Alternatives Fuels - Which is the "best"?
By best I mean: most environmentally friendly + most affordable + most practical
Alternative fuels include biodiesel, bioalcohol (methanol, ethanol, butanol), chemically stored electricity (batteries and fuel cells), hydrogen, non-fossil methane, non-fossil natural gas, vegetable oil and other biomass sources.
I am interested in either buying an Alternative fuel vehicle or buying a used vehicle and converting it to use an alternative fuel.
If anyone has any suggestions or links they can share, please do!
For a small scale (personal solution) using veggie oil in your diesel is best. You can get it for free, and it runs great with a few simple modifications.
If you live in an agricultural area, methane can be practical as a small-scale solution. You'd need an engine designed to run on propane, a large container, and lots of bio-degradable material. (On the plus side, you can sell the surplus methane for profit.)
For large scale solutions, my preferences would be:
1- Hydrogen and/or methane -powerful, low to no emissions, methane can be cheaply bio-produced, hydrogen can provide power through fuel cells and through burning interchangeably.
2- Compressed air - 0 emissions, very nearly as cheap as electricity, safer than explosive gasses.
3- Electric - 0 emissions, but takes a long time to charge and is heavy.
(There's not enough free veggie oil available to make it a good large-scale solution.)
I think we'll see a lot of different types of vehicles cropping up over the next few years.
It's clear we have to get away from being reliant on oil...the world has a great opportunity to develop other motors now & break the routine that's been in place for years.
Hopefully the economic slow-down won't affect research too much.
I think plug-in is probably a good way to go, as its possible to use renewable energy to power cars. Limiting consumption is important, too. Riding the bus, walking, riding bikes, stringing errands together, carpooling, etc., are all ways to reduce your footprint very dramatically and way more sustainably than just switching fuel types in your car (which is still a great thing to do!).
Energy all bottled up . . . by Bluedoll
I have heard really good reports about hydrogen for a fuel. It is a relativily new however except on the space shuttle and there are very few outlets I understand where one can purchase it.
Just as a topic of conversation - switching energy fuels is such an interesting topic in our present world - I understand that when safety needs are met (we have evolved from zepplin technology) and when the fuel is manufactured in a way that reflects the reason for switching in the first place, it is reasonable to say that hydrogen is an excellent alternative non-carbon choice for very obvious reasons.
I do wonder, if it would be also possible to manufacture, a fuel producing unit within a reasonable cost. I believe, unless I am wrong that hydrogen can be produced by the distilling process? For information on distilling methods perhaps someone could research this possiblity with the people in the hills of Kentucky, USA where most in home distilling businesses took place.
It could be called . . .
“Makin fuel in a mason jar???? Or if the governments wouldn’t do it then by crackin we will movement.”
Well, you can make your own hydrogen, but you have to do it by electrolysis, not distillation.
That process takes energy, and then you have to compress it, using more energy. Then you'll need a car with an engine capable of running on pure hydrogen. (A regular gas car's engine would be destroyed if it ran on pure hydrogen for very long.) Then you'll have to add storage tanks to your vehicle... hopefully you can do so in a way that makes the tanks (or fuel lines) being damaged in an accident extremely unlikely (to prevent explosions).
So, you'll need a lot of pricey equipment, a lot of know-how, and you'll be restricted to only filling up at your home. (No long road trips for you!)
IMO Hydrogen will never be a viable way of powering cars. The amount of energy used in electyrolysis just makes it too inefficent. Electric cars, or different diesel mixes are the way to go.
I would have to agree. I don't see hydrogen being used economically in cars. Also, my truck will run on ethanol and I think that is junk also. If you live where it gets below freezing, your vehicle runs likes crap on it. I used it for a month and ended up switching back to unleaded after the truck had a hard time starting for about a week. I might try it again this summer.
| Andrew426 wrote: |
| IMO Hydrogen will never be a viable way of powering cars. The amount of energy used in electyrolysis just makes it too inefficent. Electric cars, or different diesel mixes are the way to go. |
If every gas station was an optimized electrolysis plant using local electric power, it would be viable.Bio diesel seems to be about the best at the moment. The worlds current largest Bio diesel plant is located just a few miles to my north. Why its the best so far, any diesel can run it without modification. Its became quite popular...we run it in most of our farm equipment during the summer. The only issue here is our bitter cold winters, unlike regular diesel that gels...bio diesel almost solidifies. So insulated or even heated tanks are a must have if you plan to run it during the winter months. Other then that its a great alternative. Local school buses now run on it year round with insulated tanks.
