Future Road Vehicles Propulsion Choice Battery, water or PEM?

[agentmax 0]

Anually for about 5 years I've been going to the Department of Energy's site looking up pages of numbers pertaining to barrels of oil used, and expected to be used, and creating graphs with them. 5 years ago, this showed something very shocking to me. In 2015 supply crossed down over a rising demand. Uh oh ! Everyone who's been in economics knows that's not going to repair the holes in you pocket. In more recent years the demand did hold out longer, but never later than 2020. Gas may never approach $3 per gallon, but somewhere near the end we either need a plethora of hydrogen cars, or another fuel aside from oil... The two best options I've found are using water in ICEs and hydrogen powered electric vehicles. The first somehow takes 2 stainless steel tubes, one a few thousandths larger slipped over the other, and is pulsed with a low-current, high voltage around 40kHz (water's best resonance point). This pours off a flammable gas that after combustion turns into water in your headers and exhaust (ceramicize your engine, stainless exhaust). Or theoretically... Myself and some friends tried several low-budget methods to this using tesla coils and ultrasonics... The closest we can looked like a humidifier. I don't think this is going to work. The latter option involves buying liquid hydrogen from a pump. This involves entirely new pipelines 3 times the cost of normal because hydrogen will 'slip through' anything. However this technology is proven. It's just really expensive, therefore hard for me to expirement with. I have an idea that we will have electric cars using Proton Exchange Membranes (how they get the energy from hydrogen and oxygen re-combining) however, it's most likely we will have hydrogen generators at our homes. I'm also afraid what I just said sounded like someone a hundread years ago when all the presidents made their own moonshine and engines ran on alcohol. If everyone had the means to make their own fuel, why didn't they? Oil lobbyists... and if they have it their way we'll suck the earth 'dry' of oil until 2050 when there's nothing left. What about horsepower? And classic cars? There's no way people will desert hearing and feeling low, loud, combustions sourcing to their right pedal. I don't blame them. There is something addictive to being completely inefficient, but I've been pro-efficiency for my whole life, and would seek greater satifaction in cursing at gas stations as I drove by than being a slave stuck in this rat race .-----------------------------------I've edited your poll so that the options are presented correctly. In future when you create a poll, enter each option on a different line - not all of them together on the same one.

Edited March 17, 2005 by microscopic^earthling (see edit history)

[Shogi 0]

Well, the thign is, people have known for the longest time that the fossil fuel supply would run out shortly, but the cost of finding and changign to anew fuel would be, effectivley astronomical. and you know how politicians are, they have a very tight grip on their cash except where the military is concerned *rolls eyes*.anyway, i trust electric more, simply because there isnt much development that needs to be done, electric cars have been around for years, but nobody wants em. what developers really need to do is stop making hybrid and electric cars scream "TREEHUGGER!". plus, hydrogen has a bad habit of blowing up....rather powerfully. imagine that in car accidents. diesel by far has the absolute worst smelling exhaust i have ever been subject to. i dont want anymore.

[ariolander 0]

Well look at it this way. It took us over 60 years to come up with our current infrastructure and it is completely dependent on fossil fuels. In order to make any major switch beyond those crappy electric cars and stupid hybrids is a major endevor. We would need to redo our country's entire land based transportations system. Granted it would be easier to do for stuff such as trains but a majority of our products are transported via truck so the roads will be the main concern. To make any significant switch from fossil fuils would be like starting it up from the ground up and frankly I doubt that is something anyone is happy to do untill least possible moment.Also another thing to consider besides the money involve is who has money. The people who control the fossil fuels have amazing amounts of moeny and I am sure they will do everything in their power to stop any switch. We all heard rumors on what kind of technologies and patents they own and are withholding from us. They have tones of cash and pleanty of political connections. I mean c'mon the US's freaking president comes from a oil family.As for my choice... Fuel cells... Maybe hydrogen fuel cells...

[kaputnik 0]

Personally, I'd go with Hydrogen. I recently finished a wonderful book by Michael Crichton - 'State of Fear', which has a very 'environment interest' theme to it; which prompted me to look into the urgency of managing our environment. After a bit of looking around, it seems to me that all the hulabaloo about the environment going to the dogs is a bit overstated. Especially things like the 'Greenhouse Effect'.

