/sci/ - Science & Math

>http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/how-to/maintenance/should-you-convert-your-car-to-natural-gas

Synthetic gasoline.

>>6531482
Natural gas looks likely to be the next big alternative; it's fairly clean, quite cheap, and it's on the rise while the oil's draining. It'll buy us enough time, hopefully, to move on to something sustainable.

If we get lithium-air batteries worked out, maybe those will be next.

CNG, Propane, Diesel, Batteries, Hydrogen Fuel Cells, Hydrogen Combustion, Ethanol, Cellulosic Ethanol, Biobutanol, Biodiesel, Biogasoline, Compressed Air

What do you want to know?

>>6531482
United Nuclear (dudes that sell all sorts of chemicals and science equipment) developed a hydrogen fuel system product but they've had a fuckload of problems getting it to market. It's been delayed for over half a decade. Here's some info from their sites. By the way, all the links are fucked up for some reason so you have to use the mirror at the unitednuclear.com site instead of the switch2hydrogen.com page they made for the project.

https://www.unitednuclear.com/switch2hydrogen.com/h2scams.htm
https://www.unitednuclear.com/switch2hydrogen.com/h2.htm

Basically it's a kit that you would buy and then use to modify your own car at home. It would come with tanks that contain the hydrogen in some crystalline material (to keep it from leaking/exploding/whatever), these would go in your car. They would also come with some electrolysis system that you would rig up at home to use electricity to refill your hydrogen tanks.

OP here. awesome response, ya'll!

I'm mainly concerned about the hassle/time/impact of retooling every vehicle on the planet. if it can be an energy that is interchangeable with the current combustion systems wouldn't that be ideal?

>>6531482
The most painless adjustment would be biodiesel. But then, making enough of it without a serious environmental impact is nigh impossible.

The second closest would be electrical. Lithium-air or zinc-air would be your best bets, as the energy density is quite serious on these. Way way up the pipeline is flow battery geometry geared for high energy density, such as semi-solid (effectively flow lithium ion battery) or non-aqueous.

>>6531482
The American navy recently developed a kerosene like fuel that is made from seawater.

Not only would the scalable refinery be mobile, but if enough refineries were built, we could clean the oceans and fuel our vehicles, our homes with heat and use it for jet aircraft as well. The price would drop to $2.00 a gallon for the fuel valued against the current dollar.

The refineries would need to be X-BAWKS IS HUEG floating cities and nuclear powered, but most of the the world is covered by ocean so meh.

>>6531546
There really isn't anything good that can just be fed straight into a gasoline-burning engine. (There's biodiesel, but that's an anti-solution.) But you're right in that the effort of retooling every vehicle on the planet is THE biggest obstacle to weaning us away from our current oil-based transportation. (Even if we invented the perfect electrical car today, we'd STILL have to deal with the fuel use and pollution of the millions of vehicles already on the road.)

Natural-gas conversion kits are relatively cheap and easy, which is why I think they've got the best shot.

>>6531546
>I'm mainly concerned about the hassle/time/impact of retooling every vehicle on the planet.
See >>6531492
Zero retooling needed, and it will run even better than on petroleum-based fuels. [>>6531556] is related, as a matter of fact, but syncrude can be produced from many other sources as well (coal, natural gas, biomass, etc.), WITHOUT the need for massive amounts of nuclear energy.

>>6531562
>syncrude can be produced from many other sources as well (coal, natural gas, biomass, etc.),

True. But with nuclear refineries you get your fuel a lot cheaper per gallon, you remove CO2 reom seawater, and you have an infinite supply because people will still need to drive their cars and heat their homes.

To be honest, we're starting to have problems caused by CO2 heating surface water to the point where the ocean currents are slowing. Two birds with one stone.

>>6531556
>The American navy recently developed a kerosene like fuel that is made from seawater.

Where the hell is the carbon coming from?

>>6531591
CO2 runoff and precipitated into the oceans from the past 100 years of progressive industrialization.

It is our richest renewable resource.

>>6531546
My grad program is in Energy Science, and for one of our classes, we recently completed a large group project on advancing the fuel economy of the U.S. LDV fleet - so I can hopefully speak to this. There are several studies with varying projections out there, but one of the most relevant is one out of Oak Ridge National Lab that shows the projected mix of vehicle technologies on the road by 2050, with a broad, non-discriminatory investment in research and development. I'm attaching a picture of one of the most pertinent graphs from the study here, but it shows that while we are clearly dominated by internal combustion engines (all types, blue), by 2040 the share of these vehicles should level off and by 2050, account for only about 1/4 of the U.S. LDV fleet. According to this projection (and please remember, this is one from a massive report), fuel-cell vehicles really begin to dominate early on and fill the gap, capturing much of the expanding market.

You can download the entire report here - it was completed by the National Research Council and many authors at ORNL and other national labs and several academic institutions:
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=18264

>>6531599
Aaaand here is the picture, sorry

>>6531577
The new navy tech is interesting, but your assumptions of how it works, and what it can fix are a bit flawed. Acidification of the oceans (CO2 uptake) is an issue associated with our anthropogenic emissions, however this is not what is responsible for surface water temperature variatons and current changes - that is from the heating of the atmosphere (also by CO2). Removing CO2 from the oceans can marginally help acidification if we could accomplish it on a large enough scale, but that is a pipe dream at the moment.

As such - this is not "a lot cheaper per gallon" by far.

>>6531597
CO2 in the oceans is rarely considered a "rich renewable resource" as aside from this technology, we really don't have any way to separate large volumes of carbon from water without expending large amounts of energy and using massive amounts of chemical fixation agents.

>>6531599
Plans made on developments that have not been developed yet are biased optimistic prognostication at best(flying cars by the 1970s, my shiny heiny).

>>6531577
>But with nuclear refineries you get your fuel a lot cheaper per gallon
I highly doubt that. There's an opportunity cost to that nuclear reactor and its fuel, you know.
>you have an infinite supply because people will still need to drive their cars and heat their homes.
Fissile materials are a finite resource.
>To be honest, we're starting to have problems caused by CO2 heating surface water to the point where the ocean currents are slowing. Two birds with one stone.
What the fuck are you talking about? Ocean acidification doesn't cause warming.

>>6531556
For fucks sake, anon.
>The refineries would need to be ... nuclear powered

Its a horribly inefficient process and you would be far better off using the power plant to charge electric cars. The only fucking reason the US Navy does this is because the economic and logicistical costs of refueling jets 15000 miles from the nearest base is horrendous.

>>6531609
No shit - it's called modeling. It's allowed to sit at the table with the status quo and the flying cars and pipe dreams.

>>6531610
Fissile materials are a finite resource, but they are also very large. Between seawater uranium and breeder reactors, fission could fuel our civilization for millennia.

>>6531605
>it on a large enough scale,

"Providing the transportation and heating needs for North America" is on that scale, yes.

>As such - this is not "a lot cheaper per gallon" by far.

They are not nuclear powered right now. The process the navy developed not new, the idea has been around since WWII, but the navy process is the cheapest and most scalable so far.

If you use a refinery the size of a small truck, then no, you can't make it cheap of course.

>CO2 in the oceans is rarely considered a "rich renewable resource"

Considering that the source of the CO2 in the water will be coming back to the water as we drive our cars and heat our homes, I consider it a self-evident cycle.

>>6531614
...and batteries that haven't been invented yet. Batteries that need a lot of rare earth elements to make.

>>6531620
Keep in mind that rolling out nuclear power on a wide scale would actually eat up our reserves really fast, unless you also rolled out breeder reactor technology.

In which case you have to deal with the enormous cost of "Plutonium is now something you can buy at any dime and corner store."

>>6531620
wtf are you even talking about. the energy cost of a given process doesn't fucking depend on WHERE you get that energy from! energy is fucking energy. making gasoline out of seawater wont magically get cheaper because you use nuclear power.

confirmed for retard-tier 'science'

>>6531622
I still don't understand the purpose of your comments - are you arguing for arguments sake? I was sharing info with OP about alternative fuel technologies.

>>6531625
So a megawatt of energy costs the same if you use gasoline, coal or nuclear power to make it?

Don't get angry. I won't take you seriously if you get butthurt and stop thinking.

>>6531625
The navy invention has merit - but for the application it was designed for. Anon's assumption that building a nuclear plant to produce liquid fuels is quite a bit left field and yes, a net energy loss. If it were a feasible method to produce non-petroleum based liquid fuels at the proper scale, it'd be interesting to see pan out. This would have to be in a world where battery technology stops evolving - because otherwise yes - there's no reason we wouldn't just use the electricity generated from nuclear as-is rather than comverting it from nuclear, to thermal, to chemical, to thermal, to mechanical, etc etc.

>>6531625
> the energy cost of a given process doesn't fucking depend on WHERE you get that energy from! energy is fucking energy.

This is wrong

> the cost of a given process doesn't fucking depend on WHERE you get that energy from! energy is fucking energy.

The refinery needs a catalytic conversion process that has been difficult to create without using expendable rare resources.

>>6531625
> the energy cost of a given process doesn't fucking depend on WHERE you get that energy from! energy is fucking energy.

This is wrong

> the cost of a given process doesn't fucking depend on WHERE you get that energy from! energy is fucking energy.

The refinery needs a catalytic conversion process that has been difficult to create without using expendable rare resources. The new navy refinery does not need those rare resources.

>>6531629
Pretty much, yeah.

http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/aeo/pdf/electricity_generation.pdf

>Total levelized cost, in 2012 USD/MWh :

>Coal: 95.6
>Nuclear: 96.1

>>6531629
I'm staring at my report right now. These costs are in $/kWh. Also a megawatt is not a unit of energy. And the anon you replied to said nothing about dollars - he said 'energy cost'. But here - read these anyway.

Gasoline (E10) - $0.0991
Biobutanol - $0.0796
Ethanol (E85) - $0.1233
Ethanol (E85B) - $0.1223
Diesel - $0.0972
BioD (B20) - $0.0997
BioD (B100) - $0.1211
Hydrogen - $0.1363
Electricity - $0.1200

>>6531639
> levelized
>averaged

>>6531642
Well, yes. Nuclear plants are more expensive than coal plants, so even though you need a LOT less fuel, you need to charge more than a coal plant would for the same fuel cost to actually pay off the cost of building the plant.

That's what they mean by "levelized."

"Levelized cost ... represents the per-kilowatthour cost (in real dollars) of building and operating a generating plant over an assumed financial life and duty cycle. Key inputs to calculating levelized costs include overnight capital costs, fuel costs, fixed and variable operations and maintenance (O&M) costs, financing costs, and an assumed utilization rate for each plant type/. ... The availability of various incentives, including state or federal tax credits, can also impact the calculation of levelized cost. The values shown in the tables in this discussion do not incorporate any such incentives."

>>6531642
No.

>>6531599
ok cool. However, what is going to happen to all those obsolete combustion engine vehicles? wouldn't we just be adding more to the trash heap if we completely forget about them?

>>6531647
There are about 253 million cars on the road right now, and nearly 16 million new cars sold in 2013. The average car is on the road for 10.2-10.6 years, and when they're "decomissioned", we actually have a pretty efficient recycling process for almost all of the materials. They'll be born again as new cars, or wheelchairs, someday.

synthetic fuel, possibly that made from coal seems to be a good bet at the moment. What are some major problems with coal?

>>6531645
Thank you for keeping your calm and explaining it.
>>6531644
>buttmad

>>6531652
I could not possibly be less buttmad. (Mostly because I'm one in the morning and my only emotion right now is a calm, stoner-like blur.)

>>6531652
>>6531654
Pretty sure he's joking (maybe - it's 4:30am here and it's impossible to detect emotion via text - which is why the internet is awesome and also depressingly terrible)

>>6531651
Some of the largest problems with coal, aside from the glaring "still a fossilized carbon resource" are the massive health impacts on the workers that are involved in the mining operations. Those guys have average lifespans of 50-60 years and often have chronic health problems from heavy metal exposure and PM inhalation, etc. It's a dirty, dirty business. But yes, technologies to make liquid fuels from coal exist and are still worthy of researching. All options on the table.

>>6531657

>>6531654
Woops. I got your links switched.

>>6531660
You can extract a lot of useful chemicals from coal and oil. It would be better to leave them out of energy used for heat, electricity and transportation.

