world will owe him a massive 

Added links.  If the first film doesn't do it for you the second will blow your socks off.

http://ionlife-healthemail.blogspot.com/2008/02/john-kanzius-putting-power-over-cancer.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BkzCSNTYWXg


Theres some Ausie's who's name I forget make a generator that kicks out 5X more energy than it consumes...amazing. 

Now if you really want to knock yourself out on alternative energy google or youtube anti gravity.  Especially in the fields of electromagnatizm.  Check out an excentric by the name of John Searl and his SEG.  Russians partly replicated this devise in one of their Uni's.  It didn't take off but it did get lighter with a visable Magnetic Hue.

Look up Hutchison effect.  Telser and Tesler. 
Welcome to energy twilight zone that governments are refusing to fund experiments in. 

[lasersailor184]

There's this other guy called lynx who believed all of the claims that went against all laws of Thermodynamics and Physics where energy was generated for free.