If you put a HHO precipitator or a hydrogen fuel cell you can run a Hummer for a few cents a day on sea (salt) water. Remember the HUMMER (Tahoe/Suburban chassis’) have tremendous room to mount such energy producing devices. They are already proven to be able to handle large electric motor like those Siemmens made for Ford’s F150EV. There has to be a way to power large size vehicles economically or else we are as a society “toast”. Most goods, such as food, are carrier by Tractor/Trailer Trucks (“Big Rigs”) which means that if we can’t get them to run on hydrogen, skip that biodiesel crap there isn’t enough cookin oil in the world to keep them on the road. So if you can’t get light trucks like the Hummer H2/H3 to run on non-carbon fuels you aren’t going anywhere.
Hey Waggoneer:
Why don’t you put this car in service with Joe Six-Packs family for a year?
Also if you really want to test Hydrogen Fuel Cell technology effectively put them in your Impala or the Australian Caprice that you eventually plan to bring to the US or some other NYC Taxi Cab and Limousine approved chassis and unleash it on the streets of New York City. Remember Motorcraft’s (Ford Motor Company) “Taxi Tested Tough” parts campaign?
I’d like to apply for the “Joe Six-Pack” testing position should it come open.
Take a look at the AirTrain at New York City’s JFK Airport. I’ve ridden the future. The system was developed by Can-Am company Bombardier and constructed in record time, despite the fact that it needed large amount of concrete a material in NYC that is controlled by organized crime and well known to have “delivery” problems. Instead of building a HOV lane down the VanWyck (he was the first mayor of New York under unificaion in 1898) Expressway they took the money and built the Air Train down the center of the perenially crowded roadway. Now you can get from the LIRR Jamaica main station to any of the airport’s terminals. The trains are all computer operated, just like San Francisco’s BART System, and wisk you to your destination in a few minutes. NO TRAFFIC JAMS!!!
We need AirTrains over all our Interstate Super Highways , the VanWyck Expressway is designated an I-678, in New York City in the coming decade they should extend the AirTrain into midtown Manhattan and LaGuardia Airport, as was originally envisioned by former Governor Mario Cuomo who initated the AirTrain project, and then on top of the Long Island Expressway’x(LIE or Distressway or World’s Longest Parking Lot)
HOV lane to MacArthur Airport in Ronkonoma and then onto Riverhead where is should split to the South Folk (Hamptons/Montauk) and the North Folk (Southold/Pt. Orient). This would enable to elitest from Manhattan (see Sex In The City, or other pop-culture crap TV programs) to get to Easthampton in about thirty minutes withou having the take the filthy diesel busses of the Hampton Jitney or the Hampton Luxury Liners. There would also be a bar car on the AirTrain so folks could get sloshed on their way home or to vacation (two drink maximums). This could also be done in Boston and Washington DC with links to their respective resorts (Cape Code or Maryland Shore or Myrtle Beach). Such an AirTrain system could wisk people from NY to LA in about a day at very little cost! The power to the system can be generated by non-zero state reactors or other electric generators. This can be done it doesn’t take Rocket Science or Rocket Scientist.
That (importing LNG)will be necesary since the US is also running short on natuyral gas supply from the Lower 48 states. The Alaska gas pipeline will go a long way to reducing that shortage, but it will take more than 6 years to build.
Liquifying natural gas and transporting it to markets is actually quite effficient; gas by pipeline from Alaska will be MORE EXPENSIVE, but also more secure. And it’s actually quite safe, no more dangerous than handling other hydrocarbons. Worldwide, LNG is really big business. Tiny Malaysia owns more than 20 LNG tankers, giant floating thermos bottles, to transport its LNG to Korea and Japan.
Most of the world’s natural gas deposits are found where the consumers don’t live, so Russian and Algerian gas supplies much of Europe and LNG from the Middle East supplies Japan.
One of the cool things about the Nova special was that it showed that alternative fuels, like Hydrogen, can be used in mass transit vehicles with little change to the infrastructure.
In the future (later part of this millenium) there will be no need for automobiles. We will simply go to beaming stations where we will be beamed up just as on Star Trek to a destination.
You should watch the documentary that was done on “The Science of Star Trek”. They covered the beaming. It was pretty funny.
First off the amount of memory to store the juxtaposition of every single atom on a human would take a stack of disks on top of each other reaching halfway into the milky way…We’re talking a few THOUSAND LIGHT YEARS.
