What’s preventing the world or even independent countries introducing alternative fuel supplies for cars?
I’m a little unsure why developments of alternative, renewable, carbon free fuel sources appears to be so slow and confusing. You hear so often in the technology news or magazines of these amazing new prototypes that run on bio fuel, electricity, hybrid, hydrogen etc but a single standard doesn’t seem to be enforced and introduced into the mainstream market.
Is the biggest hurdle the oil companies? Or perhaps the car manufacturers? Or the governments earning tax? Or is it simply that the technology just isn’t there at the moment? Which I find hard to believe considering the other technological advancements we’ve developed.
the issue isn’t a conspiracy, it is infrastructure, or lack there of. it would be great to be able to pull up to your local energy station, and fuel you multi-fueled car with ethanol, gasoline, hydrogen, propane, cng, methane, while you charge your batteries. the reality is that there in very little infrastructure in place to handle the alternative fuels, and that is because the demand for those fuels is limited at this point.
remember that we have been building the current infrastructure of over 100 years now, and at a cost of many trillions of dollars. to add new infrastructure is also going to cost many trillions of dollars, and is going to take time. remember back in the mid 70′s when international harvester and mercedes benz introduced light pick ups and cars with diesel engines? at the time you had to go to your local truck stop to buy fuel. it took 15 years to get enough gas stations to install diesel so that you could by diesel in your local neighborhood. today the demand for diesel powered pick ups has exploded. diesel powered cars have not done as well over the years, partly because of the early gm diesel powered cars and their attendant problems, and because of government regulations regarding emissions output, particularly particulate emissions, and because of a lack of performance.
given that information do you really think that alternative fueled cars are goinjg to be hitting the market tomorrow? and that you will be able to buy fuel for them at your local gas station?
Government!!! Hydrogen is easy to produce but, if this was to come out too fast it could also hurt as well. When you mention hydrogen everyone thinks of only vehicle applications. How do you think the natural gas companies would feel if we heated our homes with it as well? Natural gas is just as explosive as hydrogen but, think of how many workers that would be unemployed!!!! Hydrogen can run an engine so, of it can do that it can also run a generator that is half wind or solar powered to provide electricity for your home. Devising ways to save ourselves money scares big companies bad!!! Money is the root of all evil but, considering how many patents have been applied for and myseriously died, wouldnt you think that special interest is keeping the technology dormant to save there own proffits? Past inventors from long ago have been laughed at,turned down, and humiliated. "If man was meant to fly god would have give him wings". Yeah!!! If we would have listened to the idiot who said that traffic would really suck!!! The ways that people apply for patents really needs an overhaul,especially from a source that has nothing at all to do with the government. When massive ammounts of people are unemployed, people in government uses a higher education as an excuse for why they are in the place that they are in. Seeking a higher education is always good but, its not an answer for the mass ammount of people unemployed in this country. Manufacturing products and exporting them is. But,while patents are being applied for and continually die other countries are getting ahead of us to insure that we stay their bi***!!! I think that the only answer is for information to be free to everyone on how to create hydrogen, and bypass the government all together!!!! Im sure that Willie Nelson knows this all too well when the department of weights and measures tried shutting him down for making his own bio diesel. Government regualation??? Sure lets have more of it, and lets keep old George W. even more wealthy!!! Fortunately when they took Willie to court he knew the law better than they did and he won, and got to keep his biodiesel machine he named the Condolisa Rice that produces fuel for his tour busses and other vehicles.People need to be more educated and stop believing all the crap that they hear about hydrogen and do some research themselves. We the people are weak but, strong if we all stand together as one and tell them enough is enough. Im sure that someone will disagree with what i am saying, and thats ok. Republicans blowing hot air will be ignored anyway.
i dont know huge subsidies to oil corps probably make it hard to compete with them? but the chevy volt just came out..its adorable ..and american (electric car)
I for one am also unsure but thank you for the question cuz the answers have been very informative. I would imagine that there is a portion of the answer in each reply there is a problem with our current infrastructure but recharging a battery especially a new tech. capacitor battery wouldn’t be hard. Bio-fuel’s biggest problem seems to be direct competition with supplying food to the sentient population. Hydrogen is viable and would burn in most internal combustion vehicles but hard to store and very explosive so you’d be better off making it as you consume it with a HHO device.
Ultimately the answer I believe is that the powers that be are vested heavily in carbon fuels and can’t divest just yet, they may want to, but a power base has developed around fuel it’s required for industrial and military strength. This strength is heavily weighted towards the west at present and until this balance shifts will remain.
People tend to look at these things as if there is some big conspiracy going on (which there isn’t). One of the problems in any mass conversion is just the simple inertia of the present system. The entire oil and gas refining, distribution, storage, and sales system would have to change. We are talking here of changing everything down to the station on the corner near where you live.
Change like that is extremely expensive and takes time.
Most of the power comes from the burning of Corbin and that makes CO2,even the alternative fuels. The main problem is all the alternative fuels that are produced can not supply even 1% of what our fossil fuels supply.
It all has to do with $$$$ and who controls them. Guess who is control and has been for many yrs???
It costs more money. And people dont like spending money…
They have ethanol though, which is slightly better for the environment.
It is because these developments have to compete with fossil fuels.
Fossil fuels are concentrated. They pack the energy of thousands of years of sunlight into high energy molecules, that are dense and easily transported.
Biofuels have to capture this energy in real time. Therefore, they need large amounts of land to compete. Moreover, most biofuels are currently made from food crops, which raises the price of food.
Solar and wind are diffuse, again requiring large areas to produce useful amounts of power.
The basic problem is that no technology has been found that is as effective, concentrated and cost effective, as coal and oil.
There will be no single standard. Each technology will find it’s niche (or not) in the future energy market. What we get in the future may be an amalgam of biofuels, nuclear fission or fusion, solar, wind, tidal, and animal (as well as human) power. Conservation and efficiency will also play a part – unless a practical method of fusion, or large scale breeder reactors, is found, future energy technologies will offer less energy than what fossil fuels give us now.
DK
It’s amazing when you think of the tens of thousands of people working to find alternative energy. Right now there is no technology with the efficiency of internal combustion engines. Every new idea has downfalls of some sort. Hybrids are the best bet right now, but still are far from the answer to our problems. Electric cars are questionable for their range and use of expensive batteries. Lithium cells are the most efficient yet are terribly expensive and Lithium is an endangered resource mostly found in So. America, which may be controlled by militant cartels in the near future. I don’t foresee any one solution to our energy crisis, but rather a combination of technologies and massive conservation. Air transport will soon be a luxury only for the filthy rich, unless someone can synthesize massive amounts of tri-lithium crystals as used on Star Trek.
Edit.
Hey Augie! Have you seen what the sugar cane industry has done to the rain forests in So. America? Very sad. And your Anti-Semetic remarks are even more sad.