>>6531663
Or that :)

>>6531666
I agree. If those resources were used for their complex organic content and trace elements alone, they would last much longer. Due to the rest of the composition of them (at least with oil), there are tons of organics that really don't have many uses for anything other than fuel. A better alternative might be to find ways to create this same set of useful chemicals from non-food, bio-based resources.

>>6531657
>it's impossible to detect emotion via text

Not if you have any sense for human communication. If you're an autist, then yeah sure it can be hard.

>>6531675
Jokes are flyin over your head. No need to bring the autism speak here. I still don't get why so many anons are hostile here (unless it's about creationism or pseudoscience, then fire away).

>>6531677
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect

>>6531678
>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_disinhibition_effect
Yes yes, much like - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law - which was the basis of my comment here >>6531675

There are lots of alternatives. None of them really solve the problem that everyone having a car is a hopelessly bad idea in the long term, because none of them can conjure energy out of nowhere.

Well, maybe fusion power + electric cars (or whatever rechargeable thing), but that's not going to happen any time soon.

>>6531502
Seriously, you list all that, and not methanol or dimethyl ether?

What methanol and dimethyl ether have going for them is that they're both particularly easy to make from syngas, which means any fossil fuel, biomass, or from hydrogen produced by electrolysis and captured CO2, they're both easy to store (methanol being comparable to gasoline, only a bit more corrosive, and DME being comparable to propane), and they're each suitable for current automobile engines with minimal modification (methanol runs in gasoline engines, DME runs in diesel engines).

Although you need gas tanks a big bigger to have the same range (or you just refuel a little more often), they give superior performance and efficiency to current conventional fuels, with lower emissions. They're also less toxic than gasoline and diesel, either for acute exposure or spills.

Methanol can also be used in fuel cells, for dense electrical power without moving parts.

>>6531482
a "wood gassifier"

http://driveonwood.com/resources/free-gasifier-plans

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_gas_generator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qc_2z8yj0hM

>>6531482
Telekinesis

What about some sort of synthetic nitrogen compound(?)? Huge energy output and N2 is completely harmless and can be sourced from the atmosphere. The energy can be sourced from sunlight, via a desert factory.
>renewable
>less greenhouse gases
>less toxins and solid crap
>makes use of often unuses space
>solar energy gets its shit together

>>6532097
>or from hydrogen produced by electrolysis
For that matter, deep hydrogen (hydrogen from the mantle -- there's easily enough down there to burn all of the oxygen out of the atmosphere, though it's difficult to get at) or olivine/serpentine hydrogen (hydrogen made from reacting certain naturally-occurring minerals with water) could also be used as feedstocks for methanol or DME synthesis.

>>6531482
Real alternatives:
>biofueles
>electricity
>natural gas

Possible, but not practical alternatives:
>solar panels
>human power
>nuclear

There's probably others.
The oil industry has a stranglehold on the economy, and politics, preventing alternatives from gaining much ground.

>not running a car powered by your own sense of self-satisfaction

>>6532129
>Huge energy output and N2 is completely harmless and can be sourced from the atmosphere.
You could say the same thing about carbon. If you're getting your CO2 from the atmosphere, and making carbon fuel from it, there's no net emission of CO2.

People are talking seriously about ammonia (NH3) as a major energy carrier, which isn't a terrible idea, but it's a lot more toxic and harder to handle than something like methanol or synthetic gasoline. You can burn it, but the combustion products tend to include a lot of oxides of nitrogen, which are highly undesirable. The energy density and specific energy are also significantly lower than true hydrocarbons, so it's hard to see it ever being used for things like jet fuel.

Clever approaches to ammonia storage and handling, such as metal ammine complexes, do make it much easier and safer to handle, I'd say safer than any liquid fuel, but at the cost of making the energy density and specific energy worse. This is suitable for fuel cells, not combustion engines. Ammonia is the next best thing to hydrogen in fuel cells, so you could see metal ammine complex fuel cartridges for electric cars and camping/survival phone rechargers.

Other nitrogen compounds tend to be either more dangerous or much poorer than ammonia as a fuel. For instance, hydrazine is a pretty neat fuel, but it's extremely toxic and can detonate.

>>6531482
>What kind of alternative fuel can be used in place of gasoline in automobiles?

THERE ISN'T ANY. Nothing, repeat, NOTHING delivers the punch of gasoline, diesel or kerosene. No other fuel POSSIBLE, delivers the dirt cheapness, AND energy density, AND incredible practicality, of the magic liquid we call PETROLEUM.

Petroleum is the MAXIMUM FUEL of Humanity. Nothing compares to it; not even close. And you must note in order to compare, you have to look at the THREE FACTORS: Dirt cheap, energy dense, and incredible practicality... ALL AT ONCE.

So once petroleum depletes to critically low levels, everything must change. CHANGE OR DIE. And by "change" I mean you're going to walk or use a horse, and you'll eat locally-grown food, and you'll maintain your own property and equipment. You'll have NO CHOICE.

>>6531482

It is a good bet that automobiles will all be electric pretty soon. Electric motors are vastly superior to combustion motors in ALMOST every way, the one critical exception being energy storage and transfer. But battery technology has improved dramatically in the last few years and looks like it will continue to, and Tesla has shown that it is already possible to make an excellent, practical electric car that rivals gasoline cars.

>>6532167

Calm down, wackjob.

>>6531492
>Synthetic gasoline.

Unaffordable. NEXT.

You retards fail to admit that sticking a pipe in the ground and having petroleum erupt out of it, was what you really based your economy on. NOTHING can match how cheap that was. Nothing CAN. It's impossible.

I can't wait to watch you fuckers spend 1.1 BTUs in energy to get 0.9 BTUs in liquid fuel back. You'll do that for a time until your economies collapse even harder than in 2008. MUCH HARDER.

>>6532167
People have explained to you over and over why this is wrong and stupid, but you just keep pushing forward with your schizophrenic propaganda. Please just stop spreading misinformation on /sci/.

There's no reason that your energy carrier has to be the same as your energy source. We could have dirt cheap solar, nuclear, coal, ocean current, wind, geothermal, or bio power and energy dense synthetic fuel or batteries.

There are any number of ways we can continue to increase our energy consumption after running out of oil. There is no possibility of going backward to "walking or using a horse" simply for lack of oil in the ground.

>>6532162
Perhaps some sort of dampener (if that's the right word) to prevent the hydrazine from detonating or going off prematurely. Plain old petrol, for example.
The toxicity is a bitch though. Somehow I think mixing it with antidote isn't a viable option.
>>6532167
>>6532173
You own an oil well or something, don't you?

>>6532185
>Perhaps some sort of dampener (if that's the right word) to prevent the hydrazine from detonating or going off prematurely.
I think "stabilizer" would be the term.

Regardless of what safety measures you take, hydrazine is really not something you want people to be handling on a daily basis. Too damn nasty.

>>6532185
>You own an oil well or something, don't you?

No, he's just an autist whose obsession is peak oil doomsday bullshit.

>>6532188
seemed like a guy who actually knows basic physics, to me.

dont know about autists, but this thread is fucking full of run-of-the-mill retards otherwise

>>6532185
Read "Ignition!" . As well as being a genuinely entertaining read, you should find it very informative as to the quest for "stabilizers" for rocket fuels like hydrazine to prevent them detonating or going off prematurely.

>>6532191
>seemed like a guy who actually knows basic physics

Well, he doesn't. He says retarded stuff all the time when he tries to talk about physics.

>>6532182
>We could have dirt cheap solar, nuclear, coal, ocean current, wind, geothermal, or bio power and energy dense synthetic fuel or batteries.

BUT YOU DON'T. In fact, none of those energy sources fulfills the THREE CRITICAL FACTORS that made petroleum the major energy source of Humanity:

1. Dirt cheap
2. Energy dense
3. Extremely practical

Take nuclear, for example. It is VERY energy dense... but is horrifically expensive, and extremely IMpractical. So it can NOT replace petroleum. NOT EVEN CLOSE.

Stop believing in the Energy Easter Bunny.

And I'll fucking shut up when you have the power to do that. AND YOU NEVER WILL. So eat a dick.

>>6532192
I'll use whatever damn words I want for whatever thingamajig I want to describe!

>>6532204

Nuclear is not "horrifically expensive" you fucking lunatic.

>>6532185
>You own an oil well or something, don't you?

No, I own a brain. Much more useful.

>>6532219

It doesn't cost a billion dollars to decommission an oil well. The costs up-front for nuclear power can't beat petroleum and natural gas. But when you add the external and future costs, nuclear power becomes a total horror.

I hardly need to even say this. Time is already proving me right. There's a cost nightmare sitting there in each cooling pond on-site.

>>6532204
>THREE CRITICAL FACTORS
Your "three critical factors" are stupid.

Oil isn't "dirt cheap". It's scarce, often found in remote locations, and requires costly refining. Oil-based grid power, for example, is considerably more expensive than nuclear or coal. Advanced solar and nuclear have the potential to provide electricity orders of magnitude cheaper and more abundant than today's best options.

Energy density only matters for certain uses, and those can be provided by other energy carriers. For instance, liquid hydrogen will be a superior aviation fuel when the technology is worked out, because its specific energy is three times that of today's kerosene fuel. Battery-powered electric cars already save you money compared to buying gas, and are rapidly getting better.

"Extremely practical" doesn't actually mean anything. You're not communicating anything by saying it. Learn to express yourself.

Magnet's are definitely the future of clean energy. I've seen a few videos por people creating free infinite energy in small scale; imagine we could do that in a big scale.

>>653209
Those are also viable, yes, as is HMF and FDCA as direct gasoline replacements. My list wasn't all inclusive. DME isn't a liquid at room temperature, so I'm not sure how it would be compatible with current diesel engines.

>>6532162
This is an interesting area of research. There are some people looking into methods for switchable hydrogen storage using various amine and amide compounds as a hydrogen storage media for fuel cells.

>>6532167
Went to bed and came back to this bucking bronco. Whoa guy. Calm down. Also - you're pretty dogmatic about gasoline. I'm sorry.

>>6532173
You still. Sure, that's how it was, even how it is now. But it's not going to last forever, hence this entire discussion. Also, it's a shit-can solution for the environment.

>>6532191
Most of the people here have actually been contributing realistic and useful information, short of a few.

>>6532204
So hostile still! Your viewpoints that since nothing else currently meets your criteria for "the best fuel" that we shouldn't consider anything else is really cynical and narrow minded.

>>6532231
I think this thread is too far along for you to try that, but two thumbs up for keeping things 4chan.

I bet synthesized fuel from atmospheric CO2 and water, with solar energy. There is an awesome video from a guy explaining it. Basically, there is a solar panel which captures light, CO2 from atmosphere and water, producing some simple CH molecule. If anyone know this video, I'd appreciate the link.

>>6532233
>DME isn't a liquid at room temperature, so I'm not sure how it would be compatible with current diesel engines.
Like propane, it's liquid under moderate pressure. Minimal modifications are required to convert a diesel engine to DME. You do have to replace the fuel tanks, though. This is already being commercialized, along with its closest competitor, LNG.

Methanol (or M85, which is preferred mainly so fires are more visible, due to the 15% of low-grade gasoline) also requires modifications to gasoline-powered vehicles. The fuel injection system has to be reprogrammed, and some chemically-incompatible seals have to be replaced.

Electric cars with batteries charged by nuclear power. Right now, that is the most likely future in the next few decades.

We could make cars work using TNT and gunpowder, they're is a lot in the world of that.

>>6532251
there*

>>6532253
their*

the air*

>>6532249
I missed the "minimal modification" part of your post, but yes. There's a nice book called "Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy" by George Olah that has a really good overview of what a future powered on C1 fuels could look like. As a chemist, I liked it.

>>6532248
This is the type of technology that *could* potentially emerge if we ever became devoid of other liquid fuels, but the EROEI is shitty right now, due to the energy required to manufacture solar panels

>>6532284
This is probably where a lot of the information I've received on methanol and DME originally came from, though I haven't read the book myself.

Thanks for the recommendation. I'll have to get a copy.

I'm not a chemist myself, just an enthusiast of energy technology.

