NationStates Jolt Archive

For the past four years I've tossed around many ideas to solve the fuel crisis. Some of them I don't want to share yet cause I don't trust a single one of you... But I've come up with magnet, static, and sulfur powered cars. OK, so most of them sucked, but they could work. But I want to know what your ideas are. I've got a poll to see what is going to replace gasoline when it's run out.

of these choices, it would have to be hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells, the technology already exist so that they can be used, the cars just aren't being sold yet

I probably should have put other...

The bicycle.

Hydrogen. We have the technology and the means to produce it... We just haven't begun to do so, yet (thanks a lot, oil trust).

of these choices, it would have to be hydrogen-oxygen fuel cells, the technology already exist so that they can be used, the cars just aren't being sold yet

I meant what will become the main fuel source. Not what is just currently possible.

I dunno, I voted other. Electricity?

i am hoping that 15 years from now i will be "filling my tank" with hydrogen obtained from my own solar/wind powered "generator" and water from my own well.

I meant what will become the main fuel source. Not what is just currently possible.
i meant that it is currently possible for it to become the main fuel source, while i haven't seen any ideas that use the other means suggested. all it requires is not that much support, but less blocking by the petroleum industry

The most amusing answer i can see here is Horse urine.

Yeah, my idea for cars is "sweet".

The most amusing answer i can see here is Horse urine.
<smacks him over the back of the head and them gives him a cookie>

You guys easily forget that hydrogen is flammible and because it is so light, it seeps through metal. Not very safe eh?

The answer is very easy... Babies and convicted criminals.... unlimted supply, and clean for the environment....

There's also methane as fuel, derived from sewage. Gross, yes, and it smells terrible, but it works.

There's also methane as fuel, derived from sewage. Gross, yes, and it smells terrible, but it works.
yeah we can get all we need from titan, its just we have to go on titan-ese holy ground to get it, and fight some wars and such...

You guys easily forget that hydrogen is flammible and because it is so light, it seeps through metal. Not very safe eh?
i'm pretty sure they've found ways of dealing with it, they do already have cars that run on it.
and petrol is flammable :D

There's also methane as fuel, derived from sewage. Gross, yes, and it smells terrible, but it works.

Oh yeah, that's much better than gasoline! :rolleyes:

i'm pretty sure they've found ways of dealing with it, they do already have cars that run on it.
and petrol is flammable :D
ahh, both of you are kinda wrong... Pertrol is flammable yes, hydrogen is explosive and requires high pressure to move it properly, very very dangerous..

Oh yeah, that's much better than gasoline! :rolleyes:

Well, it is a never-ending source of energy...

i'm pretty sure they've found ways of dealing with it, they do already have cars that run on it.
and petrol is flammable :D

But hydrogen is explosive. Anyone remember the Hindenburg?

But hydrogen is explosive. Anyone remember the Hindenburg?
the hindenburg didn't explode, there were many necessary factors in oder for it to catch fire including a poor choice of doping material and static electricity

Exploded? (Raises one hand) Caught fire? (Raises the other) What's the difference?

the hindenburg didn't explode, there were many necessary factors in oder for it to catch fire including a poor choice of doping material and static electricity

no hydrogen is explosive, hidenburg, well I don't know much about hit.... but if you take a galleon of petrol and throw a match in it will light on fire, if you do that for hydrogen, it will blow up....

You guys easily forget that hydrogen is flammible and because it is so light, it seeps through metal. Not very safe eh?


