The Future Of Fuel

[ian010778 21]

Hey all,

 

Just been reading a couple of articles about the proposed new Jaguar F-Type and the DeLorean DMC-EV and this got the grey matter thinking about 'what does the future hold'?

 

Obviouisly there's been a lot about at the minute with the proposed tanker drivers strike and although the strike has nothing to do with finding alternative fuels I'm wondering what people here think about the fuel of the future?

 

I'm on the fence with this one in that I can't see electric only taking over as I wouldn't be happy knowing that I have re-charge my car for x amount of time if I want to go a long way but I'm not sure what the alternatives are. I do remember James May visiting Honda to look at their Hydrogen fuel cell car and thinking 'that looks good'. IIRC James summed it up by saying something along the lines of 'if hydrogen becomes widely available at the pumps then hydrogen fuel cell means that the culture change required with going all electric is taken away as we'll still be able to drive, fill up (with hydrogen) and drive some more - as we do at the moment'. However, am I right in thinking that to roll hydrogen out would be expensive and it takes a lot of effort to produce/gather and therefore it doesn't really stack up as a long-term alternative?

 

I thought this might be an interesting one to discuss, I'm not sure if anyone has experiemetned with alternative fuels in their 205 or even produced an electric 205???

 

I guess the other question is 'what do we do if/when petrol becomes a rare commodity'?

 

 

Ian.

[tartanbloke 35 1 Cars]

Jaguar CX-75

[SurGie 54]

I currently have a calorie powered 205, all it needs is a good push

 

As for the future of fuel, lets just say it wont be getting any cheaper or easier to get hold of. Take the fake fuel strike, they got what they wanted even without a strike properly announced, all because of how powerful the need for petrol is.

 

I think it will be a long while till the tech is available for the first ever electric 205 that's for sure.

[omega 82]

i was watching something on discovery and back in the 50s they had a turbine car that would run on petrol ,diesel,parafin in fact anything from the sounds of it.

[jeremy 68]

i was watching something on discovery and back in the 50s they had a turbine car that would run on petrol ,diesel,parafin in fact anything from the sounds of it.

 

I'm not sure this would be practical. Unless I am getting mixed up however, from memory I read an article with a turbine engine and although what you say is possible I think it generates extreme heat, which then in turn has its own problems.

 

In South America from memory Brazil or Mexico they use a lot of Ethanol, and the advantage is these engines (from memory again) can also run on petrol.

[BERTMAN 40 1 Cars]

The future is Hydrogen fuel cell's in my opinion, the technology has been around for decades and its close to being production ready in terms of reliability and power. The major problems would be the hydrogen infrastructure; ie as you highlighted, production, supply and containment of hydrogen (the atoms are so small they have a habit of seeping through materials, its also highly explosive). The hydrogen essentially splits into proton's and electrons in the fuel cell and the electrons are forced around a circuit, so hydrogen powered cars are electric vehicles. However they don't need recharging and they only emit water from the exhaust. Give the automotive and hydrogen industries another decade and they will be introduced i think... depending on petrol and diesel reserves and prices! They may also bring out other types of fuel cell that run on hydrocarbon fuels such as petrol etc but will be much more efficient. The alternative for when oil disappears is probably ethanol or methanol. As already mentioned they use this in Brazil and get it from growing maize (i think its sugar cane). I reckon the future lies with a combination of these 3.

[BlueBolt 156]

I'm a huge fan of bio ethanol!!

 

They run cars on it in south America, the states, etc, but the problem there is how it's produced which isn't very enviro friendly...

 

Our government tell out farmers that they are to keep certain fields free from crop so we can import from Europe and enable more euro friendly?? (I may be a mile off track with that though??)

If this is the case, then why isn't the government putting more funding behind the growth of renewable energy sources like this and getting our farmers to grow whatever it is they need to grow to make us some fuel??

 

I'm sure I've read on here somewhere before that bio-ethanol would have a lower burning temperature or RON?? But I have always been led to believe quite the oposite... That it burns hotter, and therefore will give better performance all round??

 

I friend told me a couple if years ago about a car that had been newly designed to run on bio fuel only... This made me laugh as it brings me back to my comment about south America etc... Facing lived in Rio for a few years in my early teens I have clear memory of just about every car on the road being available in either petrol or alcohol fuel types......!! Alcohol being made from sugar cane... Which would be renewable energy would it not???

 

Edit::

Pants got Beaten to it with the south America comment...

Not sure about the flex between the petrol and alcohol though, u know in order to run it in our cars over here you would need to replace the fuel lines, and possibly the fuel tank, think that's it though???

Edited April 5, 2012 by BlueBolt

[BERTMAN 40 1 Cars]

the major problem with bio-fuels are that they still emit polluting emissions. The 'greens' won't be happy about that and future legislation (admittedly a fair way into the future) will more than likely tax the crap out of it and make it expensive forcing the use of 'green' electric cars. I say 'green' by the way because electric cars still need the burning of fossil fuels to work, plug in mains > power stations, hydrogen production is far from enviro-friendly etc.