>>6532307
This is the book we used for our most recent Energy Science & Technology class. It's big, and some parts are already outdated (what isn't outdated within weeks in our digital age) but is really a nice resource.

http://www.amazon.com/Sustainable-Energy-Choosing-Among-Options/dp/0262017474

>>6532318
Thanks for that as well. Looks interesting.

Electricity instead, could be a source useful of energy which fuels your car, but your car must be made of batteries to work.... so I don't think it's a good idea.

There is no alternative. When its gone, its gone, and it will never be like it was. The only "alternative", if there is one, is to completely change the way we live our lives.

>>6532503
>but your car must be made of batteries to work....

Hardly. And batteries are improving all the time, too.

We keep saying, "we will figure it out".

But we won't. Technology is not a substitute for social progress.

>>6532512
>But we won't.

Why not?

>Technology is not a substitute for social progress.

What is that supposed to mean?

Let me give you a list of the alternatives availible and why they won't work:

Solar/Hydrogen: The rate of electrolysis is too slow.
Alcohol: Requires too much land mass to grow crops.
Nuclear: Political Pipe Dream, no one left who knows how to build them.

>>6532526
>currently there are over 400 nuclear power plants in the world
>in 31 countries
>not to mention all the naval vessels
>some countries already get the majority of their power from nuclear
>"hurr durr nobody knows how to do it, it'll never happen"

>>6532535
how many nuclear power plants have been built since the year 2000, besides RTG's? How many uranium processing and refining plants have been built? Of those, how many are used exclusively by the military and private industry?

>>6532526
Let me pick this apart.
>Solar/Hydrogen: The rate of electrolysis is too slow.
Assuming that electrolysis is the only viable method to producing hydrogen means you're not well versed in the subject. There are various ways to produce hydrogen through biological means - many are currently being developed. Also - electrolysis rates and efficiencies are constantly improving with constant research into these areas. Of course we will never reach a point where we get more energy out than we put in, that's simply thermodynamics, but that isn't the point.
>Alcohol: Requires too much land mass to grow crops.
Again, you're assuming that the only routes to alcoholic fuels is through this "one method". There are plenty of studies that show we can use existing crop residues, non-food biomass, and municipal waste as feedstocks to produce methanol/ethanol/butanol. The reality is that a combined approach, utilizing all of these technologies, is what will bring those fuels to commercial scale.
>Nuclear: Political Pipe Dream, no one left who knows how to build them.
For the third time - you're simply not aware of what's happening. Since 2010, there have been at least 4 approved reactor licenses from the NRC, and a large amount of investment in small modular reactor research - globally. Sure, there are going to be social and some political hurdles, but assuming that energy - a global issue again - is dictated by U.S. politics and opinions is really shortsighted and naive.

ITT: Muh technology is energy

>>6532539
>other ways to produce hydrogen
Like from coal? 10 kilowatt hours per liter, so efficient... Lithium Ion batteries, so safe!
>ethanol shill
I do so love my high fructose corn syrup and tertiary waste treatment facilities. So much better than dumping 90% of coastal waste directly into the ocean. Maybe you can tack on some sugar beats to those soy subsidies. I just love white corn. Makes such great stock feed for factory farms. Now maybe we can dump even more pigshit in our rivers.
>Nuclear shill
I've had so much fun talking to you, but if you'll excuse me I have to go finish burying fuel rods in Death Valley because we are out of space in our Nevada facility.

>>6532537
This isn't a valid argument. We're in the middle of a fracking boom. Advancing technology has made fossil fuels plentiful again, especially natural gas. While we're developing various alternatives so we have options, there's no real pressure to start seriously transitioning off of fossil fuels.

>>6532539
have you ever heard of a wood gas generatorr?>>6532110

its an old and decently efficient way to turn biomass into a combustable gas that can be used to run internal combustion engines.

Easy to make one, and it uses almost any kind of biomass that will burn and can also burn plastics when blended into the mix

>NRC
what are those two letters that come before that acronym?

Oh yeah, U and S

>>6532553
Congratulations, you have discovered fire.

Do you know where the term "backwater" comes from?

Its a term that has been used for over 2000 years. Humans have this funny habit of dumping sewage directly into their water supply.

>>6532553
Yes, biomass gasification is a pretty neat technology. There have been advancements since then in the areas of catalytic fast pyrolysis that produce a bio-oil that can be tuned directly or distilled to produce direct replacements for gasoline and diesel. I think they're really cool - and have some friends working on things like that right now actually.

>>6532544
I've already said in this thread that I'm not a fan of coal. Not sure where in that post I advocated for that. Also - Li-Ion batteries are safe, just not sustainable currently.

>high fructose corn syrup
What does this have to do with understanding what the options are for bio-based alcoholic liquid fuels? And the rest of that sentence string - I'm lost as to the point you're trying to make, other than trying to find cracks in any statement I make and make me out to be a "shill" for any of these industries.

>>6532558
>Congratulations, you have discovered fire.
sometimes dear anon, one must re-discover older technologies. while you are struggling to walk everywhere in the aftermath of "the happening" because, "no oil" / "no power". I will be driving my van, towing a trailer that holds a gassfier and a hopper filled with woodchips and yard waste. and powering my home (including water well) with an electric generator fueled by corn. purchased from my local grain cooperative, and burnt without processing.

>>6532571
white corn is white because it is used to make ethanol, it tastes sweet and has only recently been determined fit for human consumption. Democrats push for huge corn subsidies because they are pushing for ethanol, which creates mass farm combines and pushes other, healthier crops out of the market.

High Fructose corn syrup is a byproduct of ethanol production, and until recently all food used in the production of ethanol has been used as feed stock for pork, usually bought in bulk by factory farms.

Those factory farms in turn dump their animal waste directly into the water supply, which causes illness in humans and pollutes the water supply.

"Pork Barrel" subsidies exert a great deal of influence over politics and waste management, so the practice has continued largely unabated for well over 50 years.

>>6532571
>Yes, biomass gasification is a pretty neat technology.
I think it is as well, it converts the biomass directly without need of processing and all the associated processing energy costs. Plus it is ZERO carbon footprint, as all the CO<span class="math">_2[/spoiler] released was captured in the previous growth season and is not "new" to the environment.

>>6532578
>High Fructose corn syrup is a byproduct of ethanol production
buddy... you wrong there, you can get the HFCS or ethanol but not both

>>6532572
And you will most likely be shot dead by one of the wandering local militia who have been displaced by the collapse of the federal government.

They will take your stuff, determine that they are unable to figure out how it operates, and leave it lying by the side of the road after using it for target practice.

>>6532586
>And you will most likely be shot dead by one of the wandering local militia who have been displaced by the collapse of the federal government.
no, I'll be delivering supplies to my comrades in the local militia you fool. I'm a high grade tech/wizard with decades of experience fixing things and keeping things running. while you on the other hand will be trying to eat what cash you had stuffed in your mattress

>>6532561
The term "backwater" has nothing to do with sewage. You might be thinking of "blackwater".

A "backwater" is where a river is backed up by a blockage, such as a dam. It's slow-flowing and peaceful.

Similarly, a "backwater" settlement is neither a miserable slum where people have only spoiled water, nor a respectable place where the water is pure, but a rustic place implied to be backwards, peaceful, and unimportant.

>>6532578
>Democrats push for huge corn subsidies because they are pushing for ethanol, which creates mass farm combines and pushes other, healthier crops out of the market.

Uh no. We've had massive farm subsidies since the 1940s. Originally it was to ensure strategic reserves, but now it's just because congressman from rural states (mostly Republicans, naturally) are completely owned by agribusiness.

>High Fructose corn syrup is a byproduct of ethanol production

Also completely wrong. HFCS and ethanol are mutually exclusive uses. And corn is far from the best source of ethanol anyway, and everyone already knows that.

>>6532578
Thank you for being less hostile in this reply, it is very informative and adds to the conversation. I don't know why the knee-jerk reaction on this board is always to cut someone down when people disagree or don't understand differing viewpoints.

I agree with you that we shouldn't be using food crops as a fuel resource. In my post about the alcoholic fuels, I made it a point to say that I believe the non-food biomass and municipal waste technologies (among others) are what I favor. My PhD research is looking for ways to make other value added chemicals and products from these lignocellulosic biorefineries, so on that regard I do have a vested interest.

I'm aware of many of the problems that exist in the agricultural and livestock subsidy landscape and do believe they need to be addressed, but don't see them as problems with the future of biofuels, only related to the current (flawed) industry.

I'd like to chat and learn more if you'd agree not to try to make me sound like I'm a paid pawn. I'm really here to learn like (mostly) everyone else.

>>6532545
>there's no real pressure to start seriously transitioning off of fossil fuels
climate change denial detected....

>all opinions held by this individual and now suspect

>>6532578
"Pork Barrel" subsidies have nothing to do with the pork industry. It's a metaphor from the days when salt pork was an American staple, and having an empty pork barrel meant not having enough to eat. It means subsidies to create employment, so people will have adequate income (food on the table / pork in the barrel).

>white corn is white because it is used to make ethanol, it tastes sweet and has only recently been determined fit for human consumption.
Industrial corn is starchy, not sweet. To make ethanol (or corn syrup), they start by breaking the starch down into sugar.

>>6532612
A vague nagging feeling that we ought to do something is not the same thing as "real pressure".

>>6532612
I wouldn't put him under the crosshairs just yet. The recent advent of plentiful natural gas has made the argument for researching alternatives harder to push forward, but that is only a problem when this newly found natural gas isn't recognized as a stop-gap. It is responsible for a lot of the reductions in our carbon footprint, but is not a long term solution. Being able to defend your arguments for or against any of these technologies is important and the issues he brought up are valid.

>>6532628
>It is responsible for a lot of the reductions in our carbon footprint
I truly do not see how you figure that this newly found ancient carbon being added to the present day atmosphere is a "reduction" in the carbon footprint

>>6532638
>>6532612
Can you please keep your global warming shit out of a decent thread?

If you want to talk about global warming, start another thread. This one is about alternatives to gasoline.

>>6532644
>Can you please keep your global warming shit out of a decent thread?
>If you want to talk about global warming, start another thread. This one is about alternatives to gasoline.
in regards an "alternative" for gasoline, the gassifier I mentioned above fits the bill in some respects. As far as the debate on GW it belongs here because what ever alternative you come up with should be of a lesser CO<span class="math">_2[/mat] footprint to be a viable alternative don't you agree?[/spoiler]

>>6532657
should be of a lesser CO<span class="math">_2[/spoiler] footprint to be a viable alternative for the mainstream consumer don't you agree?

>>6532638
It's basic physics/chemistry. Natural gas, being mostly just methane, has more joules / carbon atom than other fuels.

"Coal-fired electric power generation emits around 2,000 pounds of carbon dioxide for every megawatt hour generated, which is almost double the carbon dioxide released by a natural gas-fired electric plant per megawatt hour generated. Because of this higher carbon efficiency of natural gas generation, as the fuel mix in the United States has changed to reduce coal and increase natural gas generation, carbon dioxide emissions have unexpectedly fallen. Those measured in the first quarter of 2012 were the lowest of any recorded for the first quarter of any year since 1992."

>>6532665
>>6532657
>As far as the debate on GW it belongs here
It does not.

There are many reasons we might want an alternative to gasoline. The USA, for instance, is still a net importer of gasoline (sending a great deal of hard currency to countries that it is, in many ways, opposed to, in order to acquire it), but it has a glut of natural gas, with potential to produce much more, and huge coal reserves. China similarly has a great deal of coal, but pays through the nose for gasoline.

These are more immediate concerns than global warming. People might think about global warming once in a while, but they make real decisions about how to fill up their gas tanks every day.

>what ever alternative you come up with should be of a lesser CO2 footprint to be a viable alternative for the mainstream consumer don't you agree?
A gasoline substitute made from natural gas or coal could be a very important technology even if it resulted in higher carbon emissions.

For instance, there is in-situ coal gasification, in which steam and air is pumped into a marginal coal formation through one pipe, and syngas (carbon monoxide and hydrogen) comes out another pipe, to be made into methanol, synthetic gasoline, or various other fuels. This will result in higher carbon emissions than drilling for and refining oil, yet it could also result in cheaper and domestically-sourced automobile fuel.

The carbon emissions associated with a particular gasoline alternative are on-topic, arguments or assertions about global warming are off-topic.

