Gas. Why we will see a $5.00 Gallon soon

[raVeneyes]

Get with the program and stop pointing the blame and start talking about solutions.

Alright, no blame...here are the solutions:

- Engine systems which have been patented and bought by the oil companies that can get up to 300 Miles to the gallon of normal gasoline fuel (I know it exists...I dated the daughter of the guy who bought the patent...he showed me the papers).

- Hydrogen fuel system internal combustion or fuel cell system trucks, buses, and cars. The largest use of gas/diesel is the fleet of trucks that keep this nation alive. No the fleets couldn't be replaced right now, but when it's time to buy a new vehicle they could be replaced at the same cost with alternate fuel vehicles.

- Alternate fuels...let's not talk exotic alternate fuels...let's keep it simple. Let's take advantage of one of the dozens of alternate fuels that could be used directly in our current cars and trucks. There are gasoline products made from vegetable matter. There are thousands of acres of land being paid for not to be farmed. You do the math.

- Biodiesel can be refined from any vegetable or animal fat oil, and is a direct replacement for diesel made from crude oil...also at a cost of only $0.69 per gallon. Before our fleet vehicles have been replaced they can save money AND burn cleaner fuel, thus lowering emissions (completely eliminating the most dangerous which is the particulate emissions) and saving the money they'll need to replace their vehicles with alternate fueled trucks

 

[Lugi20]

Alright, no blame...here are the solutions:

- Engine systems which have been patented and bought by the oil companies that can get up to 300 Miles to the gallon of normal gasoline fuel (I know it exists...I dated the daughter of the guy who bought the patent...he showed me the papers).

- Hydrogen fuel system internal combustion or fuel cell system trucks, buses, and cars. The largest use of gas/diesel is the fleet of trucks that keep this nation alive. No the fleets couldn't be replaced right now, but when it's time to buy a new vehicle they could be replaced at the same cost with alternate fuel vehicles.

- Alternate fuels...let's not talk exotic alternate fuels...let's keep it simple. Let's take advantage of one of the dozens of alternate fuels that could be used directly in our current cars and trucks. There are gasoline products made from vegetable matter. There are thousands of acres of land being paid for not to be farmed. You do the math.

- Biodiesel can be refined from any vegetable or animal fat oil, and is a direct replacement for diesel made from crude oil...also at a cost of only $0.69 per gallon. Before our fleet vehicles have been replaced they can save money AND burn cleaner fuel, thus lowering emissions (completely eliminating the most dangerous which is the particulate emissions) and saving the money they'll need to replace their vehicles with alternate fueled trucks

Ok, interesting points but I have to shoot down a few things...

- 300 miles to the gallon? There are thermodynamic laws that prohibit this from being close to feasable. Its a thing called the conservation of energy and adiabatic systems law. If you took all excess energy that fuel loses during combustion (ie. heat, vibration, noise, friction, etc.) then we would probably see a doubling of efficiency, and double the gas milage, that would be called a Carnot Otto cycle because it would be IDEAL, this situation is so far fetched and impossible that 300 miles to a gallon of anything is crazy talk.

-Hydrogen: Is a running joke in the world of engineering, but tree huggers love it b/c it burns clean (ie wasteproduct = water). But lets understand something: Lets say an oil refiney needs 1 Watt of power to make a gallon of gas, well, this gallon of gas puts out 2 Watts of power in your car (Actual numbers are different but this is just being relative.) Hydrogen would need 2 Watts to make a gallon of fuel, and the gallon would only give your car 1 Watt of power. Yes, it takes more energy to make hydrogen than hydrogen can give back, making it PATHETICALLY inneficient. Think about this, for hydrogen to be a feasable alternative, the US would need to make thousands of new refineries that would be burning coal, which would actually CRUSH the environment.

-I actually don't have much news about biodiesel, so I can't sit here and lie to you guys, but I'll tell you this: if biodeisel was going to be the cure to our problems, I, or someone I know in the field of energy systems design would probably be more excited about it.

 

[raVeneyes]

Ok, interesting points but I have to shoot down a few things...

- 300 miles to the gallon? There are thermodynamic laws that prohibit this from being close to feasable. Its a thing called the conservation of energy and adiabatic systems law. If you took all excess energy that fuel loses during combustion (ie. heat, vibration, noise, friction, etc.) then we would probably see a doubling of efficiency, and double the gas milage, that would be called a Carnot Otto cycle because it would be IDEAL, this situation is so far fetched and impossible that 300 miles to a gallon of anything is crazy talk.

-Hydrogen: Is a running joke in the world of engineering, but tree huggers love it b/c it burns clean (ie wasteproduct = water). But lets understand something: Lets say an oil refiney needs 1 Watt of power to make a gallon of gas, well, this gallon of gas puts out 2 Watts of power in your car (Actual numbers are different but this is just being relative.) Hydrogen would need 2 Watts to make a gallon of fuel, and the gallon would only give your car 1 Watt of power. Yes, it takes more energy to make hydrogen than hydrogen can give back, making it PATHETICALLY inneficient. Think about this, for hydrogen to be a feasable alternative, the US would need to make thousands of new refineries that would be burning coal, which would actually CRUSH the environment.

-I actually don't have much news about biodiesel, so I can't sit here and lie to you guys, but I'll tell you this: if biodeisel was going to be the cure to our problems, I, or someone I know in the field of energy systems design would probably be more excited about it.

300 Miles to the gallon seemed a bit far fetched to me too, but that was the theoretical design limit in the patent.

You are correct that most methods of refining hydrogen are very energy wasteful...however much hydrogen can be mined and also collected in catalytic processes. Hydrogen can also be produced through electrolytic reactions which has been successfully used to make vehicles that recycle a large portion of their waste water. And a final use of hydrogen is fuel cell vehicles which don't burn the hydrogen, rather generate electricity using hydrogen reactions. These are much more efficient at getting power from the hydrogen.

Perhaps more people should look in to biodiesel. It seems to be a relative unknown in alternate fuels. I personally kind of like it that way because several people have been running successful personal tests in the US for years and have recently begun publishing the information...the few who have read these tests and are now taking advantage of them are going to have a benefit that others coming later in the game will not. I don't think it's a resolution to the world's oil crisis problems because it *is* diesel fuel and not as volatile as gasoline. It could well be a solution for fleet vehicles however.

 

[MAllen82]

I agree with you 100% on fleet vehicles using biodiesel fuel. I remember reading an artcile in a car magazine many years ago about a young guy who turned his car into a biodiesel car. It was very crude, but very interesting. From what I've found from articles on the subject, it seems that most additional drawbacks to using biodiesel are purely aesthetic.

 

[mespock]

If that is true, then why does BuSh's new energy bill provide for huge amounts of funding to those same oil companies for R&D for alternate fuels? Seems like all they'd have to do is "unlock" those patents and go to town.

:slam Doh! They have an oil man in the white house! That's why!!

:slam :I
"Gee after 8 years of destroying the American economy I'm not going to be worried I made sure I'd have more than enough to build my palace in Saudi Arabia, Right next to the Bin Lindens. Oh and I'll build one for Daddy too, maybe even little Jeb." George W. Bush

Oh I suppose he'll blame the economy this 4 years on the hurricane, just like he did the last on 9-11.