(from unitednuclear.com)
There are materials call Hydrides that absorb Hydrogen like a sponge absorbs water. Typically, the tanks are filled with granulated Hydrides, and Hydrogen is pressurized into the material. Hydrides have many advantages over liquid & gas. One is that the density of the Hydrogen stored in the Hydride can be GREATER than that of liquid Hydrogen. This translates directly into smaller and fewer storage tanks.
Once the Hydride is "charged" with Hydrogen, the Hydrogen becomes chemically bonded to the chemical. Even opening the tank, or cutting it in half will not release the Hydrogen gas. In addition, you could even fire incendiary bullets through the tank and the Hydride would only smolder like a cigarette. It is in fact, a safer storage system than your Gasoline tank is.
Then how do you get the Hydrogen back out? To release the Hydrogen gas from the Hydride, it simply needs to be heated. This is either done electrically, using the waste exhaust heat, or using the waste radiator coolant heat.

no hydrogen is explosive, hidenburg, well I don't know much about hit.... but if you take a galleon of petrol and throw a match in it will light on fire, if you do that for hydrogen, it will blow up....
The hindenburg blew because the idiots decided to coat the balloon with thermite, which I believe burns hot enough to melt steel.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thermite

thermite reaction (a type of aluminothermic reaction) is one in which aluminium metal is oxidized by an oxide of another metal, most commonly iron oxide. (The name thermite is also used to refer to a mixture of two such chemicals.) The products are aluminium oxide, free elemental metal and a great deal of heat. The reactants are commonly powdered and mixed with a binder to keep the material solid and prevent separation.

Although the reactants are stable at room temperature, when they are exposed to sufficient heat to ignite (usually by igniting with a burning magnesium ribbon, but can be done through other methods such as potassium permanganate and glycerine or a sparkler), they burn with an extremely intense exothermic reaction. The products emerge as liquids due to the high temperatures reached (with iron (III) oxide, commonly 3000°C (5432°F) or more). Thermite contains its own supply of oxygen, and does not require any external source (such as air). Consequently, it cannot be smothered and may ignite in any environment (it will burn merrily underwater, for example), given sufficient initial heat. This, combined with the extremely high temperatures generated, makes thermite reactions extremely hazardous unless appropriate precautions are taken.

Thermite reactions have many uses. It was originally used for repair welding in-place such things as locomotive axle-frames where the repair can take place without removing the part from its installed location. Thermite grenades and bombs are used in combat as incendiary devices, able to burn through heavy armor or other fireproof barriers. Thermite can also be used for quickly cutting or welding metal such as rail tracks, without requiring complex or heavy equipment. The mixture has been sold for many years under the trademark name Thermit for use in railroad welding.

The hindenburg blew because the idiots decided to coat the balloon with thermite, which I believe burns hot enough to melt steel.
okay, but hydrogen is still explosive, I don't know much about hindenburg but I do know about chemistry.., and history, and science, and religon, well I KNOW ALL BOw BEFORE ZODD, anyway.......

no hydrogen is explosive, hidenburg, well I don't know much about hit.... but if you take a galleon of petrol and throw a match in it will light on fire, if you do that for hydrogen, it will blow up....
try throwing a match into a petrol tin that was mostly empty but has been sitting in the sun - it goes bang aswell.
you're referring to the fact that a gas is easier to aerate than a liquid as both substances still require oxygen to burn and how well they are combined with oxygen effects the rate at which they burn

I would like to see bio-diesel replace gasoline. I don't know if it can be produced in quantities that would make it substitute for fossil fuels or whether it would be a good way to augment the supply.

It's fun to drive around and have the diesel soot smell like french fries.

try throwing a match into a petrol tin that was mostly empty but has been sitting in the sun - it goes bang aswell.
you're referring to the fact that a gas is easier to aerate than a liquid as both substances still require oxygen to burn and how well they are combined with oxygen effects the rate at which they burn

okay here it is: petrol is flamable, hydrogen is explosive.. whats the difference...

petrol will only explode if there is suffiecient pressure to allow it(as does everything else), hydrogen on the other hand, no matter the amount, will always explode, while petrol will only light on fire, most of the time.

how the hell do you run a car using either electromagnets or static electrisity as a power plant?