>>6532638
I did not indicate that it reduced the sum total of carbon that we *have* put into the atmosphere, but it has helped reduce the rate that we are putting it there.

>>6532667
This guy has it right. It's not a solution, but it's a step on the way.

fuel makes energy. electricity is a form of kenetic energy and thats already being used. the most commonly used fuel form is fosil fuels

>>6532667
thank you anon, thank you for explaining.

I'll give you an alternative to gasoline
NH<span class="math">_3[/spoiler]
http://www.nh3car.com/FAQ1.htm

>ain't as dumb as I look

>>6531482
Electricity, which can come from just about anything

>>6532719
>A gasoline substitute made from natural gas
see>>6532874
and the "haber process"

http://theenergycollective.com/geoffrey-styles/46324/ammonia-alternative-fuel

at 75¢ per gallon and having 40% the energy of a gallon of gasoline it is cheaper per mile driven

>>6532874
>http://www.nh3car.com/FAQ1.htm
>Q: Can ammonia be made from renewable or “green” energy sources?
>A: Yes. This is one of the huge benefits of ammonia as a fuel. You can’t make crude oil or gasoline at any price. When it’s gone, it’s gone forever.
I don't know where people get these ideas.

Does nobody remember that we won WW2 by bombing the Nazi gasoline synthesis factories?
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/355074/remembering-ploesti-robert-zubrin

Now we're working on practical systems for hydrocarbon synthesis from ambient carbon dioxide, rather than coal-derived carbon:
http://www.zmescience.com/research/us-navy-synthetic-jet-fuel-seawater-0423432/

We've known for well over a century that it's possible to collect carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and to make hydrogen from water, and hydrocarbons from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. It just hasn't been competitive with gasoline from oil, because there's been lots of oil, and not lots of cheap energy from other sources.

>>6532894
Ammonia has come up in the thread already: >>6532162

It has some pretty serious disadvantages compared to carbon fuels.

>>6532904
>I don't know where people get these ideas.
same place a guy I work for thought ammonia wasn't flammable. He had worked as a fertilizer sales rep for years and pointed me to the "non-flammable" placard on the side of the tanks as proof.

it's not a convenient fuel, but it works.

meanwhile, the synthesis of petrochemicals from the atmospheric CO<span class="math">_2[/spoiler] and N<span class="math">_2[/spoiler] is technically feasible but in the current economic scenario, it's not likely to be funded.

>>6532904
>I don't know where people get these ideas.
I think the people responsible for that project were embellishing quite a bit to stir up media attention for their technology. I personally think this is a poor way to bring your technology into the popular science area.

>>6532926
Synthesis of ammonia using atmospheric nitrogen is a very common and important industrial process. It originally ran on hydrogen produced by electrolysis, too.

Various techniques of gathering atmospheric or oceanic carbon dioxide, and synthesis of fuel from that CO2, are being actively researched or tested in demonstration units.

I have an LPG car. Shits cheap yo.

25 quid for 350 miles on the motorway.

>>6532967
>I have an LPG car. Shits cheap yo.
>25 quid for 350 miles on the motorway.
my landlord used to run that in his tractors in the 1950s. He tells me that it's great on engine wear, leave's the engine oil cleaner longer, because it had fewer partial combustion products to foul the oil. Of all things discussed in this thread I think LPG (which is propane) along with the liquified methane they have developed are probable the best contenders for straight up replacement of gasoline. But I'm firmly in the camp of "we need to get away from FOSSIL fuels". Many of the newer technologies mentioned above either have zero "new" emission of CO<span class="math">_2[/spoiler] or actually emit none which is what I'd like to see. If you are going to have a shit tonne of vehicles in an urban environment they had best not emit noxious fumes, even horses were bad about that when they were the main means of transport in cities.

>>6533180
Well, when it comes to inner-city air quality, you can't beat batteries.

If we get serious about electric cars, you can expect something to come along like fast-swap stations or in-road induction charging.

Seawater lithium extraction is under development. Japan and Korea seem to be the main countries competing to get this going as an industry. That'll put a hard ceiling on lithium prices, regardless of the quantities needed, and mean we can have unlimited battery production.

>>6533613
We cant get serious about urban electric cars until we get serious about efficient production of electricity in the first place.

Power plants are expensive and pollute, yo.

>>6533180
>If you are going to have a shit tonne of vehicles in an urban environment they had best not emit noxious fumes, even horses were bad about that when they were the main means of transport in cities.

Wrong. The main thing which was bad about horses was that their need for food and water suppressed big population growth. This has been documented time and time again by the urban planners of the 1800s and earlier.

Coal, then petroleum alleviated those concerns. Suddenly (from a historical perspective) a lot of urban acreage became freed up for either businesses, housing or food production for Humans. This allowed cities to surge in population.

But petroleum is going away. Natural gas can't replace it much. Liquifying or gasifying coal will only put off the day of reckoning. In the end, fossil fuels will simply run out. There won't be an economic basis for doing what we do now: Run everything off of them. The energy-economic input due to fossil fuels will simply collapse.

So we're going to return to using horses. The elite will still have access to petroleum, natural gas and even coal. But for the common person? He'll be walking, riding a bicycle, or using a horse. And there's going to be a LOT of war in the interim to shake out the excess billions of violent simians who will no longer fit into the economic system of food production and land ownership.

>>6533632
Nuclear has been an option for decades. Solar and wind are becoming options, though it would be premature to deploy them on a mass scale now. Household solar installations might be a lot more attractive when people can charge their own cars rather than paying for gas.

Power plants aren't all that expensive. Electricity certainly is cheap enough that operating a battery-powered vehicle is cheaper than operating a gasoline-fuelled vehicle, though the price of the vehicle is higher.

>>6533643
By calling yourself "Violent Simians Guy", you must be aware that you're viewed as a cartoonishly repetitive idiot rather than a serious contributor, right?

Why do you do this? /sci/ is not your blog.

>>6532230
PART 1/3

> Oil isn't "dirt cheap".

The fuck it isn't. There's a huge amount of energy in each barrel of oil you pull out of the ground and then remove the water from. Petroleum's cheap delivery of a lot of energy, in historical terms, is precisely why we use it so pervasively.

> Advanced solar and nuclear have the potential to provide electricity orders of magnitude cheaper and more abundant than today's best options.

Uranium-based nuclear power has had plenty of time to prove itself. It's failed.

You're putting your hopes in solar but the economics of it are clearly against it. Solar is the religion of the nerd class which can't accept that fossil fuels played too much of a part in the socio-economics of its culture.

> Energy density only matters for certain uses,

The dumbest thing ever said on /sci/, ever. Energy density is what engineers lust after. More power, in ever smaller spaces, is what engineering is all about. That's how you ended up with a 2-ton car that can go 250 miles at 60mph holding 4 people and some cargo, all in air-conditioned or heated comfort without being soaked by one drop of rain or injured by one slung stone or stung by one insect. The large energy density of a petroleum distillate allowed that to happen.

You're drunk on your own denial.

>>6532230
PART 2/3

> For instance, liquid hydrogen will be a superior aviation fuel when the technology is worked out, because its specific energy is three times that of today's kerosene fuel.

Totally stupid. The primary source of hydrogen today is natural gas. You're sourcing your miracle fuel from a fossil fuel. And we only do that, since NG is so cheap. When NG's depletion makes it "not so cheap", we'll stop sourcing hydrogen from it, and in fact will stop sourcing hydrogen for the largest measure. Again, you /sci/ducks fail to understand that ECONOMICS PLAYS A HUGE FACTOR in anything that happens in industry.

> Battery-powered electric cars already save you money compared to buying gas, and are rapidly getting better.

Batteries are too heavy, don't have enough energy density, and by the time you're sucking the electric grid for millions of these cars, the cost and inefficiency of those acts will become readily apparent. You can't replace gasoline and diesel, moron. And there are no such things as electric airliners and bulldozers. We use petroleum distillates for those since NOTHING ELSE CAN POWER THEM. Electric is a fantasy.

>>6533643
>Wrong.
if you can't read why are you here?
>>6533643
>The main thing which was bad about horses
I didn't say the MAIN problem... I said the horse shit stinks. disagree with that and you will show yourself for the ignorant fool you are.

I used to drive cars...

Had a truck I converted to Propane...

Scooters, motorcycles...

Gave it all up for one of these...

Never felt better.

Sometimes, I look at the people waddling through the parking lots to their cars...

Their fat kids trailing behind slurping popsicles...

I wonder how stupid the buy is who fathered that...

How he possibly gets hard for his blimp of a wife...

Or if the insemination was artificial.

Nobody at work doesn't ride a car. One guy has a huge harley, which he rides on nice days, otherwise, a gigantic truck ("The Beast").

He's a strange little gnome of a man. Found out he is married to one of the fattest, ugliest women in the office.

I'll tell you something else I've noticed. Babies are being rolled around in strollers, until they are several years old. Then its in and out of cars and trucks. Then as adults they sit on their ass and drive everywhere. Then as old people they have those electric scooters.

No wonder modern people are all so sluglike...

tl;dr cars are wheelchairs for lazy people

>inb4 that bike is shit

Bike is representative picture, not my actual bike moron.

Wow, chemfag is really owning this thread. A tripfag who isn't retarded? These really must be the end times.

>>6533671
>Uranium-based nuclear power has had plenty of time to prove itself. It's failed.

Except it clearly hasn't failed, and furthermore the technology has steadily improved and continues to do so.

>You're drunk on your own denial.

The irony of this being said by you of all people is staggering.

>>6531640
>Gasoline (E10) - $0.0991
>Biobutanol - $0.0796
>Ethanol (E85) - $0.1233
>Ethanol (E85B) - $0.1223
I'm very curious about your source that gives biobutanol at lower prices than gasoline, and much lower prices than ethanol. That has to be a theoretical estimate, or a subsidized price with no relation to the production cost.

Butanol is made from the same feedstock as ethanol. The transportation cost might be somewhat lower because of the superior density, which could increase the relative delivered price of ethanol (though not this much), but the production cost of butanol has to be higher than that of ethanol, because it requires more advanced (and more recently patented) processes.

>>6532230
PART 3/3

> "Extremely practical" doesn't actually mean anything. You're not communicating anything by saying it. Learn to express yourself.

It's because like any addict, you're so dependent on petroleum and natural gas that you don't realize that they made everything in your life hundreds of times easier to accomplish. Petroleum is EXTREMELY practical. You drill for it, which was an already established technology (drilling wells for water), and drilling is easily enough done in the first place. We drilled like madmen in the late 1800s, to show you how little of an industrial base was required. And then the stuff tends to come out under its own pressure. If not, then pumping's pretty easily done. Then you have to remove the water. Also easy. Transporting this marvelous liquid is a cinch. It can be tanked and pipelined. It can stored for long period of time. Refining's a pain, but it's now a well-established technology and the refining base is solid. And then you can still tank it around, even pump it, in refined states. And then it stores in usage tanks fairly well. You can now buy any amount of it you like, and store any amount of it you like, right at the point of application. It CAN'T get any easier.

Dude, you clearly have no idea how PRACTICAL all this is. Why would you? You're drunk on it. You have no idea how much of a radical change this was over using coal, then wood before it. You're not old enough or smart enough or sober enough to know.

>>6533708
in the game of trading energy for miles traveled isn't a bicycle the most efficient? plus I like the cost per mile

>Living the dream

>>6533751
forgot pic

>>6533731
>>6533673
>>6533671
Your scenario of global societal collapse, and never replacing oil, is a total absurdity. This whole thread is about all the other options we have.

All of your points are either responding to an imaginary strawman, since you didn't bother to actually read what you were responding to, or just plain wrong and adequately refuted by other posts in this thread, since you didn't bother reading it either. Skimming until you hit your rant triggers is not a substitute for actual reading.

If you want to rant about peak oil and societal collapse, get a blog so we can all not read it, or start your own thread, so we can all ignore it. It's completely off topic in this thread, which aside from your posts, has been generally quite civil, reasonable, and informative.

Given the fact that pic related already exists, is there any reason to doubt that electric cars will mostly replace internal combustion powered vehicles, sooner or later?

>>6533801

um, forgot pic

>>6533801
Electric cars are likely to remain more expensive to produce and shorter-ranged pretty much forever, though their fuel and maintenance costs might become lower.

