What will the fuel of the future be?

[EEEEeeee36]

Originally Posted by domoarigato

I think vegetable oil will be the next fuel. It can be used in high-compression engines, i.e. diesel, with some modifications and can always be extracted from varying vegetables. That would be the least expensive alternative to converting millions of existing gasoline-powered cars to diesel-type engines running on vegetable oil.

Vegetable oil is great... except that at the current production all of the vegetable-oil bio-diesel in the world it would only replace 15% of the entire worlds current diesel usage... that isn't even coming close to replacing all of the worlds gasoline cars. There just isn't enough product from the source to replace the usage of the world right now (or ever for that matter).

[EEEEeeee36]

Originally Posted by Kompressor

Fuck hydrogen. I went to this presentation a couple years back from Ford. The guy said it would actually increase pollution most of the time if it was used today.

Yeah... all that water vapor going into the air. That would suck big time...

[EEEEeeee36]

Originally Posted by BMW-Angel

Pfft fuck that, I'm walkin' everywhere..... Give a hoot! Don't pollute!



Neo - where'd you hear about peaking out on oil? I know that we're eventually gonna run out of fossil fuels but I haven't heard anything about it being that fast...

I thought it was less than 70 years myself. At the current rate of consumption it was around 70 years, but with country's like China soon to outpace the US in automobile usage, those oil reserves will be depleted even faster (like 40-50 years or less).

[EEEEeeee36]

Here's my take: there is no "silver bullet". It's going to be a combination of things. For smaller vehicles, it may be a combination of hybrid hydrogen. Larger vehicles it may be bio-diesel. Mid-size it may be pure hydrogen.

Bio-Diesel: almost the perfect fuel. Incredible mileage; comes from a natural renewable resource; 0% Green house gas emissions; 0% sulfur emissions; 80% less emissions of other gasses than gasoline exhaust. Cheap. Cons: Simply not enough of it! All of the bio-diesel in the world could only replace 15% of the current diesel usage.. and while that ratio could go up, it certainly could never replace all of the gasoline usage. That being said, this is my favorite argument for bio-diesel:

The Vegetarian Muscle Car | Bio-Impala | MTV
Clip 2 - bio-diesel Impala smokes a Lambo!

E85 Ethanol/E100 Ethanol: An awesome fuel source! Same benefits as bio-diesel - naturally renewable with more and more sources coming out with it all the time. Completely clean burning, and being 105 octane/115 octane allows very powerful engines to be made with it running higher compression! The problem again is the same with bio-diesel though; there are simply not enough resources making it to support the current worlds fuel needs.

Hybrid: Paired with either bio-diesel or hydrogen IC engines, these power sources get incredible economy - over 1000 miles per tank with bio-diesel! The issue is that they are expensive to produce and the batteries are extremely heavy, taking away from some of the economy. Lighter lithium ion and polymer batteries are being developed however that could lighten the load and make them more efficient. Also if the point is to not use gasoline, then an alternative IC fuel method would have to be developed.

Hydrogen: BMW has already developed a hydrogen tank that is completely air tight and can keep hydrogen in it's liquid form for direct injection. The hydrogen 7 series that they have is making over 230hp and 250ft/lb tq. It IS an 6.0 V12, so that is not all that impressive, but of course it is still in it's early phases The problem: hydrogen has almost 3x the power per weight as gasoline...that means the same 'poundage' of hydrogen is 3x as powerful as gasoline, HOWEVER hydrogen is also so much lighter than gasoline that it is 4x LESS powerful per volume in it's liquid form. SO, you would have to carry a larger volume of hydrogen in your car, and you would have to inject a larger volume of hydrogen into an IC engine to get the same power as gasoline.... BMW is currently working on a turbo charged variant that would put an IC hydrogen engine at an efficiency of 50% - a current IC NA gasoline engine only has an efficiency of 33% or so. Still, the range of travel of such vehicles is still limited due to the volume of hydrogen needed. Hydrogen also does not need "Fusion" to be harnessed; it is being done with electrolysis now using naturally harnessed electricity to separate it out. Like I mentioned earlier, in Sweden they already have solar-powered hydrogen refueling stations that are completely self sustaining and separate the hydrogen from purified water on the spot!

Hydrogen Fuel Cell: In my eyes, the most viable answer. Electric engines have a mechanical efficiency that is more than double that of any IC engine. Also, hydrogen is used in a more efficient way, causing it to not be used as fast. Aside from those arguments alone, electric engines can be as powerful or more than IC engines, and you can even have 4 small electric motors (one on each wheel hub) controlling not only power, but traction and suspension of the vehicle. Doing this also eliminates issues with driveline and so you are able to develop more creative chassis configurations. On top of that, you can pair these types of technologies with things like solar power so that they hydrogen consumption from the fuel cell is even slower. IMHO the easiest, most cost effective alternative to gasoline. Also the cleanest.

