What will our cars be running on in the future?

[Motown_Johnny]

Gasoline? Ethanol? Bio-Diesel? Electricity? Natural Gas? Hydrogen? Other?



How in the hell are the auto makers supposed to come up with a long term plan when we (as a country) don't even know what we will be using as an energy source for the vehicles they will be producing?

I sincerely hope that this is all just a little game Congress is playing and that any plan that is submitted will be hailed as a victory for everyone.

[Warren Stupidity]

1. empty

[Dogmudgeon]

3. What HE said (above)

--p!

[liberalmuse]

2. Methane.

In the future, cows will simply fart into our gas tanks.

[wuushew]

4. Methanol fuel cells

n/t

[Motown_Johnny]

20. I don't see how we can produce enough Methanol to make that happen.

Please enlighten me if you can, but I hope you see my point. The people who have offered serious answers to the OP don't agree at all on what the auto makers should be planning to run their vehicles on.

[wuushew]

29. It would be a very difficult task I admit

but methanol is mostly created from natural gas, which is plentiful. It can also be derived from bio-mass feedstock.

No internal combustion engine in existence can compete with the efficiency of a fuel cell. In addition such vehicles could be made CONSIDERABLY lighter than today's cars which carry around significant weight in the form of the transmission and engine.


Fuel cell cars could easily incorporate small batteries or capacitors to capture braking energy and become even more efficient by operating as hybrids.


Methanol has a much higher energy density than hydrogen. The challenges of producing hydrogen are trivial, but the problem of storing hydrogen are not. All electric vehicles are certainly a good choice as well. In my opinion though, any good battery will also be an expensive one as supply of lithium is not unconstrained.

Liquid fuels have additional benefits over batteries such as quick refueling and constant power output.


Methanol is toxic and corrosive however, so it is not without its problems.




(On Edit) see post #38 for additional sources

[Motown_Johnny]

33. OK, I was only thinking bio mass as a source

so you see this as a "refined natural gas" solution.

That does help with the quantity issue. The corrosive and toxic issues are a set back compared to hydrogen (unless I am mistaken).Hydrogen can also be refined from natural gas.


This is a reasonable approach, but we will need to create an entire infrastructure for Methanol storage and transportation. Also, natural gas is plentiful but it is still a non-renewable source. It may solve the problem for 50 years (which clearly covers the intent of the OP) but it is not a permanent solution.

[amandabeech]

36. I'm not sure that natural gas is sufficiently plentiful in North America

to run our vehicle fleet, provide 20-30% of our electricity (maybe a LOT more), and heat our homes and businesses for an indefinite amount of time.

We have quite a bit of gas in Alaska, but that pales to the amounts that Russia, Iran and Oman have. Also, a lot of the gas being extracted is from coal seams and shale. There are often serious ecological problems, particularly with water pollution with some of the fields.

Canada also has quite a bit of gas, but more and more of it is used in extracting and refining the tar sands.

I guess that I disagree with T. Boone Pickens. But I'm not going to try to corner the natural gas market, like I suspect he will.

[wuushew]

38. There is also..... CO2 + 3H2 ---> CH3OH + H2O

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_economy


This is a potential good and green way of making the methanol. It is just the hydrogen economy plus an extra step. You can still get all the hydrogen you need from electrolysis.

[amandabeech]

51. So what do you think that the EROEI or net energy would be on this?

NNadir has posted about methanol over on the Environment/Energy forum.

You might want to go hang out there, if you don't already.

[kristopher]

57. Pickens has refined his proposal

And is now suggesting natural gas for powering our heavy transportation sector and using battery electric drive for the personal transportation sector. The natural gas used for generating electricity is the first fuel to be displaced by wind, however as we shift away from coal we will return to methane/natural gas as a dispatchable source of electricity. The efficiency of natural gas electric generation will be augmented with air compressed (a form of energy storage) by wind energy generated in excess of immediate demand.

It is an excellent proposal.

[TlalocW]

5. Soylent Green

But IT'S PEOPLE! SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!

TlalocW

[omega minimo]

44. Beat me to it!!

:rofl:

[Ediacara]

6. Batteries within 50 years

Batteries that can go 500 km and are fully swapped out at stations and recharged on site for the cars that come by later in the day (which of course also assumes that the power grid itself is powered by some combo of wind, solar, tides, geothermal, fusion etc...).

I mean corn oil? Deep fryer grease? Who thinks that that's sustainable?

[Odin2005]

7. Electricity.

From nuclear, renewables, and eventually (one cane hope) fusion.

[Motown_Johnny]

18. I tend to agree with you. So should the "Big 3" propose electric vehicles

so they can get the loans they need to survive the current economic conditions?