Internal combustion engines, whatever their faults, are pretty straightforward and can run on energy-dense fuel. They might never go away, the same way that cooking with electricity has never quite managed to replace cooking with fire.

>>6533811
>Electric cars are likely to remain more expensive to produce and shorter-ranged pretty much forever,

How can you say that, given the recent rapid advances in battery technology? And there are several promising new techs in the pipeline, too. 15 years ago electric cars could not compete with gas. Now they can. In another 15, it's at least a reasonable possibility that gas won't be able to compete with electric.

Hydrogen fuel cells in cars is not the way forward, they produce water vapour thus producing more clouds and therefore increasing the density of the atmosphere which will ultimately increase the earths temperature, the exact reason why we are trying not to use fossil fuels.

>>6533832
>In another 15, it's at least a reasonable possibility that gas won't be able to compete with electric.
Not really. There are fundamental limits on energy density and specific energy. Gasoline is closer to those limits than rechargeable chemical batteries are likely to ever reach. With batteries, in addition to the fuel, you also carry the oxidizer (at least when the battery's discharged, in the case of fuel-air batteries), and rechargeability seriously constrains your options.

At ~600 Wh/L, batteries have a long way to go to reach gasoline's ~9,500 Wh/L (or ~3,000 Wh/L, after accounting for engine inefficiency), for energy density, let alone reach gasoline's ~13,000 Wh/kg (~4,000 Wh/kg output) from the current standard of ~200 Wh/kg.

The specific energy is clearly a bigger problem than the energy density. Batteries are heavy, and will likely remain that way. A 20-fold improvement isn't realistic. Range extension through primary batteries, fuel cells, or internal combustion will be necessary for mostly-electric cars to fully replace gas cars.

>>6533832
Regardless of all of that there is a fundamental difference, with an internal combustion engine the energy is generated there, on site. With an electric car the energy is only stored on site. There are always going to be situations that you need the reliability of your own self generated power instead of depending on a battery.

Electric motors are actually really good things though and as electric cars gain in popularity their efficiency and power will only increase, so i envision in the future probably all vehicles will be 'electric vehicles' but some will have their own built in combustion engines to generate electricity.

>>6533710
I try to not be retarded. I'm glad it works sometimes. I also wish more people on this board would have active conversations, even heated debate, without belaying to character attacks or "hey faggot, you're a stupid faggot" talk. That shit can stay on /b/

>>6533721
I did a lot of digging for that, and found that one of the most recent developments was from a company called Optinol that has developed a process to produce n-butanol from cellulosic feedstocks (NOT FOOD, from those of you thinking all biofuels are from corn or vegetable oil - please stop that). They've said that their costs of production are now low enough to deliver their product at an identical price to ethanol. My cost figures for that were based on the current price for ethanol at the time I wrote my report - $3.04 per gallon - with an energy content for n-butanol of 38.2 kWh/gal. The key here (the large portion of my report, really) was that the average consumer doesn't understand the differences in energy density in fuels and balks at the fact that ethanol is so hyped to be better, and cheaper (it is now, but that's artificial and that sucks) but gets them "worse mileage". We posited that we could try and make a shift to representing all fuels by their energy content and thus - I did my best to come up with accurate costs per kWh for a variety of fuels. So overall - per gallon - it's the same price, or slightly more expensive than ethanol. But per unit of energy - it's a strong contender.

This means that the opportunity is there, but obviously - not any large commercial capacity...yet.

I think the assumption you have about advanced and more recently patented technologies costing more is a fading notion in this industry. Markets are not amenable to adopt technologies that don't have some milestone where they are cost competitive - they just won't make it. So the research costs are often considered sunk - paid for by investors or grants.

>>6533871
If you're not making your own gasoline, you're not really independent of the infrastructure. If batteries were as cheap, compact, and light as fuel tanks, you could just charge them up and it would be as good as taking extra fuel.

I think the point you want to make is that fuel tanks are a lot cheaper than batteries, so it's a lot easier to expand your storage capacity.

>>6533875
To continue - my last comment was too long. Once those investors find these technologies - they understand that they will hopefully recoup their costs because it *is* feasible that these technologies will be adopted - because they not only provide numerous environmental benefits, but they MUST be cost competitive to stand any chance of penetrating the market.

>>6533733
>in the game of trading energy for miles traveled isn't a bicycle the most efficient?

Easily.

15-20 W/hr on foot
30-40 W/hr on Train
400 W/hr in automobile
from my notes...

from wikipedia

1.62 kJ/(km∙kg) or 0.28 kcal/(mi∙lb) for cycling,
3.78 kJ/(km∙kg) or 0.653 kcal/(mi∙lb) for walking/running,
16.96 kJ/(km∙kg) or 2.93 kcal/(mi∙lb) for swimming.

>>6533721
>>6533875
>>6533881
Here's a post about that company. Doris (author of this blog) covers a lot of things related to the biobased industry and is definitely someone worthy of following across her writing platforms and social media if you're interested.

http://greenchemicalsblog.com/2013/08/22/new-bio-butanol-player-optinol/comment-page-1/

>>6533867
>At ~600 Wh/L, batteries have a long way to go to reach gasoline's ~9,500 Wh/L (or ~3,000 Wh/L, after accounting for engine inefficiency), for energy density, let alone reach gasoline's ~13,000 Wh/kg (~4,000 Wh/kg output) from the current standard of ~200 Wh/kg.

Once again, electric cars are already competitive. So clearly it is not necessary for batteries to match energy density of gasoline, or even come anywhere close to it. Electric motors have so many other advantages over IC that they would still be the clearly superior option even with only modest improvements.

>>6533871
>Regardless of all of that there is a fundamental difference, with an internal combustion engine the energy is generated there, on site. With an electric car the energy is only stored on site.

That's not a difference. Chemical energy in gasoline vs. chemical energy in battery.

>>6533875
>So overall - per gallon - it's the same price, or slightly more expensive than ethanol
>My cost figures for that were based on the current price for ethanol at the time I wrote my report - $3.04 per gallon - with an energy content for n-butanol of 38.2 kWh/gal.
I think you messed up. Butanol theoretically takes about the same amount of sugar per unit energy as ethanol, not per unit volume.

And that's a development goal, not the current situation. Ethanol fermentation is very well understood and efficient, whereas butanol fermentation remains an imperfect process of inferior efficiency. This may not be solvable -- butanol is significantly more toxic than ethanol, so we may never breed or engineer microbes which can tolerate the same concentrations of butanol.

I don't believe anyone's claiming to be able to produce butanol at the same cost per gallon as ethanol, unless it's a marketing guy who has badly misunderstood what the engineers are telling him.

>>6533811
>>6533832
>>6533867

I do agree that there may be some theoretical cap on the amount of energy we can squeeze into batteries, but I don't believe that we've hit any sort of "cap" in terms of cost compared to ICEs. The most apparent argument here is that we've got no producer that has really established any economy of scale for electric vehicle production and thus, battery production. Tesla is trying to do that with their proposed "Gigafactory" - but advanced fuel and engine technologies now account for almost 10% of the LDV fleet in the U.S. and that hasn't showed any signs of slowing. These costs will come down.

As for range, light-weighting of vehicles is a major research area that promises to compensate for the massive batteries that are required for current EVs. There has been extensive research into composite materials, and recent breakthroughs into lower-cost carbon fibers and other structural materials that are much less dense, but just as strong (or stronger) than many of the steels that are currently used.

Remember - and I've said it before in this thread - this problem isn't one that we will ever find a magic bullet for. No miracle battery or engine or fuel. It will forever be an interdisciplinary endeavor to combine the best-in-class technologies across all fields and work together to bring those to consumers in a manner that allows them to be cost competitive and begin capturing market share.

>>6533891
Not sure if you missed my link to that article while you were typing this, but that company - Optinol - does accomplish cost parity with ethanol with their custom microorgaism fermentation method. Also - my energy content per gallon is based on the higher heating values of the chemicals - not having any bearing on what they were produced from. I'm unsure what you were getting at with sugar per unit energy - but I would like you to elaborate if you can.

As for fermentation - again - please remember that a lot of these advanced technologies are making use of cellulosic materials as feedstocks, and not refined sugars from starch-based crops like corn and potatoes. That drastically changes the production costs. I can go into the details behind those things if you want, but that could be a separate thread by itself.

>>6533884
>electric cars are already competitive.
...in the enthusiast market, and maybe for certain types of delivery services. They're not competitive as practical vehicles for general use. They cost much more, and have seriously limited capabilities.

If they were "competitive", you'd see a large percentage of new cars being all-electric.

But yeah, in terms of the overall value proposition, electric cars could certainly outcompete internal combustion without ever winning on purchase price or range, by being more reliable with less maintenance and lower operating costs, especially with some form of range extension, such as methanol or ammonia fuel cells.

I don't think it's a sure thing, though.

>>6533858
I think you're confused about what gasses are responsible for heat-trapping in the atmosphere. Water is pretty low on that list. I don't know if fuel cells will make it rain more.

>>6533902
>Optinol - does accomplish cost parity with ethanol
That's not what they say. They say it's "competitive", and they certainly don't specify "in units of volume".

It could be "competitive" with ethanol by costing more to produce, but being more valuable (and having lower shipping costs, because it's more dense).

Also, that is a marketing claim, not a proven fact. There are a lot more "competitive" new technologies, than technologies that survive competition in the market.

>>6533904
>...in the enthusiast market, and maybe for certain types of delivery services. They're not competitive as practical vehicles for general use. They cost much more, and have seriously limited capabilities.
>If they were "competitive", you'd see a large percentage of new cars being all-electric.

I can see you haven't been following the development of the model S. It is a luxury car that is competitive in every sense (yes, including purchase price) with other cars in its class. It gets unanimously positive reviews from car magazines and such - not as a curiosity for "enthusiasts," but as a CAR. It IS a practical vehicle for general use, and they've been selling a whole lot of them.

>>6533902
>As for fermentation - again - please remember that a lot of these advanced technologies are making use of cellulosic materials as feedstocks, and not refined sugars from starch-based crops like corn and potatoes.
I think you're a little confused on this point, too. The Optinol butinol process is fermentation starting from refined sugars.

It is possible to make refined sugars from cellulosic materials. That's what people are usually talking about when they mention cellulosic ethanol, and this is how you could make butanol from cellulose. The technique hasn't been developed into an industrially competitive process yet, though, despite its obvious desirability. It's hard. This is promising future stuff, not an option for today.

The cellulose gasification route is more straightforward, which is one reason for the enthusiasm for methanol and DME, which are easily synthesized from methane. However, natural gas is so cheap that it's basically impossible for cellulose gasification to compete until it goes up.

>>6532097
I am asking a quite silly question.Cloudnt methanol pollution cause quite health problems

>>6533912
>It is a luxury car that is competitive in every sense
Like range?

People don't buy a Model S for any reason other than that they specifically want an electric car. It's a very nice electric car, but it is by no stretch of the imagination a proper substitute for a regular gas-powered car. You can't just hop in it and drive where you like, you have to plan around the range issue, charge times, and limited availability of chargers.

Being cost-competitive with a segment of the market defined by high price is no mark of practicality.

>>6533917
Yes, but methanol is less toxic and cleaner-burning than gasoline. It also breaks down faster in the environment, so spills are less of a concern.

>>6533920
>Like range?

Yes, like range. 250 miles is completely sufficient 99% of the time. For the 1%, there's a half hour charge time, big whoop. Saying "you can't just hop in it and drive where you like" is very misleading, because yes, yes you can.

>>6533943
>sufficient 99% of the time
The "1%" matters. I outdrive that range once every weeks or two.

>For the 1%, there's
...a real car, because this is a toy for people who already have another car, and can afford to buy this one just because it's cool.

>a half hour charge time
...if you can find a charge stations. And a half hour charge, rather than a five minute fill, is a significant inconvenience.

So is having to park at your home every night. Cars are about freedom. It's what makes them so overwhelmingly popular. All-electric cars still don't give you that freedom. They need more infrastructure, at least.

I understand your enthusiasm for the recent progress, but let's be realistic here about the current situation.

