Fuel Efficient and Alternative Fuel transportation

[Jimbo 0]

Come on, Bill. This thread was tailor made for you!

I have to admit, lately I've been somewhat fascinated by the idea of alternative fuel and fuel efficient transportation. The current gas prices certainly have something to do with it, but mostly it's just new to me.

So, I'm wondering, what will be the evolution of these vehicles? As far as I know the current technologies are as follows:

ethonal

diesel and biodiesel

compressed natural gas

gas/electric

electric

hydrogen/electric (burning hydrogen)

hydrogen

What else? Did I forget anything? Anyhow, following is a quick rundown of the technology as I understand it.

From what I understand, pure ethonal is out, but can be used to suppliment gasoline.
Diesel is good and I'd like to see more of it. I understand that they're working on a 'soot filter' to clean the emissions.
Compressed natural gas seems to be popular with fleet vehicles, though I've never seen a consumer car running on CNG, or a public station to dispense the product.
Gas/electric hybrids seem to be gaining ground, albiet slowly.
Pure electric, while neat in concept seems to suffer from limited range.
Hydrogen/electric (an internal combustian engine burning hydrogen) - I don't understand enough about this technology to comment.
And finally, pure hydrogen - sounds nifty - but is it really practical? Aside from the problem of producing hydrogen, what do those of us in the colder climates do when our hydrogen cars turn the roads into the worlds largest slip and slide?

What about widespread adoption? It is my belief that to gain widespread adoption of what I'll simply call alternative-fuel transportation, that we need to keep the cars we have today, but replace the power-plant. Not many people want the very basic models that comprise the gas/electric hybrid fleet - probably the most environmentally friendly of what is available today. Why can't we have larger cars with more power and more luxery? I realize that these cars wouldn't get the milage that a tiny car would, but any improvement is better than none, right? Diesel seems the logical choice to fill that gap, but I think that there's a stigma attached to diesel that it's noisy and only meant for school busses and OTR trucks. The other technologies seem to far off right now to really comment on.

That's my mostly coherent ramblings on the subject of alternative fuel vehicles. What do you think?

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
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[billvon 3,131]

>ethonal

Not a real solution. It takes more energy (fertilizer, processing) to make ethanol than you get back when it's burned. Farmers like it though, and it makes a good oxygenate, so it's politically valuable.

>diesel and biodiesel

Biodiesel is a pretty good solution; very simple and cheap processing, easy to grow fuel crops and cars today run on it. By 2010 the emissions requirements in place will result in diesel cars about as clean as 1995-circa gas cars. And because of the inherent benefits of diesels (no pumping losses) they will always be more efficient than gas powered cars.

>compressed natural gas

Another good medium term solution. We have it, cars run on it now (the Honda Civic GX is a natural gas car) the distribution network is in place and we can make it if we want to. (You combine hydrogen and carbon dioxide and get methane and water.)

>gas/electric

Good stopgap solution to stretch our remaining oil reserves. These are going to be wildly popular in the coming years. I predict that in ten years over 50% of cars will have at least a mild hybrid system. Hybrids will eventually come to be synonymous with high performance and high gas mileage.

>electric

Probably the ultimate long term solution. Right now you could build an electric car that would blow the doors off any gas car and have a 250 mile range; the battery pack (lithium polymer with a supercap surge bank) would cost upwards of $100K. Give it ten years and that may be down to $10K at which point it will be practical. Combine that with evolutionary changes in solar (say, another 25% increase in efficiency and the continuation of the drop in price per watt) and you could generate all the power you need to run both your house and car from your own roof.

>hydrogen

Can't really get excited over hydrogen. We don't have any, it's expensive to produce, it's hard to store and transport, and it's a lot more dangerous than methane. And even if we did have some, we are better off using it to stretch our gas/oil supplies through hydrocracking or reformation of CO2 into methane.

[sundevil777 102]

Honda bought a company that makes natural gas "appliances", like a filling station for your vehicle for your house that has natural gas service.

The Civic hybrid is just the start...

People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am

[quade 4]

Any thoughts about turbine/electric? Any advantages there?