[Odin2005]

24. Yes. They need to be cranking out Volt-type vehicles ASAP.

[Motown_Johnny]

28. even though the battery technology isn't there yet? and there is no infrastructure

to charge electric cars other than your own home?


When an electric car runs out of energy 30 miles from your home you are fucked.

I think in the short term we need plug in hybrids, then we need to move into pure electric once the battery tech and infrastructure advance.

Thanks for the serious answer.. a few to many "Star Wars" energy sources on this thread for my taste, but what can you do?

[kristopher]

43. The technology is here and now.

google "vehicle to grid" and "smart grid" technology and you'll see the centerpiece of a renewable energy infrastructure. Also read up on "parallel hybrid" versus "series hybrid".

Look up:
EBox (battery eletric conversions that go 120-150 miles per charge with option for small gasoline engine that can power motors for long distance driving)
Tesla Motors
Lightening Motors
Smart Car

These are startups that specialize in electric drive; they DO NOT use the lithium batteries you find in your laptop.

Main battery company in US is A123.

All auto makers are rolling out EVs between 2010 and 2012.

This isn't my opinion, this is what is planned and getting ready to happen. The reason? An internal combustion engine (no matter the fuel) uses only about 15% of the energy in the fuel to propel the auto, the rest is lost as heat. Electric vehicles with new lithium technology deliver over 90% of energy input as propulsion.

Final point: batteries are expensive but like any other manufactured commodity as more demand is created they will build more manufacturing capacity; as more manufacturing capacity comes online the price of batteries will decrease.


Hope that helps.

[Odin2005]

46. Bingo! n/t

[Breeze54]

8. Chipmunk power n/t

[endless october]

9. hydrogen, i hope.

[Morning Dew]

10. perhaps they'll run on actual horse power

The big 3 may want to retool for the buggy market.

[pansypoo53219]

11. garbage

back to the future told us so.

[Kip Humphrey]

12. Ultimately? Hydrogen. Its only a question of how long.

[Motown_Johnny]

15. and where do we get the hydrogen from?

I see electric cars as the only viable long term solution but would welcome your opinion.

[RedCappedBandit]

41. hydrogen is the most plentiful element in the universe

correct me if i'm wrong

use solar energy to isolate hydrogen atoms in water when solar energy is available. essentially, its a way of storing solar energy for use later.

[kristopher]

48. Hydrogen isn't in the cards.

Hydrogen has far too many problems and requires far to much nonexistent infrastructure. H's two advantages were that it could be distilled from water and when compressed, it has a high energy density. On the flip side, when you calculate the total amount of energy delivered for transportation hydrogen is about half as efficient as battery electric.

New generation lithium battery electric now has adequate energy density and is improving rapidly. The supporting infrastructure is mostly in place and all manufacturers are planning Battery Electric Vehicles by 2012.

[opihimoimoi]

13. Diatoms of the Best Kine....56 KM pl roughly 200 mpg

[gravity]

14. Gasoline

Just being a realists. There could be a huge boom in plug in hybrids, but gasoline will be the main fuel for longer trips.

[walldude]

16. Tibanna gas...

Mined from Bespin.

[kentuck]

17. Human gas...

Which will be sucked from our bodies as we sleep.

[leftstreet]

19. Why do you hate the Baby Jesus?

[Motown_Johnny]

21. why do you think the demise of our manufacturing industry is a joke?

[leftstreet]

23. Huh?

:shrug:

I was referring to the blind denial of limited fossil fuels.

That's all.

[Motown_Johnny]

26. I guess I misunderstood. I was also trying to make the point

that gasoline won't be the fuel of the future for automobiles.


Hating baby jesus and a pink dinosaur seemed like you were joking with me.


sorry if I was out of line

[Solon]

22. Cars will cease to become the primary mode of transportation...

Whether its batteries, hydrogen, whatever, there isn't enough energy left to justify using it on automobiles for personal transport. Cars will be replaced by less energy intensive means of transportation.

[Motown_Johnny]

25. what time frame do you have in mind for that?

a century???


I think that electric cars powered by solar/wind and nuclear are the future, but I would welcome your opinion.

[Solon]

45. No, more like a decade or two...

We consume about 15.625 million gallons of gasoline per hour in this country. To replace all that fuel with electricity, using batteries, would require approximately 526,479,636 kilowatt hours from the power grid to charge those batteries. Of course, this isn't taking into account the losses due to transmission of the electricity, or the act of charging batteries.

Its possible, I never said it wasn't, however the question is whether its practical.