>>6531482
all these cool hydrogen fuel cell water engines get invented and then the people get disappeared away by big oil

>>6531482
watch the movie "chain reaction" with neo from the matrix

>>6531546
combustion engine is inefficient and outdated

>>6532110
>>6532553
>>6532571
>>6532580
we could really do quite well even today, transitioning just to this. gassification and composting could replace petro-based fertilizer and fuels.

>>6534001
> combustion engine is inefficient and outdated
nope

>>6533989
>The "1%" matters. I outdrive that range once every weeks or two.

Most people don't do that nearly so often.

>...a real car, because this is a toy for people who already have another car, and can afford to buy this one just because it's cool.

That's simply not true. You are misinformed. Try to see past decades old stereotypes.

>...if you can find a charge stations. And a half hour charge, rather than a five minute fill, is a significant inconvenience.

A "charge station" allows a faster charge, but all you actually need is an electrical socket. Tell me, are there more electrical sockets or more gas stations?

Electric cars offer MORE freedom, not less.

>>6532894
comparing to pump price for these kinds of alternatives isn't really effective, as soon as they start gaining wide notice the price will jump right up, or the supply of key ingredients be captured.

as what happened with biodiesel, people used to just walk into mcdonalds and talk to the managers and get their couple gallons of used fry oil per store. now they're all claimed by contract with big processing plants, and price of biodiesel has accordingly risen (still less i'd guess but i don't even really know, mostly it's going right to public transport and shipping companies now, afaik, not even really any public data available).

>>6533915
I understand that - I know that few of these fermentation processes are able to take separated cellulose directly to a final product. I was simply answering your original question as to where I came up with my cost figure - all from a "forward thinking" seat. I think butanol is an awesome technology, but yes - at least 10 years away from gaining any traction. We're on the same page :)

>>6533996
>>6534001
If you are the same person - did you come from >>>/x/ ?

>>6534080
>Most people don't do that nearly so often.
You'd be surprised. A 250 mile range means you can travel a little over 100 miles before you have to come home.

A luxury car that you can't take for a weekend family visit or a trip out to the cottage doesn't seem like much of a luxury.

>>...if you can find a charge stations. And a half hour charge, rather than a five minute fill, is a significant inconvenience.
>A "charge station" allows a faster charge, but all you actually need is an electrical socket.
From an ordinary electrical socket, a ten-hour overnight charge only restores 50 miles of range. And if you're staying at someone's house, it's kind of a dick move to refuel your car at their expense.

No, you need a purpose-built charging station. And for a half-hour (partial) charge, you need a very fancy expensive one.

>Electric cars offer MORE freedom, not less.
Far shorter range, charge stations few and far between, electrical outlets you actually have a right to use very scarce indeed... war is peace, ignorance is strength, a short leash gives you freedom.

>>6534121
The Optinol process is interesting, when you read about it. A difficulty with butanol is that the microbes that ferment it can't tolerate high concentrations of butanol. This makes batch processes inefficient.

Optinol's process is continuous, keeping butanol concentration low in the bioreactor. Potentially, this could also make the process simpler to operate and more cost-effective than conventional batch ethanol.

>>6531482
Get a bike.
Walk to places.
Use your body you lazy fathat.

>>6534183
I haven't read deeply into it, but I would like to. Where did you find literature about their process (other than me finding the patent(s))?

>>6534236
I haven't really dug into the deep details either, I'm just going by the description on their web page:
http://www.optinol.com/technology.php

>>6533989
>So is having to park at your home every night. Cars are about freedom. It's what makes them so overwhelmingly popular. All-electric cars still don't give you that freedom. They need more infrastructure, at least.
what if the truck stop people install charging stations for the Tesla... how would those crowds mix. A truck stop is already all about a 30 minute fuel stop.

>>6534310
>what if the truck stop people install charging stations for the Tesla...

They probably will. It's easier to put in (and support) a charging station than a gas station. We'll also probably see more 240 V outlets in U.S. homes, since that allows for much better charging times than 120 V.

>>6534310
Tesla's making a 90-second battery swap system. They've demoed it, but it hasn't been deployed yet. It'll be faster (and cleaner, and safer) than refuelling a gas-fueled car, which is important since you'll be refuelling more often on long trips.

It'll work pretty well if they can get these things as common as gas stations. Personally, I think plug-in hybrids (range-extended electric) make more sense than trying to build a whole new electric car infrastructure, but this can definitely work if enough people buy into it.

>>6534156
The biggest problem right now is cost and the infrastructure in place. It will take time, but it's a necessary shift.

>>6534344
>it's a necessary shift
Not really. If we're burning coal or natural gas for electricity, the advantage is questionable, particularly compared to synthetic fuel. If we go to solar and wind power, we may need seasonal chemical energy storage anyway, so synthetic fuel could make more sense.

All-electric is an interesting direction, but it's not the only one. It makes the most sense if you assume we're going to build lots of nuclear power.

>>6534368
>If we're burning coal or natural gas for electricity, the advantage is questionable

It's not. Even using the dirtiest coal plant, it is still more efficient and cleaner than internal combustion engines.

Ideally though we would be building more nuclear plants.

>>6534399
>Even using the dirtiest coal plant, it is still more efficient and cleaner than internal combustion engines.
Not true. Using a very clean coal plant, the emissions are roughly equivalent for a gasoline-fuelled vehicle in city driving (thanks to regenerative braking), and worse on the highway. And that's not counting the extra energy used and pollution released to build the thing, with its expensive batteries.

Using a dirty coal plant, the CO2 emissions are equivalent to or worse than a gasoline-powered vehicle, but there is fly ash, sulfur dioxide, and other nasty stuff.

It looks better for natural gas, but there isn't really a clear emissions win unless your power comes from something like nuclear, solar, wind, or hydroelectric power, or a coal or gas plant with carbon sequestration. Switching to electric cars is more of a potential emissions reduction than an actual one.

It is a national interests bonus if you can power your vehicle with domestic coal or natural gas, rather than imported oil. So there's that.

>>6534430
NG should get a nod over coal, because combined-cycle generation (rankine plus brayton) allow for a better recovery of chemical energy, and NG still has a lower CO2 footprint in terms of generation.

Coal - in general - shouldn't ever be used with the word "clean" until humans are completely out of the picture when mining it. So many injuries, deaths, chronic health problems, etc - get ignored or are just not common knowledge when people are talking about the benefits of burning coal for energy.

>>6534430

>Not true. Using a very clean coal plant, the emissions are roughly equivalent for a gasoline-fuelled vehicle in city driving (thanks to regenerative braking), and worse on the highway. And that's not counting the extra energy used and pollution released to build the thing, with its expensive batteries.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php

>>6534482
Thank you, based anon. This is going in my report as I revise it. We needed some figures to show carbon footprint for hybrids and EVs for our proposed new fuel economy label.

>>6534482
What your link says is: "In regions that depend heavily on conventional fossil fuels for electricity generation, PEVs may not demonstrate a well-to-wheel emissions benefit."

It shows the electric vehicle having 60% of the emissions of the conventional vehicle, despite less than half of their power coming from coal, and nearly 30% coming from carbon-neutral sources. An all-coal source would result in roughly equal carbon emissions, as I previously pointed out. And this is not accounting for the additional energy to produce or responsibly dispose of the vehicle and its batteries, or for charge lost while the vehicle is not being driven (a noted problem with electric vehicles).

Furthermore, they are comparing a corporate average gasoline-powered passenger car to a capability-inferior, high-priced, cramped, lightweight compact all-electric (which might be incapable of completing this 100 mile trip -- their standard is the Nissan Leaf). The claimed emission reduction could be met simply by purchasing a conventional vehicle with better fuel economy.

Your unsourced image is incorrect or based on unreasonable assumptions.

>>6532173
Why are you talking as though you're not a part of the problem?

>>6534572

>What your link says is: "In regions that depend heavily on conventional fossil fuels for electricity generation, PEVs may not demonstrate a well-to-wheel emissions benefit."

http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/pdfs/41410.pdf

You should really follow the links and play around with the emissions estimate widget. It's actually very informative. You can even use this map to get started.

http://www.sierraclub.org/coal/map/

>It shows the electric vehicle having 60% of the emissions of the conventional vehicle, despite less than half of their power coming from coal, and nearly 30% coming from carbon-neutral sources. An all-coal source would result in roughly equal carbon emissions, as I previously pointed out. And this is not accounting for the additional energy to produce or responsibly dispose of the vehicle and its batteries, or for charge lost while the vehicle is not being driven (a noted problem with electric vehicles).

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf

>Furthermore, they are comparing a corporate average gasoline-powered passenger car to a capability-inferior, high-priced, cramped, lightweight compact all-electric (which might be incapable of completing this 100 mile trip -- their standard is the Nissan Leaf). The claimed emission reduction could be met simply by purchasing a conventional vehicle with better fuel economy.

http://www.renault.com/fr/lists/archivesdocuments/fluence-acv-2011.pdf

>>6534978
Do you think you're correcting me with those links?

>http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf
I just took pic related from this link.

When you're driving it, the Nissan Leaf, a compact car, gets the CO2-emission-equivalent of 30 MPG if charged by coal-powered electricity. That doesn't account for the additional energy cost of its manufacture and disposal, charge loss while parked, or the non-CO2 pollution released by burning coal.

30 MPG is certainly respectable, but it's not better than other, less expensive, less energy-intensive to manufacture, more capable cars which run on gasoline.

54 MPG (if the power comes from natural gas) is considerably better, but still not a significant improvement on (non-plug-in) hybrids, which are less expensive, less energy-intensive to manufacture, and more capable than all-electrics with useful range.

Now, realistically, how is the additional load of your individual electric car going to be met, during its lifetime? They're not going to deploy more solar panels or windmills. They're not going to build a new nuclear plant for you. They're going to burn more coal, natural gas, or oil for each mile you drive your car.

Electric cars currently only represent a hope of reduced emissions, because our grid responds to additional load by burning more fossil fuels, often in a much dirtier way than cars do.

>>6535052

>Do you think you're correcting me with those links?

You're too stubborn to admit you were wrong, so no.

>When you're driving it, the Nissan Leaf, a compact car, gets the CO2-emission-equivalent of 30 MPG if charged by coal-powered electricity. That doesn't account for the additional energy cost of its manufacture and disposal, charge loss while parked, or the non-CO2 pollution released by burning coal.

>30 MPG is certainly respectable, but it's not better than other, less expensive, less energy-intensive to manufacture, more capable cars which run on gasoline.

>54 MPG (if the power comes from natural gas) is considerably better, but still not a significant improvement on (non-plug-in) hybrids, which are less expensive, less energy-intensive to manufacture, and more capable than all-electrics with useful range.

So, in other words, still better than pretty much any other car in it's class, even in a contrived worst-case scenario.

>Electric cars currently only represent a hope of reduced emissions, because our grid responds to additional load by burning more fossil fuels, often in a much dirtier way than cars do.

If only someone would do a product life cycle assessment on a a conventional car and its electric counterpart, so we could have hard numbers instead of just baseless speculation.

http://www.renault.com/fr/lists/archivesdocuments/fluence-acv-2011.pdf

>>6534978
>pie charts
I thought this was /sci/

Batteries + nuclear power plants.

Seriously, this problem was solved 50 years ago. Fucking idiots, all of us.

>>6535052
The thing that bugs be about wheel-to-well comparisons of gasoline vs. electricity is that it only counts the sale price of gasoline. There are similar if not worse inefficiencies for gasoline: crude oil extraction, transport, refinement, distribution, and eventual small-engine combustion. Add it all up, and automotive gas is less efficient than even coal electricity.

Much of the variance in gas prices around the world are due to heavy subsidies/taxation. The US prices are artificially low due to govt. subsidies and lower taxes than other countries.

>>6535546
>Much of the variance in gas prices around the world are due to heavy subsidies/taxation. The US prices are artificially low due to govt. subsidies and lower taxes than other countries.

Indeed. One could also argue that a sizable fraction of the U.S. military budget is effectively a giant oil subsidy.

>>6535115
>So, in other words, still better than pretty much any other car in it's class, even in a contrived worst-case scenario.
No, I've pointed out that there are bigger, better conventional cars that get better than 30 MPG. 30 MPG is just a little better than average, and is nothing special in a compact. And the additional demand on the grid being met by burning more coal isn't a contrived worst-case scenario, but the actual situation in much of the world.