I have my ways...

how the hell do you run a car using either electromagnets or static electrisity as a power plant?

my guess is a a big battery... also all electri cars use electromagnets....... or a fuel cell would power it too?

okay here it is: petrol is flamable, hydrogen is explosive.. whats the difference...

petrol will only explode if there is suffiecient pressure to allow it(as does everything else), hydrogen on the other hand, no matter the amount, will always explode, while petrol will only light on fire, most of the time.
the difference between burning and an explosion is that in an explosion, the oxidation occurrs much faster. and we were debating that hydrogen is hard to store safely, which was proved several posts ago.
the point i was trying to prove is that in order for anything to burn, there needs to be a ready source of oxygen molecules, as close to the burning molecules as possible, which is one of the things that makes petrol only flammable in most cases

okay here it is: petrol is flamable, hydrogen is explosive.. whats the difference...


The difference is in igniting either a liquid or a gas. Have you ever seen the American fuel/air weapon? It's like the poor man's nuclear.

Bioethanol!

Cars powered by extract from corn crops! :)

Bioethanol!

Cars powered by extract from corn crops! :)

okay ethanol doesn't work, it requires more energy to make it than it puts out, not to mention its dirty, also the government already supports it like crazy and its going no where....

my guess is a a big battery... also all electri cars use electromagnets....... or a fuel cell would power it too?

Close but not really...

Synthetic fossil fuels made through a process known as thermal depolymerization. You take trash, nuclear waste, animal carcasses and so on, and feed them into a machine that uses the raw material to make oil, natural gas, carbon and other useful byproducts.

Is that your type of fuel? Doesn't seem very environmently friendly...

HYDROGEN

Hydrogen is extremely inefficient! Why?

It takes about 5x its energy value to extract hydrogen from water. Currently, this energy must come from electricity.

All materials are permeable to hydrogen. Most materials are degraded by it. Hydrogen release from a perfectly sealed metal container is about 3-5% a day at normal temperature. Materials exposed to pure hydrogen for a long time become brittle (because of molecular reactions), especially metals.

Thus, it must be stored at low temperature (to slow down the leakage & molecular reactions).

These storage requirements make the production, handling and storage of hydrogen extremely inefficient in terms of energy.

Hydrogen is clearly not a solution. Even if we fix the storage problem by producing fuel cells that can trap hydrogen & be stored at normal temperatures (above 40F), we must still extract the hydrogen... and build the complex fuel cells (which require even more energy).


URANIUM

By the way, according to many scientists (including Hubert Reeves), we don't have much uranium left too. The world reserves are low and we don't find a lot of new reserves now. Looks like we have uranium for at most 100 years (by current estimates).

NATURAL GAS

And also: estimates of off-shore natural gas (ethane-methane) deposits were revised recently at... 1/5 of what was originally thought. We still have a lot of natural gaz available... if we dare drilling offshore. Which would definitely make the prices skyrocket.


NUCLEAR FUSION

There are three types of nuclear fusion.
- deuterium-tritium
- deuterium-deuterium (also called D-2)
- deuterium-helium

These substances are extremely rare on earth. Current research is made ONLY on deuterium-tritium fusion because it's the easiest one to achieve (theoricially). However, we are still FAR from achieving anything. So even if tomorrow morning somebody uses his plasma ring and achieves a nuclear fusion reaction that has a positive energy budget, we're still far from having an actual reactor. Then, there is the tritium problem. It is extremely rare; sure we have small amounts in nuclear labs, but what if we want to go commercial?

Then, if we reach the holy grail (deuterium-helium), we still have a deuterium contingency. That would give us 300 years of fusion reactors, which is not bad.

But this is still the stuff of science fiction, unfortunately.


COAL

But don't worry: we have coal for at least 5000 years. :D

Fart-power.

myrth

In the future all cars will be powered by sails. Or donkeys.

okay ethanol doesn't work, it requires more energy to make it than it puts out

I'd really like to see a source on that

For the past four years I've tossed around many ideas to solve the fuel crisis. Some of them I don't want to share yet cause I don't trust a single one of you... But I've come up with magnet, static, and sulfur powered cars. OK, so most of them sucked, but they could work. But I want to know what your ideas are. I've got a poll to see what is going to replace gasoline when it's run out.
Some plant by-product. They're already working on several.

Ethanol.

You'll see.

Ethanol.