[kristopher]

55. The current generating capacity is dramatically underutilized

There is enough generating power now in place to power 75% of our personal transportation needs.

[RedCappedBandit]

40. There is plenty of energy

the question is, how do we store and transport it.

[Solon]

47. Well, hydrogen is out, its a pain to store, and is an inefficient energy carrier...

at best. Batteries are slightly better, but they have inefficiencies themselves, most cannot be charged using AC current, so it has to be converted to DC, and that leads to huge losses in energy, not to mention amount of batteries that would need to be manufactured, and we better make sure they are recyclable as well, or we just replace one environmental disaster with another.

[truedelphi]

27. The people of India, Mexico and France will be driving vehicles

that run on compressed air - at a cost of 3 cents per tank.

However, while on the one hand, the USA's energy experts warn that within four to five years - we will have no "Gas" to put in our tanks, on the other hand our experts say we cannot have the compressed air vehicles because they are substandard in size and therefore unfit according to our safety standards.

So the experts would, I guess, rather that we quit going in to work and quit having the necessary ability to truck food around and then drive to grocery to get it - rather than follow the lead of other countries. <sigh>

[Motown_Johnny]

30. that is a reasonable solution

you do need to use some other energy source to compress the air to run the vehicle but that is not a big issue.

So, you would suggest phasing in ligher and smaller vehicles until we can get to the point that the compressed air cars are similar in size and safety to other vehicles... then make the move to all compressed air vehicles?

I already drive a small car and would hate to meet a SUV in a dark alley. Just the thought of even the new "Smart Cars" being hit by a SUV or a full size pick-up truck kinda scares me.

I agree that putting these tiny light vehicles on the road now would cost lives. It still may be a long term solution, if you can get the Hummer and Escalade drivers to go along with it.

[truedelphi]

37. I have never understood the rationale behind allowing for SUV's

And Hummer's.

Why are drivers required to have certain coursework and certain DMV testing to get behind the wheel of a UPS truck, but are allowed to drive these huge monster SUV's even when just eighteen and no mileage experience under your belt??

The Bay Area community where I used to live, the roads were often barely one and a half lanes. And the SUV's needed all one and a half lanes in order to go out of town or back home.

I cannot even count the times I had to hit a ditch to avoid being rammed by one of the road hogs.

[ZombieHorde]

31. Republican tears.

[bean fidhleir]

32. The more important question is: if they exist at all, what will they look like

A ton or more of metal, plastic, and glass to haul around a single human being? That's nuts. But NOT ONE of the car makers seems willing to address that problem. Even the so-called "far out" designs have far too much overhead.

They should be aiming at the lowest possible operating and maintenance cost, and letting a design shake out of those requirements. My bet is that the design would involve expandability with different power trains depending on intended use, and fuel-adaptability - any liquid hydrocarbon that will burn when atomized would do, possibly with battery fallback if they can work out the production/recycling/disposal costs (right now, like most costs, subsidized by everyone).

[Motown_Johnny]

34. I am not a car designer but...

I think you need to start with the engine and fuel storage before you can create a reasonable design. Sure you can create it from "the driver out" and some cars have been designed that way, but they always knew that it would be an internal combustion engine powering the vehicle.

I don't see hydrocarbons as a permanent solution, but I could easily be wrong.

[bean fidhleir]

35. If you must start with the engine and fuel storage, why did some of the earliest cars

obviously descend from horse-drawn buckboards and carriages?

I'd argue that, if the only goal is *a* solution, it doesn't matter where you start. All you need do is not skip any steps along the way.

It's if you want a particular solution that you have to start in a particular place. Morgan started with the British tax laws: three wheels were much cheaper in road tax than four, so he built the most successful and often-copied threewheelers in the world.

Is to hydrocarbons, I'm an agnostic myself. They store a lot of energy in a small space, but maybe some better technology will come along.

[Odin2005]

50. It's the prisoner's dillema of Game Theory, people are afraid of getting killed in a car accident...

...and so get a big, massive vehicle even though it is though those big vehicles make the roads less safe.

[RedCappedBandit]

39. Hydrogen

Not a question of if, but when!

[salguine]

42. If Big business has its way (and it probably will), coal.

[zorahopkins]

49. Empty?

You know, as in "Running on Empty".

[Fumesucker]

52. Fumes...

Doh!

[Canuckistanian]

53. Mr. Fusion

[pork medley]

54. The blood, sweat and tears of the third world.

Just as God intended.

[IDemo]

56. The car of the future

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9B7d6KK21A&feature=related

or, maybe not ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSwig1tgUtY

[piedmont]

58. Pyrolysed wood and biomass. (Wood-gas) nt