The assumption that because x% of grid power is generated by nuclear, means that your electric car's load will be met by x% nuclear is unreasonable. It is new load. It will be met by the more flexible parts of the system: coal, oil, and gas.

>http://www.renault.com/fr/lists/archivesdocuments/fluence-acv-2011.pdf
This is marketing material by an electric car manufacturer. Different people look at this in different ways, and come to different conclusions. Neutral parties tend to come to less favorable conclusions than manufacturers or boosters.

One thing you notice about this chart is the implicit assumption that you're going to buy an electric car instead of a conventional car, and drive your barely-does-100-miles electric just as much as you would a conventional car. In reality, you're going to buy an all-electric car in addition to a conventional car, and you're only going to use it for some of your short trips. Because all-electrics just don't do all of the things that a car is supposed to do.

>>6535546
>The thing that bugs be about wheel-to-well comparisons of gasoline vs. electricity is that it only counts the sale price of gasoline.
Not true. That would be tank-to-wheel. Wheel-to-well counts all of the emissions involved in extracting and refining the gasoline.

>>6535536
Honest question - except for nuclear phobia, is there any legitimate reason not to go nuclear?
More people die because of coal and oil anyway, and nuclear doesn't pollute as much; is it just case of 'radiation is scary, duude' or is it because of practical reasons?

>>6535679
Nuclear might be more expensive and the location of the power plant locations is more scarce than traditional power. Then also in some countries strategic reasons, like availability of local oil but no local uranium sources might put them off.
Aside of that not really.

>>6535546
>Add it all up, and automotive gas is less efficient than even coal electricity.
Just not true (in terms of CO2 emissions), however much you want it to be. And coal is a lot dirtier, both in how it's extracted, and the pollution released when you burn it.

Ford Fiesta gets 37 mpg. The Union of Concerned Scientists report rates the Nissan Leaf running on coal at 30 mpg equivalent. They're both compact cars. Both can seat 5 passengers.

Ford Fiesta starts at $14,100. Nissan Leaf starts at $29,830, before the government gives you money to buy one. Ford Fiesta range: how far do you want to go? Nissan Leaf range: about 100 miles, return trip.

To justify the additional expense, reduced capabilities, and general inconvenience of electric cars, you don't just need to find that they're better than the conventional average, but that they're better than the conventional best options. You need to look at things like the Ford Fiesta, Honda Civic HF, and Ford Prius.

It's worthwhile for people to be running some electric cars, to develop engineering and operating experience, and start setting up some experimental infrastructure. However, it is certainly not time for everyone to get one. That would be an environmental negative, as well as a practical disaster.

It may never be time for everyone to get one. We'll have to see what happens with grid power, batteries, and fuel synthesis technology.

>>6535679
We're also worried about nuclear weaponry. If lots of uranium and the equipment to refine it is being bought and sold in the quantities needed to run the world off of it, it'd be very easy to acquire the materials to build a nuke. Plus, all uranium-based nuclear reactors produce plutonium by nature, which also allows for bomb-making.

>>6535675
>>6535699

>No, I've pointed out that there are bigger, better conventional cars that get better than 30 MPG. 30 MPG is just a little better than average, and is nothing special in a compact. And the additional demand on the grid being met by burning more coal isn't a contrived worst-case scenario, but the actual situation in much of the world.

You're ignoring real-world values in favor of a fictional baseline because the moment you plug real-world values into the equation, your argument falls apart.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php

>One thing you notice about this chart is the implicit assumption that you're going to buy an electric car instead of a conventional car, and drive your barely-does-100-miles electric just as much as you would a conventional car. In reality, you're going to buy an all-electric car in addition to a conventional car, and you're only going to use it for some of your short trips. Because all-electrics just don't do all of the things that a car is supposed to do.

Most drivers travel 40 miles a day or less.

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/omnistats/volume_03_issue_04/html/figure_02.html

>>6535768
Realistically, though, nuclear weapon proliferation control is a short-term proposition at best.

Computers and prototyping tools are becoming more common, cheaper, and more powerful by the minute.

Sooner or later (and probably sooner than later), a small team with a few million dollars is going to be able to set up a laser isotope separation system in an externally unremarkable warehouse, and design a bomb that works the first time by computer modelling.

We're going to have to deal with that reality somehow. We're going to feel a bit silly having passed up opportunities for cheap, clean, abundant power in the name of antiproliferation when the general advance of technology renders all such efforts futile.

It is, unfortunately, not the laws of nature which make nuclear weapons difficult to produce, but only a lack of technical sophistication which is rapidly eroding. We're swimming in nuclear potential energy.

>>6536500
>You're ignoring real-world values in favor of a fictional baseline because the moment you plug real-world values into the equation, your argument falls apart.
I was responding to: >>6534399
>Even using the dirtiest coal plant, it is still more efficient and cleaner than internal combustion engines.

Follow the thread if you're going to jump in.

Anyway, it isn't legitimate to take a cross-section of power generation, and say that a new load is being met in proportion by all sources feeding the grid. People do that because they're trying to make electric cars look good.

You have to look at how an incremental increase in load will *actually* be met. For the most part, it'll be by burning coal, gas, or oil. Solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro are going to put out whatever they're going to put out. Once you've installed them, it doesn't make much sense to turn them down. They put out whatever they can, and then the shortfall is made up by coal, gas, and oil.

Buying an electric car doesn't add more solar, wind, nuclear, or hydro capacity. Adding any additional load to the grid makes it that much dirtier, while cutting load from the grid makes it cleaner.

>Most drivers travel 40 miles a day or less.
That's an average. A car that only handles your average day is a lot less useful than one which also handles your occasional special applications.

I had an old friend whose father sold propane (and presumably propane accessories) and thus converted his 1950's chevy pickup to run off of propane, which was secured in the bed of the truck in a normal propane tank which could be refilled at his place of work. Quite neat, and the engine and piping were clean as a whistle.

>>6536597
> A car that only handles your average day is a lot less useful than one which also handles your occasional special applications.
No, that makes it marginally less useful, not a lot less useful. And that's taking the range in isolation; if it's cheaper to run, that would easily make up for the reduced range.

I occasionally need to move objects which are too large and/or heavy for my car. My solution isn't to replace the car with a truck, just to rent one when needed.

>>6538339
Because I had to

>>6538339
If a vehicle was designed for leaded fuel, running it on propane will typically damage the valve seats. Vehicles designed for use with unleaded fuel have hardened valve seats.

>>6536597

>You have to look at how an incremental increase in load will *actually* be met. For the most part, it'll be by burning coal, gas, or oil. Solar, wind, nuclear, and hydro are going to put out whatever they're going to put out. Once you've installed them, it doesn't make much sense to turn them down. They put out whatever they can, and then the shortfall is made up by coal, gas, and oil.

>The existing electricity infrastructure as a national resource has sufficient available capacity to fuel 84% of the nation’s cars, pickup trucks, and SUVs (198 million) or 73% of the light duty fleet (about 217 million vehicles) for a daily drive of 33 miles on average.

>A shift from gasoline to PHEVs could reduce the gasoline consumption by 6.5 MMBpd, which is equivalent to 52% of the U.S. petroleum imports.

http://www.pnl.gov/news/release.aspx?id=204

>>6538413
>> A car that only handles your average day is a lot less useful than one which also handles your occasional special applications.
>No, that makes it marginally less useful
No, it makes it a lot less useful. Days where you need to drive more than average are not rare. They're often very important, too.

It's sounds good enough to have a car that can take you to and from work every day, but what about when you need to drive around to interviews, or move house? What about family events and emergencies? Vacations? Weekend visits?

Those are not "marginally useful" applications of a car.

>>6538445
First of all, plug-in hybrids are a much, much better option than all-electric cars. That's what they're talking about. Plug-in hybrids can run entirely on gasoline if needed. I'm hoping to see flex-fuel PHEVs that can run on a wider range of fuels, including methanol. Even if you don't plug them in, they get superior mileage because of smaller engines and regenerative braking, like non-plug-in hybrids.

Hybrids do save energy, though it's not clear that they're worthwhile in the overall picture. The cost also has to be considered.

Secondly: that link agrees with me that the way they actually do and would meet the demand added by electric vehicles is by burning more coal, gas, and oil. None of the clean generating capacity should be considered to be used to charge electric cars.

I've pointed out before that there's a national interest bonus to electric cars, since it means being able to run them on coal, with America has plenty of, rather than imported gasoline. However, gasoline imports can also be ended with more synthetic fuel (I've mentioned methanol before: some modifications to cars would be needed, but it could be immediately cheaper than gasoline).

>>6531482
Ethanol though it delivers less energy per unit volume than gasoline does.

The benefit is that as long as we can grow corn we have fuel.

>>6538499
> I'm hoping to see flex-fuel PHEVs that can run on a wider range of fuels

You're probably better off going in the other direction, i.e. a series hybrid with the engine designed to run at a fixed speed and load in order to maximise efficiency. Which would probably mean a single fuel.

Also, the engine only needs to handle average demand, not peak demand. Or even below that, if the engine is intended as a backup rather than something which you use regularly.

>>6538508
> as long as we can grow corn we have fuel.
But can you grow enough corn? More importantly, can you do so without having to import oil to make fertiliser?

If you want to stick with hydrocarbons, making propane (or synthetic diesel or whatever) from coal is probably a better bet.

>>6538544
I have hope for turbines in plug-in electric vehicles. They use the least material, weigh the least, take up the least space, and can be highly efficient. The main problem with using them in cars is that they're most efficient at a single speed, which isn't really a disadvantage in a plug-in hybrid.

They also work well with a variety of fuels. It would be possible to build one that could run on anything from hydrogen to kerosene with minor modifications.

>>6531482
ujhhhh trains/light rail

I wonder if OP expected such a long-lived thread

>>6539395
How would you build a tank for that on the car?

>>6539767

It's basically just the one guy ignoring the reams of feasability studies that have already been done and show the concept of replacing conventional fossil fuel-powered vehicles with battery-electric vehicles is workable even with currently existing technology and infrastructure.

Emissions from Hybrid and Plug-In Electric Vehicles: Compare Electricity Sources and Annual Vehicle Emissions

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php

Electric Vehicles’ Global Warming Emissions and Fuel-Cost Savings across the United States

http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_vehicles/electric-car-global-warming-emissions-report.pdf

FLUENCE and FLUENCE Z.E. Life Cycle Assessment October 2011

http://www.renault.com/fr/lists/archivesdocuments/fluence-acv-2011.pdf

Impacts Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles on Electric Utilities and Regional U.S. Power Grids Part 1: Technical Analysis

http://energytech.pnnl.gov/publications/pdf/PHEV_Feasibility_Analysis_Part1.pdf

Impacts Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles on Electric Utilities and Regional U.S. Power Grids Part 2: Economic Assessment

http://energytech.pnnl.gov/publications/pdf/PHEV_Economic_Analysis_Part2_Final.pdf

diesel

>>6539852
>the reams of feasability studies that have already been done and show the concept of replacing conventional fossil fuel-powered vehicles with battery-electric vehicles is workable even with currently existing technology and infrastructure.
"Workable" in some narrow technical sense does not mean that this move would be actually advantageous in either an economic or environmental sense, let alone that it's the best move available.

>http://energytech.pnnl.gov/publications/pdf/PHEV_Feasibility_Analysis_Part1.pdf
>http://energytech.pnnl.gov/publications/pdf/PHEV_Economic_Analysis_Part2_Final.pdf
These are both about plug-in hybrids: cars which burn conventional fossil fuels. The essential feature of these cars is that plugging them in to charge is entirely optional. And this study is only about the impact on the power grid, not things like whether it's feasible to make so many batteries.

Furthermore, if you look closely at the analysis, what you commonly find is that the emissions will be lower if you *don't* plug them in. This is one of the reports honest enough to face the fact that the clean power sources, such as hydro, nuclear, solar, and wind, are being used to their fullest extent, such that additional load on the grid, such as charging electric cars, will be met mostly by burning coal.

This is going to be the case until the grid is upgraded, or electricity usage is reduced, to the point that the coal-powered stations are often all idle.