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[nacmacfeegle 0]

Diesel and biodiesel....My car runs (Audi A4) on these, I fill up with a biodiesel blend at a local service station and get about 5-10% improvement in MPG and the car feels a bit more torquey. Reportedly I should get improved performance, but I can't measure it accurately.
I'm about to convert my other Audi to dual fuel petrol/compressed gas, I'll let you know how that one goes.

Of course the real solution is to have a reliable, efficient, integrated public transport system. Something we don't have in the UK.

--------------------

He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Jimbo 0]

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Hybrids will eventually come to be synonymous with high performance and high gas mileage.

It is at this point that I believe the gas/electric hybrid will really take off. The majority of car buyers in the US right now just aren't willing to sacrifice the room, luxery, and performance of their gasoline powered vehicles. Really, who can blame them?

That's my $0.02, as I said before, I'd love to hear more.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[Jimbo 0]

Quote

Diesel and biodiesel....My car runs (Audi A4) on these, I fill up with a biodiesel blend at a local service station and get about 5-10% improvement in MPG and the car feels a bit more torquey.

5-10% improvement in MPG over what? Gasoline, or traditional diesel?

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[mr2mk1g 10]

I don't see the problem with diesel and moving to biodiesel. There are tonnes of diesel vehicles in the UK and Europe and they work fine. They have about as much power as petrol cars and actually have more torque so are better for things like trucks (in fact I think you'd have a job finding a petrol truck/tractor/industrial vehicle round here).

The technology for biodiesel is just about there. You can even run conventional diesel cars on it with no need for a conversion of any kind. I welcome the day when we all run round in cars run on a fuel we grow in the fields we currently pay our farmers to "set-asside".

[Jimbo 0]

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I don't see the problem with diesel and moving to biodiesel.

As I understand it, one of the biggest problems with moving to diesel today - at least in the US - is that the emissions don't meet even today's standards. However, as I mentioned in my original post, it seems that there are a few ongoing projects aimed at overcoming that problem. I think that (bio)diesel would be a good gap fuel between conventional gasoline engines and gas/electric hybrids.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[mr2mk1g 10]

That's true - but I do not think that the average US citizen is terribly worried about emissions just yet. If they were they wouldn't be driving round in the massive trucks they do.

[Jimbo 0]

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That's true - but I do not think that the average US citizen is terribly worried about emissions just yet.

The average US citizen may not be, but the US government is. It is my understanding that most of the european diesels are too dirty to run in the US. Bill, is this correct?

Thanks,
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Some people would suggest that the US gov't isn't too worried about emissions either (if they were they would actually have ratified the kyoto agreement, wouldn't let their citizens drive round in massive trucks and curb the ammount industry does to produce airborn polutants).

Some might also say that their reluctance to introduce diesel might have less to do with emissions and more to do with the powerful gas lobby.

At least that's how some people's argument would go. I can't say I know enough about the gov'ts internal workings to either agree or disagree, but I do note the argument.

[nacmacfeegle 0]

The improvement is over normal diesel, Jim.
TDI units as used by Audi, VW etc will take biodiesel without engine modifications.
Diesel engines give far superior mpg to petrol engines (comparing similar power output), especially true when comparing normal sized cars.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[Jimbo 0]

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Diesel engines give far superior mpg to petrol engines (comparing similar power output), especially true when comparing normal sized cars.

Thanks, that's what I thought, but just wanted to be sure. Any idea why the biodiesel fuel is more efficient than conventional diesel?

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
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[nacmacfeegle 0]

"The technology for biodiesel is just about there." http://www.rixbiodiesel.co.uk/
Hey Matt, this outfit runs my local station, and I am already running their blend with some reasonable results.

Jim, I don't know, check out the Rix site linked to above and see what they say.
I'm basing my 5-10% improvement claims over a relatively short period of use comparing say a couple of tankfuls of regular diesel with maybe 1/2 a dozen tankfills of biodiesel. This is on a relatively new car to me so maybe I'm not "trying the engine out" as much now I'm more used to it.