Also have a large Ethanol plant just to my south...its useless...Firstly because not to many old vehicles can run the stuff, no one can afford a new hybrid. Second it costs just as much right now as regular unleaded and gets worse mileage, Third...no stations around here even offer it because they can't afford to put in the special pumps...or it just wouldn't turn a profit, there's only 2 maybe 3 stations within 30 miles of me that offer it. So its a big flop...only thing it accomplished so far is driving local livestock feed prices sky high putting many small farmers out of business that don't do crops.
| Triple_7 wrote: |
| there's only 2 maybe 3 stations within 30 miles of me that offer [ethanol]. |
In the Rapid City area, nearly every gas station puts 10% ethanol in the mid grade fuel.
(This somehow makes the mid grade fuel the cheapest.)
I don't know if this is because of some state-government incentive or what, but it seems to be viable here. | Quote: |
| every gas station puts 10% ethanol in the mid grade fuel. |
Its that way here to, all 87 & 89 octane fuel has a 10% ethanol content. All vehicles can run on it at that low of a level. But most can not run more then that for risk of damage to the engine. And even a 10% mix has been known to cause problems in older vehicles over time. The ethanol shrinks rubber hoses, weakens them and the clamps holding them. So really the now almost standard 10% ethanol blend is causing people more problems then its worth. Very few stations here even make it clear that ethanol is in their fuel.
I've known a couple people to have issues with their vehicles over the past year or so and its been linked to hoses that were damaged from this new 10% mix. Its causing problems and theirs no excuse for it, not everyone can afford to buy a new vehicle, so they should not be putting ethanol in all the fuel.
I have no idea if there is some kind of incentive for stations to add the 10% but if there is I'm guessing its a way to slowly make people upgrade. Its not fair, and doing damages to people who are already hurting is not the way to go. I have checked with every station in town and none of them still have regular, 100% fuel anymore. Its all 10%. My own truck has seen a slight change after the last station made the switch, worse mileage and a little less power as the fuel pressure keeps slowly dropping. Chances are from research and other people with the same problem is probably a hose that is now leaking while under pressure. Only way to fix it and keep it from happening again is to get a plastic lined hose to replace it. 
| ocalhoun wrote: |
| (A regular gas car's engine would be destroyed if it ran on pure hydrogen for very long.) |
This is just not so, and I'm not sure where this comes from, I've researched this a lot, any ICE will run on hydrogen without a problem the only thing about running on hydrogen is that hydrogen has a much wider burn ratio than gasoline, gasolineis about 14.7 to 15.8 parts of air to one part of fuel, where as hydrogen is about 20 to 12 parts of air to one part of fuel. This wider burn ratio makes hydrogen much more susceptable to predetonation in higher compression engines, so it is advisable to stick to 9 to 1 (compressing 9 cubic inches of air to 1 cubic inch) compression engines, or lower, I was reading an article where the builder had decided to use a 8 to 1 compression engine to avoid the predetonation problems. Whcih he had great success with.
The only problem with hydrogen is storage, in a conventional GGE tank hydrogen is such a small molecule that it impregnates the metal and causes it to become brittle and makes it suscetable to cracking thus GGE tanks will have a limited service life.
I plan on running Browns Gas in my pick up when I get it done (H2O2).
I've been building cars, hot rods, and engines for a long time, and the misinformation out there about what you have to do to an engine is incredible. Gasoline is a horrible fuel, it is a solvent and washes the oil off of the cylinder walls and causes the rings to wear out. Gasoling is also the reason that your oil turns black, the carbon deposits that form from burning it collect in the oil, on top ot the pistons on the backs of the valves. Hydrogen, Propane, Natural gas, methane are all so much cleaner, gasoline being a solvent destroys the viscocity of the oil over time something the alternate gaseous fuels do not.
Given these facts about gasoline, do you honestly think that hydrogen, or any other fuel would require something more sturdy to run than a standard ICE engine?http://www1.eere.energy.gov/hydrogenandfuelcells/tech_validation/pdfs/fcm03r0.pdf
Here is a link to a paper discussing burning hydrogen in an ICE.
Gets pretty technical and has some good formula's in it. They discuss how hydrogen can be run at a high compression but then they discuss the predetonation problem and why that occurs, if you are going to use an unmodified gasoline engine the solution is to lower the compression. In the section where they discuss modificaions they talk about modifying the combustion chamber of the cylinder head to a disc shape, gasoline engines use a dome shape, and in some cases for high compression engines they dome the piston. They explain that using a flat top piston is best (actually a flat top piston is best for gasloine as well). They also talk about eliminating swirl in the combustion chamber as gasoline engines are designed to swirl the airfuel mixture as the fuel is atomized so that it can be compressed (liquids are basically uncompressable). Hydrogen being a gaseous fuel does not need this effect, and according to this lesson it actually suffers when subjected to it. Modifying any cylinder head to a disc shape is fairly simple and any decent machinist can accomplish this, by opening up the combustion chamber you will lower the compression ratio, it also discusses the fact that you can use a wide bore to stroke ratio, this means a large diameter piston moving a short distance (also indicative of lower compression) which creates an engine that will rev higher.