[Goliath 94]

With the ever increasing cost of fuel and ever decreasing supply of fossil fuels, I think it is important to look at available options and possible options of renewable fuel sources for the future.

 

Due to pump fuel being so expensive (to me) I have already invested in one car that runs on a cheaper, renewable fuel source (Veg oil). The bonus being that it isn't a brand new car (only cost £300), it doesn't need charging for hours, it has a 600 mile range and the fuel costs me 45p/litre so the fuel savings paid for the car within a couple of months of ownership.

 

There are some downsides though, the main one being the restrictions the govournment has put on this, they have put a 2500 litre/year per household limit on the amount of veg oil (or bio diesel) you can use without paying fuel duty. If you go over 2500 litres/year then it makes this option less viable as there would be minimal savings once the fuel duty has been added (I think it is about £1/litre or thereabouts)

 

I can see more modern cars being made to run on bio diesel as the oil companies want up the % of bio diesel in pump fuel (Currently 8%).

[cRaig 265 1 Cars]

The problem with biofuels is the ammount of otherwise productive land that they take up. As the climate changes, the population grows, and cities expand, we will need at least the amount of land we currently use for crops, or perhaps even more! Through land loss, and soil erosion etc, that may well not happen, so I cant see how losing land to grow fuels, and further pushing up the price of food (already a problem in some parts of the world, from the amount of fuel crops we grow globally) is a long term solution.

 

Like others, I think hydrogen is the way forward. The infastructure will be expensive, but at one point Im sure people were saying that petrol would never catch on because it would need lots of stations built, and tanks installed, need to be shipped around the country etc. Ecomomies of scale will kick in, and the infastructure can be paid off.

[arwel 43 2 Cars]

I think the long term future will be Hydrogen. As daft as it may sound, I do believe that the technology is there right now to roll out Hydrogen at the pumps but that is never going to happen as long as there is crude oil still available. If it came out now that we can all have Hydrogen cars and fill them up for 50p a litre and get a minumum range of 250 miles then the oil companies would go nuts as they would instantly lose a load of cash, the middle eastern countries would go nuts as they would also lose a load of cash. Unfortunately the world we live in cash counts.

[cybernck 400 1 Cars]

need to be shipped around the country

 

A conundrum - what type of fuel are the hydrogen-shipping vehicles going to run on?

 

 

 

[muddatrucker 125]

I've not liked the electric cars so far and unless they're a hybrid they're basically pointless (we know where the electricity to our plug sockets comes from). They also seem to punish you for having you drive an electric car too by either making it look stupid or really stupid (like something out of tron).

 

The idea that you have to leave it for hours to charge is mental too - I know this will improve with technology but you think that would mean that smaller electric devices would already do this first (it still takes an age to charge a mobile phone etc).

 

Its taken years for Diesels to stop being boring, it'll take years before electric cars are cool too.

[Batfink 201]

we basically need everyday cars to run on some environmentally sustainable fuel leaving the fuel for the enthusiasts. Personally I dont care what it is but the car production process has to be better than batteries

[harryskid 193]

As global warming is contributed by all the cows farting, they should bottle all these farts and run public transport on them !. O and add a bit of goverment hot air and then you could run turbos !

 

Joke

[SurGie 54]

There will be some advanced technology when it comes to the electric cars. There has been advancements in battery technology where it can take a few minutes to fill the tank up. Im sure they could use the cars energy from the electric to help charge the battery at some point too.

 

From what ive read the hydrogen power does have some difficulties. The electric car and hybrids seem to be the most popular so far.

[johnnyboy666 195 1 Cars]

this idea of 'hiring' batteries, and getting them swapped at filing stations instead of waiting for them to charge seems feasable

[SurGie 54]

I think that is a good idea but that may take longer/unsafe to swap them over rather than charging it up with the advance batteries, aren't they quite big ?

 

From what ive seen, this new battery technology is being developed in the USA, they have changed how the electric goes into the battery. The batteries will be made for everything eventually, so im sure they will be able to make them the same for car batteries. A few minutes to charge a cars battery could take as long as filling a 70 ltr tank via petrol, who knows.

 

Im looking forward to see the new Peugeot electric car, if they do one.

[P_Monty 2]

Must admit, I'm in the hydrogen camp too - I wonder why they're working on fuel cells and electric motors, rather than internal combustion running on hydrogen ?

 

I seem to remember that it can be produced by electrolysing an acid solution (though if memory serves, the acid is only there to allow conduction so anything bar pure distilled water ought to work after a fashion). If that is the case, then a hoofing great solar array providing the electricity to split say seawater ought to be a fairly clean way of doing it ...