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He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. Thomas Jefferson

[kallend 2,174]

Quote

Quote

That's true - but I do not think that the average US citizen is terribly worried about emissions just yet.

The average US citizen may not be, but the US government is. It is my understanding that most of the european diesels are too dirty to run in the US. Bill, is this correct?

Thanks,
Jim

I'm not Bill, but I know that the UK has a more strict regulation on particulate emissions from diesels than does the US.

...

The only sure way to survive a canopy collision is not to have one.

[Jimbo 0]

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I'm not Bill, but I know that the UK has a more strict regulation on particulate emissions from diesels than does the US.

Interesting. I saw a special on PBS the other night about alternative-fuel vehicles (that's sort of what piqued my interest) - and they suggested that the european countries has less strict regulations regarding emissions than the US. They cited that as the reason that most of the euro-diesels aren't yet making headway into the US auto market. Now, they spoke of the european countries as a whole - not individually, so it's entirely possible that England does have stricter requirements than we do.

-
Jim

"Like" - The modern day comma
Good bye, my friends. You are missed.

[mr2mk1g 10]

Quote

so it's entirely possible that England does have stricter requirements than we do.

But we have a lot of diesels... so if they're legal here they should be legal there?

Perhaps "particulate emissions" regulations are stricter, but they may be different to "emissions" regulations. Which could explain why they are allowed here but not in the US. I'm just speaking off the top of my head there though so I may well be wrong.

[billvon 3,131]

> It is my understanding that most of the european diesels are too
> dirty to run in the US. Bill, is this correct?

Yep. One problem is that there are catalytic converters for diesels, but they need low-sulfur diesel fuel that (thus far) is not available. There is pending legislation to require low sulfur diesel by 2010. Ironically biodiesel is sulfur-free and would work with catalytic converters.

[billvon 3,131]

>Any thoughts about turbine/electric? Any advantages there?

Turbines are a lot less efficient than recips unless you take advantage of their waste heat. That's why dual-cycle gas turbine power plants are relatively efficient but turboprops are less efficient than a turbocharged recip.

[quade 4]

Hmmm, I would have thought the issue was mode the thing was run in: start/stop v. continous.

Seems to me that a small gas turbine generator could be run at optimal efficiency to keep the batts charged and the batts would absorb the start/stop loads. City mileage might not be all that great but highway could be fantastic -- I would think.

I remember a few years ago NASA was fooling around with bus sized gas turbine / electric hybrid demonstrators (actual city bus converted with this power plant), but I can't find any current material on the subject.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[billvon 3,131]

>Seems to me that a small gas turbine generator could be run at
> optimal efficiency to keep the batts charged and the batts would
> absorb the start/stop loads.

They're just not that efficient. You will get more power out for less fuel in with a recip no matter what mode they are operated in. At max power, recips are especially efficient, since you can remove pumping losses and their inherent Carnot efficiency is _much_ higher.

[mailin 0]

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>electric

Probably the ultimate long term solution. Right now you could build an electric car that would blow the doors off any gas car and have a 250 mile range; the battery pack (lithium polymer with a supercap surge bank) would cost upwards of $100K. Give it ten years and that may be down to $10K at which point it will be practical. Combine that with evolutionary changes in solar (say, another 25% increase in efficiency and the continuation of the drop in price per watt) and you could generate all the power you need to run both your house and car from your own roof.

Science has made fantastic advancements with battery/battery life in the past 20 years. It amazes me all the time.

If they can do this - I can only imagine what they will come up with next:
http://home.businesswire.com/portal/site/google/index.jsp?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20040514005525&newsLang=en

Jennifer

Arianna Frances

[FallRate 0]

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Ironically biodiesel is sulfur-free and would work with catalytic converters.

That's not ironic.

FallRate

[Unstable 9]

Lets take a step back from the Technologies for one second here -

What is it going to take to move the American Consumer over to Alternate Fuel Sources, if a reliable solution becomes available... Last I checked, Soccer Moms are still buying Ford and Chevy SUVs That Guzzle 15 MPS on the Freeway. The American (or World, for that Matter) is going to need to get a wake-up call here pretty soon...

=========Shaun ==========