Second…If using the Fastest computers currently available it would take it LONGER then the age of the Universe to beam just ONE person…About 14 billion years. So computers better get a LOT FASTER…Say a few hundred trillion times faster then they currently are. Fastest computers these days are running about 10-20 trips (Trillion Instructions Per Second).
Third…(This one I really liked). Given Einstein’s formula E=MC^2…(The amount of energy in an object equals the Mass of the object times the Speed of Light Squared)…When you convert the object (lets say a normal size human), the amount of energy the person would be converted to would be that of a million million hydrogen bombs going off all at once. Great line from the show. “If you COULD do it, it may not be very Environmentally Friendly.” …Beam one person and destroy the earth.
The practical care in the future would likely be an electricly powered car whose battaries would be recharged by a variety of means.
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plug it in for an overnight charge.
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A generator powered by some combustion source to keep the batteries charged after first few miles of driving. This could be gasoline, LP, bio desiel, high percentage ethanol perhaps even the much sought after power cell. (wich is not a combustion source but might eventualy be able to supply enough power).
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a solar panel on the roof that will act as a trickle charger to keep batteries charged while it is parked in the sun. (just be sure to park on the top level of the parking garage.) An optional trickle charger might be a deployable turbine style windmill that could be used in windy areas/days.
The option of what generator is in the car would be varied and might vary by model or option much as we have the option for color or sport wheels. Perhaps one tpe or another will become the more desireable (probably based on price) It could also very by region as to what fuel source is the cheaper.
What we know as gas stations will become know more as fuel stops and supply a variety of fuel not gas and desiel but LP, bio desiel, ethanol, hydrogen. Perhaps some rapid recharge method will be developed and offered at fuel stops as well. Perhaps a reserve battery or set of batteries that will be owned by the fuel supplier and swapped out when depleted or the deposit returned if the driver decides not to use the fuel supplier’s reserve batteries.
As the cost and demand for gasoline increases globaly, those who are able to afford “hybrid” vehicles will begin to purchase them. This will cause a demand for them that will be met by car manufactuers that will use thier creativity to develop better and better designs. It may take a few years for the demand to ramp up but the need for affordable transportation is not going to go away. The market will dicate the car of the future. The most affordable fuel source will win out. As I have indicated that may be different from one geographic area to another. It seems likely that a variety of fuels will be available nation, even world wide.
I drove three old diesel Benz’s in a row for the last 16 years, planning on going veggie, but as a single mom of three (since the youngest was a newborn), never got around to it. Now I have an ‘in-betweener’ '91 Topaz (surprisingly reliable and comfortable to drive) until I figure out what I really want next. I like the solar idea, wonder if that could be added, making a veggie oil/ solar hybrid. Anyone???
Loved seeing the beloved ‘bros’ on PBS!!! We are very long time fans of the radio show, and I am lucky enough to live in a place that picks up two different hours in a row on two different stations. I credit you guys with being a fun male influence in our house on Saturday mornings: My eldest is working on her doctorate in atmospheric chemistry, with a plan to work on alternative fuels next… she loved the PBS show as well, as did my fascinating biz-lawyer-to-be son. Youngest took off to Scotland for her forensic studies, and she’s the one who got the rest of us into F1!
Most of the above, including nothing at all. China should stick with bikes, Hawaii should combine bikes and Iceland’s system. Hydrogen is a simple system, electric (batteries) too. Natural gas is good, hybrid technology only increases efficiency, you need some form of fuel. Cities will have some supply of biodiesel from cooking grease from fast food, but far from enough to power an entire city of cars. Converting coal to oil won’t make gas cheaper, it is only economical when the price is high. Many people hear there is a 200 year supply, and think it will last forever. But it will run out faster if more use is found for it. I like using coal to power electric vehicles better, because then the problem becomes finding other sources of electricity. Compressed air will only power small vehicles short distances.
It’s worse than that. Not only do you need to expend energy to compress the air, but much of that energy goes to heating the air, which ends up being lost. Then when you release the air to drive a piston, it cools down, limiting the power you can get from it. Compressed air has been used with a few “peaking” power plants, and they have to burn fossil fuel to heat the air a bit.
