If you had an alternative fuel that would run your car as far as you want to go?
with the same perfomance as gas unlimited miles for a set price of a month would you convert your automobile over or keep using gasoline
Read MoreAre people missing the point about alternative fuel vehicles?
I truly don’t understand why so many people talk about the benefits of this or that alternative fuel because petrol / gasoline / oil is becoming depleted and expensive. Isn’t it about steel and copper and plastic, too? The vehicles will still have to built in car plants which will use just as much (if not more) energy and natural resources in their building (even electric cars will require the building of large electric motors and batteries instead of petrol engines, for example ). Or will millions of cars be made of bioplastic materials and the world’s car plants and power stations be run on renewable energy or biofuel, too? Don’t we need a major rethink here? Shouldn’t we be talking about how we’re going to live in local communities, work locally, grow food locally and generally reduce our reliance on the car? This is a serious question – I hope someone can explain how we’re going to actually build these millions of alternative fuel vehicles.
Thanks for all the interesting answers so far. A couple of my thoughts:
1: I live in rural England so perhaps I underestimated the average American city-dweller’s need for long-distance transport. However, I saw a prog on TV which said the American city would not survive in a world without abundant cheap energy.
2: It’s my personal opinion that hydrogen cars, compressed air cars, etc., are a long, long way off because a whole new fuel delivery system would have to built across the world. Hydrogen is a non-starter at the moment (high pressures involved in production and distribution, it’s made from natural gas, etc.) and compressed air – well, even air compressors require energy to drive them, and the energy output will in someways have to be fuelled by the energy input + losses in the compressors, pipelines, etc. Basically, we’re back to the energy-of-production-and-distribution problem with new hydrogen and compressed air infrastructures around the world.
How come E85 never took off as an alternative fuel choice?
E85 is a fuel made out of corn. It is way cheaper than regular gasoline. They sell it at just BP as far as I know. Although you need a car designed for it and it lowers your fuel efficiency by 2-5 mpg, it seems like a smart choice. How come it never took off?
Read MoreAlternative fuel supplement added to intake air?
Injectors are controlled by the computer, based on O2 levels measured in the exhaust. If an alternative fuel–not enough to run the vehicle, but to merely enrich the incoming air–were added before the injectors, the computer should compensate and cut down on the amount of gasoline injected. Any convenient alternative fuel that can be mixed into the incoming air stream should work, from hydrogen to wood gas. It only needs to be held below the level needed to operate the engine so the computer meters in whatever gasoline is needed to take up the slack. This uses the existing system to overcome the problem of achieving a proper fuel/air mix and greatly simplifies using an alternative fuel.
Please, no beliefs. You can get two points for a belief, but a belief without a reason is pointless. If it can’t work, I want the reasons.
Read MoreWhat are some cheap ways to go green?
It seems like everything you can do to be a more environmentally-friendly person is expensive: organic food, special cosmetics, gasoline from corn that you have to fix your vehicle to even be able to use. I’m a teenager with no job (yet), and my mom is a teacher, which is obviously not a whole lot of money. I can unplug my computer when I’m not using it, turn off the lights when I leave a room, and take shorter showers. What else can I do to lessen my carbon footprint?
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