You'll see.
Could be. Interesting, yes? :)

You can make ethanol from corn, beets, turnips, potatos and various byproducts (hay for instance). All you need is some starch, sugar or cellulose. However, if you're dealing with starch and cellulose, you have to first break the molecules. This is usually dones by grinding and boiling. Which use energy. But new research focus on enzymes. We'll see. Anyway, after your organic paste is ready, it is fermented (by yeast) & distilled (which uses even more energy).

I see ethanol as a way to STORE energy, not as a primary source. For example, let's say you have wind-powered generators. Their output is highly unpredictable. However, you can use this primary energy to extract chemical energy (ethanol for instance) and store it.

You can also make biodiesel from organic oils: peanut and sunflower are interesting oils to start with.


The main problem with these products (ethanol and biodiesel) is that we can't produce them in high volumes. It requires very extensive agriculture, which pollute a lot and deplete the soils. Especially the corn culture.
If we wanted to supply 75% of the US cars in ethanol, for instance, we'd have to literally COVER the US with corn and beets fields.

maybe the solution in the short term is not a new type of fuel, but to actually reduce the amount of cars on the road, maybe move products by frieght trains, oh and stop using big SUVs. And accept the fact that global warming is actually happening and do something about it - stupid USA nnot accepting the Kyoto agreement.

What's going to replace gasoline?

Soylent Green

It's PEOPLE!!!

Reduce the human population to 2 or 3 billion.
This way, we can feed most people with sustainable agriculture methods (unlike the current methods, which will lead us to major trouble in less than 20 years).

It's not just an energy crisis that's coming in the next 20-30 years. It's a GLOBAL RESOURCES crisis.
- energy
- fuel
- fish stocks
- drinking & irrigation water
- soil usable by agriculture
- pollution levels

The only REALLY sustainable practice we have right now is hydroelectricity. It is not perfect, but at least it doesn't deplete anything.

In response to the previous statement (it's too hot to press the quote button (98 in Detroit!)), why don't we send all of the smartest people into space? Then when all of the people that can't fend for themselves are gone, we'll come back and everything else will be peachy...

(I was being sarcastic for those that did not know...)

Rape seed will replace petrol! It's cheaper, easier and more environmentally friendly!

What's rape seed?

Any of the above plus Fortified Wine
Yay for Cars run on Alcamahol!

Rape seed will replace petrol! It's cheaper, easier and more environmentally friendly!

but it dosent sound as appealing

I feel it is vital that we replace all fossil fuels with renewable sources.

Run our cars on vegetable oil.

Replace coal, oil and gas plants with solar and hydro plants.

Not wind, it's too unpredictable.

This way, we shall have:

More oil for plastics et cetera.
More coal for steel production.
More gas for our heating.

We can fase out nuclear power over time.

mad cow

Nothing will be developed fast enough to replace gasoline before Peak Oil. The bicycle, horse and Nike pump will replace gasoline.

The bicycle, horse and Nike pump will replace gasoline.
Leather Nikes with natural rubber soles. :D No petrol means no plastics, vinyl, synthetic rubber or nylon.

Methane is a strong front runner. There are vast reserves of methane hydrate just under the ocean floors. It's just a matter of finding an economical way to extract it.

And there is also this:

http://www.innovations-report.com/html/reports/energy_engineering/report-33555.html

Mind you, methane has its enviromental problems too.

Geothermal energy could become vital soon, if we can find a way to use it.

Leather Nikes with natural rubber soles. :D No petrol means no plastics, vinyl, synthetic rubber or nylon.

No!!!!

You can take our cars, but you'll never take our NIKEEESSS!!!!!!!![/melgibson]

Yea I know. Peak Oil sucks.

Leather Nikes with natural rubber soles. :D No petrol means no plastics, vinyl, synthetic rubber or nylon.

This is why we must wean ourselves off the petrol habit.

Geothermal energy could become vital soon, if we can find a way to use it.
True! And people must realize that the "low-energy geotermal" source is available everywhere... under our feet. At a decent cost.