>>6531482
MAKE A REALLY BIG FLY WHEEL

>>6539939
This is actually a serious concept, though with very fast flywheels rather than very large ones.
http://www.economist.com/node/21540386

>>6531482

>>6539943
I know, I been reading up actually. But I just wanted to have fun, since some of the ideas are still getting fleshed out apparently.

>>6539950
also I was in a science classroom in the 80's where a bunch of "geeks", along the teacher, groused about no one coming up with a flywheel solution to automobile propulsion. Sorry to say much of it went over my head. Also, people WERE working on that all along.

>>6539923

>These are both about plug-in hybrids: cars which burn conventional fossil fuels. The essential feature of these cars is that plugging them in to charge is entirely optional.

You can't read, so expecting you to read between the lines was asking way too much.

>And this study is only about the impact on the power grid, not things like whether it's feasible to make so many batteries.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-17/pentagon-less-dependent-on-china-rare-earths-report-says.html

Despite what CNW Marketing, the Connecticut State University Recorder and the Telegraph tell you, we aren't going to run out of batteries any time soon.

>Furthermore, if you look closely at the analysis, what you commonly find is that the emissions will be lower if you *don't* plug them in. This is one of the reports honest enough to face the fact that the clean power sources, such as hydro, nuclear, solar, and wind, are being used to their fullest extent, such that additional load on the grid, such as charging electric cars, will be met mostly by burning coal.

This was wrong the first time you said it, and it hasn't gotten any more correct with the passage of time.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php

>>6540147
>http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-12-17/pentagon-less-dependent-on-china-rare-earths-report-says.html
Do you understand that lithium is not a rare earth element? This is entirely irrelevant to batteries.

>This was wrong the first time you said it, and it hasn't gotten any more correct with the passage of time.
It has always been correct. You're dragging this around in circles.

>http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php
"In regions that depend heavily on conventional fossil fuels for electricity generation, PEVs may not demonstrate a well-to-wheel emissions benefit."

Your own sources never actually support the points you claim they make, because you're not reading them carefully.

And this on a page which is entirely ignoring the fact that we're already using all of our clean power capacity (a point acknowledged in the PNNL report). The stuff we can turn up to meet higher load is all coal, oil, and natural gas, and it's mostly coal and oil. It doesn't actually matter what region you're in.

Until we clean up the grid, a Ford Fiesta will remain cleaner than a Nissan Leaf, as well as being more capable and much cheaper.

>>6531482
So glad I left Beijing

>>6532605
So can we use wildfire to power our cars now? imagine the enthalpy of its combustion. It took out most of stannis's fleet so a very small amout should produce large amounts of heat for ICEs.

I gave up trying to reformat so 4chan wouldn't think this was spam... what I want to say is the following pastebin site...
http://pastebin.com/8uvzsXXA
Pic related...

>>6540208

>Do you understand that lithium is not a rare earth element? This is entirely irrelevant to batteries.

http://www.che.ncsu.edu/ILEET/phevs/lithium-availability/An_Abundance_of_Lithium.pdf

>"In regions that depend heavily on conventional fossil fuels for electricity generation, PEVs may not demonstrate a well-to-wheel emissions benefit."

>Your own sources never actually support the points you claim they make, because you're not reading them carefully.

Yes, you've demonstrated time and again that you can take a single sentence out of context.

It's really fortunate that other people can follow the link, type in a ZIP code and see the emissions of electric and ICE vehicles compared side by side for themselves.

http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php

>Until we clean up the grid, a Ford Fiesta will remain cleaner than a Nissan Leaf, as well as being more capable and much cheaper.

Natural gas and Fukushima killed the nuclear renaisance.

Accept it.

>>6541881
>http://www.che.ncsu.edu/ILEET/phevs/lithium-availability/An_Abundance_of_Lithium.pdf
One man's opinion about future prospects, when he clearly has business interests in promoting confidence in the lithium supply. It's rather obvious from the text of the report alone that he's taking a side in a controversy.

The potential problem with the lithium supply isn't that there might not be enough lithium, but that it might cost too much to extract, or involve too much environmental damage or politically unacceptable dealings.

>follow the link, type in a ZIP code and see the emissions of electric and ICE vehicles compared side by side for themselves.
>http://www.afdc.energy.gov/vehicles/electric_emissions.php
I've pointed out several times now that the current situation is that all of our clean generation capacity is fully occupied. When you add load to the grid, you are not drawing on a cross-section of power sources, you're drawing on whatever they have to turn up to satisfy your load. That means coal, oil, and gas. Most of the gas generation capacity is fully occupied as well, so what will get burned is mostly coal.

It doesn't matter whether the grid in your area is 2% nuclear or 50% nuclear, if you start charging cars off that grid, they will be charged with coal. They're totally ignoring that, and doing other things to make electric look cleaner than it is, like comparing a compact electric car, highly optimized for mileage (the Nissan Leaf), to typical ICE cars rather than a similarly optimized ICE car (such as the Ford Fiesta).

Just because it's on a government website doesn't mean it isn't biased and misleading advocacy.

>>6531482
Natural gas is cheap and abundant. Natural gas powered vehicles should be the standard.

>>6531482
Thorium
Nuclear
Hydrogen
Static Electricity
Air
-------
The future of cities are Cities where there are no cars allowed, only for entertainment purposes on racetracks where people can pay to ride cars like bumpercars at a fair.

>>6542758
>Thorium
>Nuclear
Obviously stupid, our reactors that give out positive energy are huge, also they can't be switched off easily.
>Hydrogen
Possible, however most (ie. all) of our methods are merely generating electricity through conventional means, then inefficiently converting it into hydrogen. I don't see any advantage to this.
>Static Electricity
LOL do you know what static electricity is?
>Air
I have heard of this and it seems like a joke, if you make a storage able to travel just a few kilometers, the pressure would be so high that any small faulty part will result in epic explosions. Current cars don't do this because petrol is unflammable (relatively speaking) and unlikely to explode), extremely high pressure gas on the other hand...

So /sci/, why wouldn't think work instead?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTA3rnpgzU#t=365

So /sci/, why wouldn't this work instead?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlTA3rnpgzU#t=365

>>6542758
>The future of cities are Cities where there are no cars allowed, only for entertainment purposes on racetracks where people can pay to ride cars like bumpercars at a fair.


my sides, eco-hippies are the funniest hippies

>>6543594
seems like a crazy expensive investment and probably won't last long on traffic heavy roads

would be interesting to see it tried in small towns though

>>6531482
>alternative fuel can be used in place of gasoline in automobiles?

>>6543594
I've thought of something much like this (and I've heard the idea mentioned many times). It's neat to see that someone is working on it seriously, but I'm not sure they're thinking it through very carefully.

The obvious problem is cost. They haven't done cost analysis yet, but they make claims like, "It pays for itself!"

Sloppy thinking:
"Even if someone were able to pull a panel out of the road and load it on a truck, the stolen panel would continue communicating with all of the other panels in the road. The road would know exactly where it was and how fast it was moving, making the criminal a sitting duck for law enforcement."

Thieves aren't all stupid. If someone wanted to make a living stealing these things, they'd learn how to deactivate them, or stuff them in a faraday cage capable of blocking their communications. The theft concern needs a better answer.

>>6531482
big oil disappears away whoever tries to invent a water powered fuel cell. combustion engines are inefficient and obsolete. big oil and big pharma are on the same team. they are the same.

enemies of progress.

>>6543602
>2014
>hippies
back to the Sixties with you, Grandpa

>>6544964
>big oil disappears away whoever tries to invent a water powered fuel cell

Water isn't a fuel.

>>6546533
what is that supposed to mean? water can hold a shitload of energy

>>6546553
when we say fuel we mean something that gives us more energy than it took us to get out of the ground

>>6546557
hydrogen FUEL cells.

>>6546578
Only the exhaust is water. "Hydrogen" means a certain light gas, it doesn't mean water. Making hydrogen from water costs more energy than you get from burning hydrogen into water, because thermodynamics.

Car exhaust also contains water, because of the hydrogen in the hydrocarbon fuel. That doesn't make them "water powered".

There is plenty of research being done into hydrogen as a fuel. It's not being sabotaged by big oil, it's just that hydrogen is a pain in the ass to handle and transport. Plus we don't really have a lot of it just lying around to pick up and burn, the way we do with oil.

>>6546581
We synthesize hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells at power plants or by plugging your car in.
It's called a fuel despite not being taken from the ground

>>6546605
> We synthesize hydrogen for hydrogen fuel cells at power plants

I can't even find a facepalm.jpg that's facepalmy enough.

The primary source for elemental hydrogen today is natural gas, because CH4. So we get hydrogen as we like it, cheap as possible, but only because the fossil fuel that sources it is the cheapest option. Once you get rid of its cheapness, due to depletion, then you're going to find out that you're not going to choose alternative sources. Water cracked by solar power is just too expensive a source of hydrogen. THAT'S WHY WE DON'T EVEN BOTHER WITH IT TODAY.

The critical problem with alt energy sources is that we will ONLY make use of them once cheap fossil fuels vanish. But that means energy won't be cheap anymore. That breaks the Western economic model like a dry stick.

>>6546553
>what is that supposed to mean?

It means water isn't a fuel. If it was, then the first lightning strike would have set the oceans on fire.

> water can hold a shitload of energy

But it's not an energy SOURCE. Nothing is "powered by water".

Why are we even having this conversation? You haven't even graduated high school.

Here, tards... these are fuels:

Wind, sunlight, ocean waves, impounded water, select sites of geological heat, petroleum, natural gas, coal, wood, cow patties, peat, refined uranium ore.

>>6546625
fuck off, it CAN be an energy source we just haven't figured it out yet; yeh cunt

>>6546621
Too bad you don't know how hydrogen cells work then.
They use electricity to separate water.

>>6531482

>2014
>not using the Magnus effect to move your car

Are you some kind of third worlder?

>>6546633
The only way for water to be an energy source is fusion. About one in 6,500 hydrogen atoms in water is deuterium. Either deuterium or lithium-6 can be made into tritium by the absorption of a neutron (though lithium is typically proposed for this purpose, deuterium would be suitable). Deuterium-tritium fusion conveniently produces a neutron, so this is sustainable in principle using only water as fuel.

However, while deuterium-tritium fusion is likely to be feasible for grid power within a century or two, it is unlikely to ever work in small, portable devices.

This thread again??!?!

>>6546972
as op of the magnus thread, i'm already using a dual-cylinder magnus effect hovercraft

>>6531487
if you shoot a tank of gasoline it leaks.

if you shoot a tank of natural gas it explodes

YEAH I'LL STICK TO GASOLINE, THANKS.

>>6546996

Saying water is a fuel in that sense, makes about as much sense as saying uranium ore is a fuel. It isn't. You have to process the bajesus out of it. So the issue is the same: Water isn't a fuel; the 1-in-6500 deuterium part of it, may be.

If PROCESSING isn't a concern for you, then you might as well state that water is a fuel since you process it into hydrogen and oxygen, which give energy when combusted together. Sadly that isn't a gainful process.

I can't really believe we're trying to define what a FUEL is. A fuel gives you positive energy gain from soup to nuts... taking all the energy required to find it, extract it, process it, deliver it, then combust it or allow it to react, THEN see if your energy obtained was greater than that, and in fact significantly greater than that.

>>6548024
>If PROCESSING isn't a concern for you, then you might as well state that water is a fuel since you process it into hydrogen and oxygen
Don't be stupid. Deuterium can be a source of net energy, even after you process it out of the water. You could make a machine that takes ordinary water in, and puts useful work out, with no other energy input, by having it separate the deuterium and generate power from fusion.

There's no way for chemical combustion of hydrogen and oxygen to be a source of net energy when you start from water. Water is the ash from burning hydrogen and oxygen. It's all burned out.

Electric cars with a really long cable to user's home power outlet. The longer the cable, the further you can go with car.

I had a dream of a terrible idea in which behind the grilles of cars were three small wind turbines to power an electric motor. So, simply by driving, the movement of the car will produce some small amount of current. This still is a very unsubstantial amount of electric power generated since the fans are way too small.

I guess a tangential question we could ask is how can we make electric generators more efficient, so that we can have smaller mediums harnessing and producing larger amounts of power.

>>6531482
Don't be retarded, in the future we'll be traveling with lasers. It will be with solar sails and we shoot at our stuff with lasers to go everywhere, because we catch photons energy and go zoom.