But with all this, they do not talk about the need for anything special like ceramic coatings, special alloys, nor any other special material that would be needed to run hydrogen. They do discuss cooling and crankcase venting system modifications, but both those are fairly simple modifications.
So in short you can get any ICE to run on Hydrogen, but like the paper says, there is a difference in running, and running well.
Also you might argue that this seems like a lot of work, effort, and money to modify and build your engine to run on hydrogen. My only response would be, just look at how much money folks spend on hot rods, custom cars, and high horse power motors with blowers, super charger, turbo chargers, and the like. When it comes to cars and spending money, most enthusiats figure thats just part of the game.
Also in terms of production, Stan Myers patent from back in 1981 demonstrated that hydrogen can be produced using mili amps per cell by placing the electrodes (plates) the correct distance apart (about 1/4 inch). Every hydrogen fuel cell can double as an electrolyzer, and some of them are around 90% effecient. So hydrogen taking too much power to produce from water is a myth, the only reason that it will not catch on as a fuel is the oil companies won't let it. And as far as being too dangerous, given the volitility of gasoline, propane and other fuels, I just don't see how it is any worse, and don't site the Hindenburg either because the skin of the craft used a compound very very close to plastic explosive and almost no where do the site that it was the skin that went up, and cause the huge explosion, in combination with the hydrogen, and has to this day give hydrogen a bad rap. It just isn't any more dangerous than any other gaseous or liquid fuel.
Storage is another problem, like I said standard GGE tanks will suffer from a limited service life. As far as safety goes, I'd trust a GGE (steel gaseous fuel) tank in a collision over the cheezy sheet metal tank that gasoline is stored in, in production cars. Also hydride tanks are the coolest thing going for hydrogen, the hydrogen is stored in a hydrogen absorbing material under low pressure, putting dc current (12Volts) to the tank causes the hydride to release the hydrogen (Usually stored at between 5 to 10 PSI). Some of the hydride material can store enough hydrogen to equal the same volume tank under 600 PSI. The hydride tanks can be sheared in half, shoot a bullet through them, and all that happens is they smolder a bit, they do not explode. I'm sure if they caught on, the price would come down. I was looking a website where they had tanks about the size of a scuba tank.....they were $5,000.00 a piece and I would need 6 of them to get any distance out of my truck. UH that was a little out of my price range.
Thus browns gas, H2O2, which does not impregnate the metal of a standard GGE tank and the electrolyzer is easier to build.
So there you have it, my little comentary on hydrgen use in cars and trucks. IT CAN BE DONE! ^Well, yes, you can convert a gas engine to a hydrogen engine, but just dumping hydrogen fuel into a normal gas engine that wasn't designed for it will usually have very bad results.
There are engines available that were designed to run on propane, and with one of those, you can burn hydrogen or methane just fine, without difficult modifications.
As for the storage tanks, hydrogen really does need to be treated more carefully than gasoline: gas is only flammable, and only the fumes explode, making exploding cars very rare (except on TV), so plain sheet metal is fine. Hydrogen, or especially hydrogen/oxygen mix is always explosive. If you want the safest choice, diesel (or veggie oil) isn't even flammable at normal atmospheric pressure: it can only burn when compressed in the engine.
Actually as far as propane or natural gas go, a standard gasoline engine burns those fuels OK, but the engines have to be low compression as the combustion chamber causes predetonation problems with those as well. There have been a couple of websites where they were burning hydrogen in unmodified gasloine engines, but again they were low compression. They ran OK, but nothing to write home about. Like the above link pointed out, there is a difference between running and running well. The guy that builds the AC Cobra hydrogen powerd cars uses a 351 cubic inch ford engine, and his modifications to the combustion chamber creates one nice running engine, I've read about him before off of links from the hydrogen powered highways website. California has plans to have hydrogen powered highways, you should google it.
As far as storage, well hydrogen as a gas is on par with propane and natural gas, which are always explosive as well, as they are a gas.
As far a veggie diesel I agree it is easier to store and easier for the homeowner to produce, but as far as mass use, like ethenol we are now making fuel from food, which I'm not real keen on. I don't think that is the best alternative for mankind, go hungry but you can drive around?
www.USH2.com has quite a few books on alternate fuels and there is a lot of good information about them, but I am still leaning to brown's gas as the better alternative fuel. Yes it is explosive like any gas so there are safety factors to be considered, but hell look how many people use propane at home in their grills without problems.