 

The point I want to make is that with increased carbon dioxide in the air, plants should thrive more, so, the 'thriving' plants should by far be able to take care of the 'oxygen' requirement that carbon lifeforms consume. But, human beings and nature combined are fast taking over and destroying vast forested areas continously, thus actually nulllifying the balance of oxygen production.

 

Then again, the oceans produce upwards of 80% of all oxygen in the atmosphere. Now, if there was a 'greenhouse' effect, the surface temperature of the world's oceans would rise, thus bringing wider swathes into breeding grounds for plankton - the minute lil' things that are actually responsible for most of the oxygen creation. More phytoplankton means more oxygen, as well as abundant food supply for most kinds of fishes. But, a tremendous increase in the temperature will trigger a massive growth in the population which in turn will cause depletion of fish stocks due to a larger number of phytoplankton dieing and thus causing problems while decomposing. BUT, the planet as a whole is actually headed towards another MINI or MEGA ice age; actually we're well due for another ice-age. So, although we may notice temperatures rising in our cities (caused by close proximity steel & concrete structures - which retain heat for longer periods); most of the ice capped regions are actually experiencing a cooling effect.

 

Driving Cars that 'pollute'

 

The present form of transportation that the majority of us use burns fossil fuel. This, becides throwing carbon dioxide and various amounts of other gasses, also contributes a vast quantity of dust like particles to the environment. When a region gets enough of particles in the air, there is a blocking effect caused where lesser sunlight is actually allowed to penetrate. Lesser sunlight - lesser heating. The higher the particles travel in the atmosphere, the greater the cooling effect. (Whenever there is a volcanic eruption - the whole planet undergoes a cooling effect caused by the increased number of particles in the air. Grand effect of the cars we drive now days - more particles in the air & more carbon dioxide. Solution to both of these, stop major felling of trees and plant more trees. Humans can actually equate the amount of carbon produced by growing more trees.

 

Transportation solution

 

The immediate solution is to switch to a hybrid vehicle. The world as a whole WILL depend on fossil fuels for a bit. This is because technology has not advanced enough to depend wholly on alternative modes. The best bet would be on Hydrogen Cell technology combined with a conventional engine. The output of carbons would be much lower and the by product of the Hydrogen Cells would be water. Happiness pie.. !! Also, educating the public is of core importance. The more the general population knows about hybrid solutions, the greater the demand for these vehicles will be. The more the demand, greater the production, bringing down the costs, which in turn will mean cheaper hybrid cars.

 

We really need to fund the planting of more trees..!!

[kevlar557 0]

With the rising prices of gasoline(or petrol), I believe that many of these ideas will be introduced quicker than we think. Personally, I would go for a hydrogen car, because they give off almost no pollution. With electric cars, you need to hook it up to an electrical source. As far as I know, much of the world's electricity is still produced by burning coal or oil, which still pollutes the environment. Is biodiesel the cars that run off of cooking oil. If it is, I would also use that. I would love the smell of french fries whenever I walk down the street

[Kyle Perkins 0]

I've been wondering when alternatives to gasoline are going to come full circle, and not just be certain isolated hybrid cars that only a few people own. In my opinion, we need to seriously start considering fuel cells for cars, and other things. I read an article about a month ago in Popular Science about reusable fuel cells propelling things other than cars, things like laptops and cell phones. They said that since Lithium is the most active metal we know of, Lithium batteries are the most powerful we can produce, and as we know they don't power things very well. A new laptop with widescreen capabilities, a large hard drive, and a sweet video card barely has enough battery power to run a single DVD. In fact, some laptops run out of juice before the movie is finished. This fact alone simply shows that new energy sources are needed, and soon.-Kyle

[agentmax 0]

Yeah, biodiesel is the fuel that makes exhaust smell like french fries, which would be great most of the time, but if you were driving home sick, it probably wouldn't make things better... I think alcohol would smell better then, 'cuz I hear that it has a sweet smell out the exhaust.I think what is currently preventing more common use of fuel cells is just that not enough large compaines are demanding them yet. The more they are researched for use in cars, the better manufaturing methods will be devised, so they can be made faster and cheaper. Everything becoming portable, I expect soon to see people using bluetooth mp3 players and earphones, and the clothes collect solar energy to power the low-wattage devices. To regulate the power, however, a descrete light-weight energy resevoir must also be embedded in our ensamble.If this culture is developing it's technology toward descrete portability, and then self-sufficiency, it's likely, also, that cars should create the fuel themselves.