Electric only: Most of the same arguments as HFC. You would have to plug in your car at night to charge it, but it would be like having a fresh tank of 250 miles available every time you left home! The mechanical efficiency is so much higher that it would only take about $300 worth of electricity per year to power a vehicle like that...and with nuclear, wind, and water power sources creating a lot of our power grid's power the electricity is naturally renewable. In fact, there are Green Built homes now that have either a solar panel or a wind-powered turbine that generate enough power to sell power back to the grid! Imagine having a 3' tall turbine on the back of your house that provided all the electricity you needed for your home, AND your car. That would be awesome (and could be done RIGHT NOW).

Solar?: It's there. Issues are the ability to harness enough power to move an electric car with passengers and cargo. It just isn't being done right now. It could be a good add-on or supplement technology, but no one has made a solar panel that could charge as fast as a large electric motor could use it.

My vote? Electric cars, either powered by HFC or simply charged at home. They are nearly 100% mechanically efficient, have more options to re-charge, and are more powerful! They have 100% of the engine's torque available instantly! Gotta love that. Could I give up the scream of my engine for the whine of a electric motor? If it pushed my ass into the back seat I could!

[White318i]

Well said,
Electric unfortunatly still has one rather large draw back that nobody seems to want to mention.
What do we do with all the batteries when they eventually fail?

The estimated lifespan of a Prius battery pack is 100,000km (60K/miles) or 10 years. Toyota warrants them for 6 years I believe. The replacment cost is AUD$ 6500 just for parts then there is installation. Like any battery device you have to replace all batteries at the same time or the lifespan on the new ones will be greatly shortened.

Then what do we do with all of the old batteries? At the moment they are using Nickle Metal Hydride batteries and Recycling of them is still Very expensive and they are not 100% recycleable.
close to the cost of production.
Lithium ion technology is coming along relitivly quickly, these batteries are lighter smaller and will be more powerful. Eventually these will replace NMH though estimates are around the year 2010 before they will be. These are a little better for recycling.

As for throwing you back in your seat check out the TESLAR roadster!
It even has quite a dominating roar as it powers off...

http://www.teslamotors.com/

Luke.

[E30stain]

right now its s tie between ethanol and electric... i reckon while batteries are gettin better and better ethanol will be used until they are cheaper... oh and theres huge amounts of evidence that says we contribute so minimally to global warming that it should be considered a natural phenomenon... when i hear the i think, sounds good, why the fuck did we have an ice-age? im gonna enjoy petrol while i can but otherwise i like electric cars :P ive seen videos of setups that were cheaper than modding an engine to get same power and jus rippin huge burnouts up the street starting at 0rpm... no clutch no gears, not much out of the whole car that can really break down and cause much trouble.

[e36mmm]

as long as the cars sound the same and power loss doesnt occur, lolss ill be more than happy

[CraigMakDaddy]

I see the future being with Hydrogen powered cars. They will soon be able to put out serious power, possibly having better horse power and torque than current gasoline cars. The technological hurdle we need to overcome is how to produce hydrogen efficiently. At the moment, it takes more power to create the hydrogen fuel than we actually get out of the fuel to make a vehicle move. It also costs a huge amount of money to create the hydrogen fuel compared to refining gasoline. Once we figure that out, it shouldn't be a problem at all. Hydrogen powered cars would actually be able to suppliment electricity into the power grid and operate as portable generators when the power goes out. Thus making hydrogen cars a double whammy of benefits. Zero emmisions AND extre electricity production. This all hinges on scientists finding a cheap, efficient means of producing hydrogen though. It may even be possible to put the hydrogen generating unit on the car making fuel stations a thing of the past. It would literally transform the automobile into something completely different than it is now. Electric cars will do nothing but simply sap power from our already stressed power grids. Emmissions are simply shifted from the tail pipe to a power plant. They arn't actually reduced when using a full electric vehicle.

[CraigMakDaddy]

Some things to know about gasoline. There is a known oil source in the ocean around the gulf of Mexico near florida that has more oil in it than all of Saudi Arabia. It only requires advanced under sea drilling technology which we currently have. A US company is currently getting ready to spend $4 Billion Dollars to set up drilling there. Once complete the USA would become the new source of oil and oil supply would literally double with two major sources instead of just one.

The USA is already the worlds largest source of coal which can also easily be converted into oil if we ever need to do so.

There is stuff in Colorado called oil shell. It is a solid rock with oil trapped within it. There is enough of this rock like substance in one mine in colorado alone to equal all of saudi arabias oil.

The lesson learned today is that there are many other HUGE sources of oil on this planet. They just happend to be a little bit more expensive to exploit than oil that can be pumped out of the ground. If these are utilized we will have enough oil for the next several hundred years at current cunsumption levels. And cunsumption will probably go down as technology advances.

[fairweatherpunk]

Hydrogen and fuell cells may be the future. The biggest problem right now is that hydrogen is extremely volatile and unstable. Even more so than gasoline. I'd say in the next ten years fossil fuels will going the way of the carburetor. If combustion engines are still going to be around there are many different replenishable ways to make ethanol fuel. One guy even made ethanol out of beat juice. It wasn't cost effective but like the brazillian guy said, you can make it out of sugar cane, and the U.S. is looking to make it out of switch grass instead of corn. A possible source for combustion engines.

[Highboosted]

Diesel. Bio-diesel more specifically. ULSD sucks ass.