BF2S Forums Gasoline alternatives FTW

DirectFire wrote:

thanks_champ wrote:

This guy has apparently modified a car to run on water.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImGaraPrEo8

Thats good info +1. Dude can you imagine what the world would be like with a bunch of cars running on water lol.

There's a thread on this.  http://forums.bf2s.com/viewtopic.php?id=28530

I reckon it's a con.  Brown's Gas cannot be efficiently produced without significant investment of energy.  I reckon he gets away with saying it's powered by water by plugging the damn thing into the mains while it electrolyses the water into Brown's Gas to be used on the journey.  Otherwise his claims can have absolutely no basis in reality.

EDIT: here's some more good info on it - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snakeoil

Last edited by UnOriginalNuttah (2006-06-21 12:05:13)

Darth_Fleder wrote:

CameronPoe wrote:

Where's the 'Invade Iran' option?

Still on the table as long as they continue to develop nukes. I know that YOU may not have problem with a government with their history to have nuclear weapons, but I do.

I've got a problem with a country who have a history of actually using nukes owning them... but anyway let's save this for the relevant threads.

puckmercury wrote:

Not sure where I implied fission,

Here:

puckmercury wrote:

I think the phobia generated by those who oppose it is asinine.  Yes, there have been disasters, but in nearly all the instances it was a result of warnings being ignored and willful neglect.

Nuclear phobia is largely limited to fission.  The accidents which have occured (TMI, Chernobyl, Japan) have all been related to fission power.

puckmercury wrote:

As of now, the only way we can start fusion is by using fission, which rather defeats the advantages of fusion in the first place.

I don't believe this is correct.  A nuclear explosion created by a fission reaction is used to ignite a fusion blast in Hydrogen bombs, but to the best of my knowledge, no fission reaction is used to ignite a fusion power reactor.

My understanding is that a fusion reaction in a power generating scenario is kicked off with lasers or some such, and confined with a magnetic field.

You may be right about the ignorance of the unwashed in distinguishing between fusion and fission.  I won't be caught betting that 'people' aren't as ignorant as you think; I'm sure that plenty of people out there would go out of their way to prove me wrong.

it's not love or money that makes the world go 'round, it's the internal combustion engine
many of the options are just different uses of fossil fuels, many of the power plants being coal or oil fired, no one wants a nuke plant or a windmill farm in their back yard, solar plants are inefficient, and their isn't always a river available for another hydro plant, so even filling your batteries you'll need to burn some dinosaurs, and don't start bringing up hybrids, they only suit a small commute demographic as they are lacking in power, when was the last time you saw a Peterbilt hauling an 80,000 pound trailer under battery power

ethanol is the way to go but it is still a few decades off from being a viable replacement, until then we need to start building refineries again and start using the oil we got in our own backyard, there is a reserve under colorado that is estimated to hold 3 times what is in the middle east, this, along with canada's massive oil shale fields and the supplies in Alaska and the gulf of mexico are more than enough to last any of our lifetimes, and when it does run out we'll have figured out a way to efficiently pump 89 octane corn oil

you don't like your gas prices, slap a hippy, they need it anyway

Synthetics will eventually replace oil, which is required for more applications than fuel.

synthetic oil already exists for lubrication purposes.  Sorry for misdivining what you were getting at, though, Kr@cker.  I realize the racing world has made the transition to ethanol, but emissions remain an X factor in that.  As for an H2 powered Peterbuilt?  No, I am not saying that there is - but I think there SHOULD be.  The technology exists, it is just not in the hands of those willing and able to implement it.  Those that would can't, those that can won't - they're in the pocket of Big Oil.  As far as H2 being more difficult to refine - not at all.  Simple electrolysis.  Storage and transport provide no more challenges than the storage and transport of natural gas.

emissions in most cases (in the US anyway) are negligible, they often get blown out of proportion by enviro lobbyists, and if you disagree with them in any way you are painted as an earth poisoning nature hater, for some perspective and reference, when Mt pinatubo in the Phillipines erupted in the early 90's it released more pollutants and greenhouse gases than mankind had since the beginning of the industrial revolution, and National Geographic found that cooking fires in southeast asia are the single largest contributor to carbon emissions making up one third of the total (think i got that one worded right, i have dial up at work, i'll try to verify at home when i get a larger bandwidth), in the long run mother nature isn't going to notice we were ever here

Out of curiosity, whats the price of gas in the US at the moment?

Hydrogen ftw because it produces no pollution (only exhaust is steam) and it is the most plentiful element on earth and in the universe.  Also you can "recycle" gasoline when switching over to Hydrogen because Hydrogen can be extracted from the Hydrocarbon chains in gasoline.

Seriously, one word.

Hamsters.

Crude oil is essential to our civilization at this time, because it is much more than just an energy source.  Crude contains large amounts of sulfur, is easily converted into many (i believe the majority, in fact) polymers including mylar (chip and candy bags, among many other things), and can be converted into a lubricating agent.  In fact, oil companies, contrary to popular belief, make most of their profit from lubricants as opposed to fuels.  This is because fuels are highly regulated and require much more extensive refining than fuels.  Thus, when discussing the possibility of breaking our civilization's dependence on crude, one must also adress these sorts of issues.  I have come to believe in a multipronged approach to solving our current dependence. 