I remember doing a paper way back in college on why mass transit was not acceptable to most people. The gist of it was that, unlike your car which can get you from point to point on your schedule, mass transit has the drawbacks of 1) frequent mode changes and 2) you have to conform your schedule to it. As an example, I used my real-life example of taking mass transit to get from college to a job interview and back. If I had a car, I could have been there in a couple of hours. Instead, I had to start very early in the morning, walk a considerable distance to the nearest bus stop to get the right bus, take several city buses to get to the intercity bus station, go all the way down to NYC, come back up to White Plains, take a cab to the interview, and then reverse the process that night. It was not fun. Plus, people like the autonomy and personal space of their own vehicle. I don’t know what transportation is going to look like a decade down the line (much less 50 years), but it can’t look like today!
Hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not a source fuel. You have to spend energy to make hydrogen (whether stripping hydrocarbons or electrolyzing water), and you get only part of that energy investment back from the fuel cell.
Refineries do not run on hydrogen fuel cells. They may produce hydrogen for use in cracking heavier oils into lighter ones (such as gasoline), where you need to add hydrogen when you break up long hydrocarbon chains and rings, but they don’t generate electricity from it (except possibly for backup purposes).
These lightweight plastic cars would be perfect for developing countries, since they could be produced very cheaply. Millions of people could afford their first car without adding to the global demand for petroleum.
Um, guess where almost all plastic comes from?
Well, using what’s otherwise wasted heat (dumped by the radiator or the exhaust manifold) to produce supplemental fuel is something that should be looked into. I don’t know if there’s enough heat available there (to run either a steam turbine or split water) to offset the weight and cost of the additional hardware – I hope so, but I’m not holding my breath. And lots of people are going to forget to fill up with water and end up overheating the manifold if it’s to rely on water cooling! Currently, radiator heat is too low grade (cool) to be terribly useful – remember that heat engines need high temperatures for highest efficiency.
China should stick with bikes
Hmmm. You tell 500 million (or whatever) emerging middle class Chinese that we won’t let them have cars. That may make perfect environmental sense, but I don’t think it’s gonna fly. They will rightly point out that we (Americans) enjoyed a century (plus) of unfettered personal transportation and middle class lifestyle, so who are we to tell them what to do?
Cities will have some supply of biodiesel from cooking grease from fast food
An interesting random thought: as we get healthier (??) and eat less fried food and fast food, what will happen to the supply of biodiesel? Or is there no danger of a fuel shortage there?
I’m sure all of the above according to need, location and availability of the required fuel. Biodiesel for heavy trucking/industry/agriculture, electric for smoggy urban areas, moonshine for the rest and natural/produced gas where abundant.
That’s not exactly what happens. The iron in the steel wool takes away the oxygen from the water molecules to form iron oxide leaving behind hydrogen. Basically, you are converting steel wool into hydrogen. The energy in the hydrogen can be accounted for by the energy it took to reduce iron ore into iron.
Another well known reduction-oxidation reaction is when a mixture of powdered aluminum and powdered iron rust is ignited. The aluminum takes away the iron rust’s oxygen to form aluminum oxide and leaves behind pure iron in a molten state. All the energy released was the energy that originally was used to convert aluminum ore into metallic aluminum. This mixture is known as thermite and here is a link to a thermite video.
I would like the Chinese to read my suggestion and agree with it. That may not happen in the short run. But in the long run, what won’t fly is China having a car for everyone, or even half their population. Never mind fuel, there will also be problems with space. The dream of car ownership will become the nightmare of traffic jams on 20 lane highways. Americans are the best example, if you look at the big cities.
No need to use the oil for cooking first, if fast food goes out of style. Biodiesel is mostly made directly from soybeans, using cooking oil is more something for cheap tinkerers to try. The supply is limited.
Why won’t it fly for every Chinese person to have a car? The guy who lives down the street from me lives alone and has three cars. Are you going to curtail his freedom too?
It is kind of funny. We have men and women who serve in the armed forces dying overseas in order to spread democracy. Yet you would take away someone else’s freedom in order to make fuel cheaper for yourself? Why do you hate freedom?
Reply to dafornov’s message of 4/18/2008
I also do not like the idea of trading food for fuel. Ethanol from waste materials makes sense, but isn’t yet very feasible. Ethanol from corn keeps someone somewhere from eating. Also it raises the price of food, which makes eating a problem for some, and cost a problem for all. Even ethanol from grass has a problem. Cows eat grass, so again, there is less food. Ethanol from non-food sources sounds like a good idea, but I don’t think there are many such sources yet. Hybrid cars plugged in at night during off-peak hours sounds more promising for the near future. Let’s get those efficient batteries quick! Fuel cells sound very promising for my grandchildren. But please, don’t trade food for fuel.