There has been a few experiences in Canada.

In Rouyn, they have dug a 1000 ft well under a hospital. They blow cold air down that hole, and the air comes back at a 20 degrees celcius temperature. Ideal for maintaining a constant temperature inside, even in winter, without the needs for energy-consuming heating.

In Toronto, many buildings downtown are air conditioned by "negative geotermal energy". That is, they send hot air through a long pipe at the bottom of lake Ontario, and the air comes back colder (16 degrees). The air is then blown inside the building. Perfect AC without the use of coolants, or fluid pumps and compressors.

These energy exchange systems work very well.

But high-energy geothermal is available only at specific locations, though.

True! And people must realize that the "low-energy geotermal" source is available everywhere... under our feet. At a decent cost.

There has been a few experiences in Canada.

In Rouyn, they have dug a 1000 ft well under a hospital. They blow cold air down that hole, and the air comes back at a 20 degrees celcius temperature. Ideal for maintaining a constant temperature inside, even in winter, without the needs for energy-consuming heating.

In Toronto, many buildings downtown are air conditioned by "negative geotermal energy". That is, they send hot air through a long pipe at the bottom of lake Ontario, and the air comes back colder (16 degrees). The air is then blown inside the building. Perfect AC without the use of coolants, or fluid pumps and compressors.

These energy exchange systems work very well.

But high-energy geothermal is available only at specific locations, though.

Yet more proof that Canada is a far better country than the U.S.

okay here it is: petrol is flamable, hydrogen is explosive.. whats the difference...

petrol will only explode if there is suffiecient pressure to allow it(as does everything else), hydrogen on the other hand, no matter the amount, will always explode, while petrol will only light on fire, most of the time.

Firstly, hydrogen is so light it dissipates when released and does not pool up like gasoline. Gasoline is heavy, so it soaks in and stays on the ground, increasing the probability of another fire.

Secondly, hydrogen does not explode, period.

Secondly, hydrogen does not explode, period.

Sounds pretty accurate, considering in Standard Grade chemistry, a test for hydrogen was to see if it burned with a *POP* sound.

If it did, it was hydrogen.

No explosions.

I wonder what the Hindenburg sounded like...

Firstly, hydrogen is so light it dissipates when released and does not pool up like gasoline. Gasoline is heavy, so it soaks in and stays on the ground, increasing the probability of another fire.

Secondly, hydrogen does not explode, period.
Depends how the hydrogen is employed, if we go for subpar ideas, every vehicle crash will turn into the "Hindenburg incident"

We use Qurbines: http://www.quasiturbine.com/

Now we burn cheap, low octane gas at half the rate and a fraction of the pollution, and on top of that we use the space saved by Qurbines to make the cars hybrid electric.

If its still a problem, we force people to get over fashionable looks and bring back the Dymaxion car.

In the mean time, we irrigate an area totalling 1/7th of Arizona to use as algae pools to efficiently produce biofuels (algae kicks corns ass) to supply the US.

Just for the hell of it we make a massive network of bullet trains to alleviate air traffic.

The weirdest WORKING energy source that I've seen, and by far, is the STIRLING ENGINE.

It works by tapping into very small differences in temperatures.

So basically they work by using... nothing.

At first it looked like a bozo's dream for a perpetual movement machine... but actual Stirling Engines were built and proved to be effective.

They problem is that their size doesn't grow linearily but to the square. So to double the output you'd have to build a 4x bigger engine.

Actual uses are in submarines, and as "unkillable" backup energy sources.

Links time!
Model (small) engines:
http://www.stirlingengine.com/

Wikipedia Entry with lots of links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine

'The Holy Grail' would be controllable nuclear fusion. Unfortaunantly, the only way known to us to release nuclear fusion(today) is uncontrollable(which ALWAYS ends up in a big boom and a mushroom cloud).

I voted other, because US politics together with Saudi interest block Hydrogen. In short term Japanese developments like we see in the street today under form of a Toyota Prius, or EU cars are a good thing while waiting a regime change in the US.