Brown's gas can be used in standard GGE tanks, so cars and trucks that run off of propane and natural gas can use the same tanks, and gaseous fuel carburators without problems. It is made from water, and the electrlyzers are easier to make than a hydrogen electrolyzer.
I plan on using an impco gaseous fuel carb http://www.impco.ws/. which will run liquid or gaseous fuels, dual tanks one GGE and one of the original gas tanks, and modify the engine so that it will run OK on either fuel. The end goal is to restore, build and modify my 1979 chevy 3/4 to 4x4 to run on gaseous fuels as well as ethenol or gasoline. I guess I could run hydrogen in it, but I'm not sure how well that will run.
Of course money is always the factor that slows or speeds up any project. They're all awful. Get a bike or walk.
| BigGeek wrote: |
I plan on using an impco gaseous fuel carb http://www.impco.ws/. which will run liquid or gaseous fuels, dual tanks one GGE and one of the original gas tanks, and modify the engine so that it will run OK on either fuel. The end goal is to restore, build and modify my 1979 chevy 3/4 to 4x4 to run on gaseous fuels as well as ethenol or gasoline. I guess I could run hydrogen in it, but I'm not sure how well that will run.
Of course money is always the factor that slows or speeds up any project. |
You might want to try also making it an option to use both fuels at the same time.
The hydrogen burns easier and faster than the gas, so when mixed in, it can cause the gasoline to ignite more evenly, making the engine run more efficiently. (It'll help transmit the spark to the far corners of the cylinder in time to do some good, making for less unburnt gasoline.)
Or, perhaps adding a little gasoline to the hydrogen fuel would help keep it from igniting too soon.T Boone Pickens says that we should migrate to compressed/liquified natural gas for of our transportation needs. You have to have a special compressor and tank hooked up to your natural gas line at home, then fill your car up each night at home.
| jwellsy wrote: |
| T Boone Pickens says that we should migrate to compressed/liquified natural gas for of our transportation needs. You have to have a special compressor and tank hooked up to your natural gas line at home, then fill your car up each night at home. |
And hope you never need to make a long trip...
You'll never be able to take it more than 1/2 of a tank away from home. | ocalhoun wrote: |
| BigGeek wrote: |
I plan on using an impco gaseous fuel carb http://www.impco.ws/. which will run liquid or gaseous fuels, dual tanks one GGE and one of the original gas tanks, and modify the engine so that it will run OK on either fuel. The end goal is to restore, build and modify my 1979 chevy 3/4 to 4x4 to run on gaseous fuels as well as ethenol or gasoline. I guess I could run hydrogen in it, but I'm not sure how well that will run.
Of course money is always the factor that slows or speeds up any project. |
You might want to try also making it an option to use both fuels at the same time.
The hydrogen burns easier and faster than the gas, so when mixed in, it can cause the gasoline to ignite more evenly, making the engine run more efficiently. (It'll help transmit the spark to the far corners of the cylinder in time to do some good, making for less unburnt gasoline.)
Or, perhaps adding a little gasoline to the hydrogen fuel would help keep it from igniting too soon. |
You know that's a great idea, although I do not know if Impco's gaseous fuel carbs will do that, I know that their website talks about the fuel valve that allows it to run on liquid fuel as well as gaseus fuels but I havent's seen anything about both at once, or a mixture of the two, capabilities. I might be stuck with one or the other.
You know there is an onboard hydrogen electrolyer, that does just that, mixes with the diesel for the big rigs. Increases HP and milage. I read some website a while back where the manufacturer was given a contract by one of the Canadian provences in which they want to convert all the Semi's and public transportation to incorporate the technology into their daily use, it would save a huge amount of diesel fuel, and reduce emissions by quite a bit. Just fill it with water once installed. | ocalhoun wrote: |
| jwellsy wrote: | | T Boone Pickens says that we should migrate to compressed/liquified natural gas for of our transportation needs. You have to have a special compressor and tank hooked up to your natural gas line at home, then fill your car up each night at home. |
And hope you never need to make a long trip...
You'll never be able to take it more than 1/2 of a tank away from home. |
I agree, it would only be good for local trips and back and forth to work type of vehicle.
Hell if I was gonna go that route I'd go electric, I was looking at electric conversions not too long ago, a guy did one on a Pontiac Fiero. At the time I had a neighbor that had an 84 Fiero, with a blown engine it would have been perfect to convert, but two projects at once just wasn't on the agenda so I blew it off, but in researching it, I found the website where the guy had converted a Fiero, and a shop that manufacturs an adapter plate for the motor to the tranny, and all the parts necessary for the coversion. Drive back and forth to work, and plug it in overnite, never go by a gas station. I seriously considered it. But with my truck and my car, I didn't need another "roundtuit" project sitting around.