1.) Solar power in small, localized, and redundant use: Solar power, while not effective on an industrial scale, can be useful and indeed the most logical choice for a number of applications.  For instance, street lights are a logical choice for a solar power source with a landline back up makes sense in case of a power shortage lasting through the night.  Single family residences can apply solar power to the roofs of their houses to augment their power supply and reduce costs long term.  While these are great, efficient and logical uses of solar power, others are not so logical.  For instance, urban developments like high rise apartments, sky scrapers, and other heavy loads on the electrical grid will not be satisfied effectively with the use of solar power.  Solar power is a conditional source of energy, which means it must be backed up with conventional electric connection in order to be reliable. 

2.  Nuclear Fission, and Ultimately Nuclear Fusion:  Nuclear fission, contrary to popular belief, is extremely safe in Western Europe, Japan, and especially the United States due to extensive and redundant safety procedures.  Just because the Soviets are cheap and incompetent doesn't mean everyone is.  Fission is extremely renewable, and aside from spent fuel rods is completely emission free as well.  In fact, even the spent fuel rods have a use in breeder reactors, where the sustained nuclear reaction in the rods generates new fissile material.  In addition, the spent fuel is processed such that it is completely harmless ( the material is melted down and combined with a glass substance).  Nuclear fusion, while still not a viable source of energy, is rapidly becoming the favored choice for future energy delivery.  The ITER being constructed in France will be the first Tokamak and will deliver power in 2016.  However, at a cost of 12 billion dollars, it is a fairly expensive tool.  Despite this, these forms of energy are the future for large scale energy generation.  People have mentioned synthetic oil in passing, not realizing that synthetic oil comes from coal, which is currently the largest producer of energy in the world.  The reason people dont realize the coal dependence is because its not pumped from the middle east, its mined from West Virginia.  If people understood nuclear power more completely, it could effectively solve a number of energy problems.  Even ground vehicles could be powered through nuclear power in the form of electricity stored in a battery (more on that later).  However, it could not solve the problem of replacing the byproducts from the oil refinement process. 

3.) Good ol' fashioned moonshine: Ethanol is a good additive to gas to stretch the supply, but in the long term is a wholy ineffective measure.  In order to run just vehicles solely on ethanol here in the United States, every acre of farmland would have to produce corn.  While this could be cut back through the use of genetically engineered corn and advanced multilevel hydroponic facilities, the cost in space would still be staggering.  So if one prefers to drive their car than eat, one should support ethanol, otherwise it should be viewed as nothing more than a stop gap measure to one part of a much larger problem.  It does not adress the byproducs issue nor the larger issue of energy on the whole. 

4.) Windmills!: Wind is a good source of energy, however it is a very conditional energy source on the ground.  Higher up, buoyant tethered systems that work through harvesting the kinetic energy generated in altitude changes cause by airflow are very reliable sources of energy, but are difficult to construct and maintain.  In addition, they are not applicable for use in densely populated areas because they pollute the air space.  A similar technology using water instead had been developed and is being deployed in some areas.  Regardless, it is not a large contributor compared to nuclear power, and also does not adress the byproduct issue. 

5.) Batteries:  Batteries can hold electric potential energy for later use, which make them ideal for use in cars to hold energy generated at large power facilities.  However, the fact that they are composed of heavy and very caustic materials is generally overlooked.  People fail to realize that batteries also degrade steadily over time, and that they are very inefficient at storing charge (i.e. it takes much more energy to charge a battery than what is later received from the battery).  Work needs to be done in this area to reduce the rate of degradation, increase the efficiency of the power transfer, and most importantly move away from the voltaic model. 

6.) Hydrogen, Fuel Cell Technology: Hydrogen, while effective as a fuel source, is difficult to produce because of the large amounts of energy required to seperated it from water or methane.  In addition, it is incredibly difficult to transport because it has to be kept under extremely high pressures.  Finally, if the explosion from a car seems big, the explosion from a car running with hydrogen is just rediculous.  However, if nuclear power is used to seperate the hydrogen, waste products can be minimized.  If hydrogen was more common, its transport could become much more efficient.  Finally, more stringent safety measures could reduce the probability of a rupture in the tank for vehicles.  Despite this, hydrogen would be much more expensive than gasoline because of the difficulty in seperating it from its natural materials. 

Obviously, a lot of research still needs to be done.  The problem of replacing the byproducts of gasoline creation remain unresolved.  Without a solution there, our civilization's ties to crude oil can never be severed.  People need to gain a better understanding of a plethora of technologies, from solar to fission and fusion.  Batteries need to be revolutionized, and hydrogen generation needs to be developed.  The point is, there's no one easy solution to this complex problem, and even if the will existed to break the oil dependence tomorrow, it could not be done with current technology.  The second point is, kick your politicians' asses!  The vast majority of them have no earthly clue about any of this, and need to be educated.  The third point, don't believe those bastards at Greenpeace when they say stupid things like, "nuclear power is unsafe" and "solar is the way to go".  They were smoking pot when the rest of us were in science class.  If I've been unclear with any of this, or if you disagree with any of this information, don't hesitate to say so.