I voted other, because US politics together with Saudi interest block Hydrogen. In short term Japanese developments like we see in the street today under form of a Toyota Prius, or EU cars are a good thing while waiting a regime change in the US.
OK cool. Let's extract hydrogen by using petrol- and gas- powered electricity plants. Wait a minute. D'oh.

OK. Let's use hydro electricity, then. What? We need to build 500 more centrals to produce a sufficient amount of electricity to crack all this hydrogen? Wait. We don't have any river left. D'oh.

http://ieee.ca/millennium/ballard/ballard_info.html

http://ieee.ca/millennium/ballard/ballard_info.html
I stopped reading during the first sentence:
Hydrogen fuel, which can be obtained from fuels such as natural gas, methanol, or petroleum, (...)

And by the way, before you put the hydrogen into the cell, you have to extract it first.

Hydrogen is our most plausible solution. It's cheap, easy to create (from water) and either through combustion or fuel cells is efficient.

Go light elements!

While hydrogen might be a solution to the FUEL crisis, it might very well make the ENERGY crisis worse.

Not if you use totally renewable energy sources such as hydroelectric or better still solar or wind to do the extraction.

Still sounds like a lot of work to get some "gas"...

Vegetable oil, along with electricity produced from a variety of renewable resources, possibly as well as nuclear power.

It's already quite easy and inexpensive to convert a diesel vehicle to run on vegetable oil. It's probably not a valid long term solution, but would be a helpful transitory step.

Horses.

Think about it. They are perfect in almost every way. There are only a few problems to work out:

Cargo space. That's what carriages are for.
Poop. Fertilizer industry.
ANd finally, speed. A little genetic engineering will take care of that. :)

I saw on a program recently that one of the auto makers has developed an ICE that will use liquid hydrogen. Much lighter and more efficient than fuel cells. They're testing them with special racing cars right now, but supposedly they could be made ready for consumers by the end of the decade, I think.

I'd go back to horses and carriages. Ah the good old days. Just smell the fresh air!

walking

Anti-matter will power our warp engines. We will also need crystalized dilithium to regulate the reaction.

Producing industrial ethanol by oxidising ethene needs lots of energy since producing ethene needs lots of oil, and two lots of cracking (which needs rare metals and high temperature/pressure)

And since it's produced from oil it has all the problems of running-out ness.

Most ethanol projects in Brazil mix ethanol with normal petrol with ethanol produced by fermemtation which needs less energy :)

Anyway, Hydrogen's the future, although I don't agree with fusion. God knows what all that Helium would do to the upper atmosphere...

While hydrogen might be a solution to the FUEL crisis, it might very well make the ENERGY crisis worse.

Which is why we need more renewable energy to fund eletrolysis plants, pronto.

Go Solar Power Satellites!

I'm guessing panic will replace gasoline. At least at first.

Go Solar Power Satellites!
That's actually an interesting idea.
I wonder what kind of research was done on the subject.

That's actually an interesting idea.
I wonder what kind of research was done on the subject.

NASA and the Japanese are doing research into it, but because it's still cheaper to just pump oil out of the ground no private companies are considering it either. There's also problems with how much eletricity nations would get, since the best orbit would be a sun-synchrous polar one that would cross many national borders.

It's a difficult solution, but promising.

I think fuel cells will replace gas. In fact I am certain. Private American companys have been working hard to make fuel cells and its estimated that within 15 years the art will be perfected and by 2020 cars with fuel cell technology will be standard.

I think fuel cells will replace gas. In fact I am certain. Private American companys have been working hard to make fuel cells and its estimated that within 15 years the art will be perfected and by 2020 cars with fuel cell technology will be standard.
Fuel cells would be great. There might be one problem with them. I don't think we can get an electric Chopper to sound right. They'll all sound like BMWs...mmmmmmmmmmm.

But, it depends wether you're talking medium or long-very long term.

In the medium term its more fossils (liquid gas) but long-very long term (depends on research funding) is fuel cells.

Legs. Walk or ride a bike.

How bout something that'll help the human race?