[Graeme]

Top US engineer in piss-off-everybody car fuel solution

Farmers, oil barons, terrorists, Honda: All bastards

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he answer, according to Zubrin, is to introduce "flex-fuel vehicles" (FFVs) which can run on methanol, ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of the three. In such a car, you could fill up using existing stations - but as cheap methanol and perhaps ethanol became available, drivers would be able to use them easily. You could gaily top off a half-tank of petrol with Styrofoam-cup methanol or corn ethanol with no ill effects.

Flex-fuel cars have already been developed, according to Zubrin, by pioneering Ford engineer Roberta Nichols. They're great, apparently, and large-scale trials took place in California during the 1990s.

Over 14,000 methanol/gasoline FFVs demonstrated “seamless vehicle operation on methanol, gasoline, and all combination of these fuels"... FFV engines were as durable as standard gas engines ... there were incremental improvements in emissions fuel efficiency.
FFVs are also better for the environment than gas-powered cars... mitigating the immediately pressing problems of air pollution and toxic spills, both on land and on water. Unlike oil, gasoline, kerosene, and virtually all other petroleum fuels, alcohol fuels can mix with water. They dissolve and are readily consumed by common bacteria, which averts long-term environmental degradation.

[halcyon]

The guy is on crack, or just selling his book on a trendy topic.

One can find a longer excerpt of his book at :

http://www.thenewatlantis.com/archive/18/zubrin.htm

He has a point I agree on :

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Robert Zubrin', '
')"To be realistic as an energy strategy, a plan must be technically practicable and politically feasible."

[ohanian]

Does it run on single malt whiskey?

[eastbay]

Good response halcyon.

I seriously doubt if harvesting all the trees in North America could provide enough alcohol to keep just the LA freeways moving... and only for a relatively short time.

Alternative fuels are simply a fuzzy dream designed to function as an opiate for the masses while serving only to temporarily keep the population calm as we quickly squander the planet's remaining oil.

[Twilight]

halcyon said it all, I think.

Another way of putting it is "do trees grow fast enough?"

[Jupidu]

@halcyon

Yes your are right when you are saying that it isn't possible with the state of the actual agriculture to deliver all the fuel which is needed.
But Nature has still more possibilities we all can dream of!

1. Instead of building flex-fuel-cars it is better to build smaller cars with motors that run on only one fuel. It is much easier to design a motor for only one fuel and the motor is more efficient (less compromises).
2. You can get vegetable oil from a field plus (!) the usual yield of corn, wheat, etc. when you practice the method of intercropping ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercropping ) respectiveley mixed intercropping. A good mixture is e.g. false flax or gold-of-pleasure (Camelina sativa) in combination with grain (Wheat, rye, etc.) or even better together with legumes (peas, beans, etc.). A study in Germany showed that you can get up to 270 Liter of false-flax-oil per hectare (about 2,5 acres) by growing peas together with false-flax. So you get even more oil than you need for processing the culture till the harvest.
3. David Blume explaines how to produce efficiently and with competitive prices alcohol (e.g. in the following document about using food waste or agricultural waste):
"Selecting feedstocks" (for making Alcohol)
http://www.alcoholcanbeagas.net/book_me ... 29/384/429
So you need no pipeline to transport ethanol or other alcohols around the states.
You grow your fuel at your site!
No transport with oil spilling supertankers, no explosions in big refineries, no hazard through pipelines.
4. He also explaines that there are not only 434,164,946 acres of “cropland” in the US, but also 939,279,056 acres of “farmland, but it’s not as level and the soil not as deep.
Permaculture (Geoff Lawton and his miracle at the Dead Sea in Jordania; P.A. Yeomans and his Keyline-System ( http://www.yeomansplow.com.au/yeomans-k ... system.htm ) together with his method to convert quickly poor soil into fertile ground: http://www.soilandhealth.org/01aglibrar ... 25ch5.html) can do a lot for the soil and for the water-cycles in nature, especially in the actual situation where the Ogallala-Aquifer is running empty.
5. Oilseed crops are producing the more yield the more sun they get: peanut, sunflower, olives, etc.
There are other plants like jatropha bush which grows and yields oil containing nuts even in dry conditions.
6. In southern states with dry regions millet is also a possibility to grow food for animals.
7. Once hemp is reintroduced again all the problems with water supply are problems of the past: Hemp needs only a fraction of the water cotton needs to produce a certain amount of fibres. It enhances the soil, needs very few fertilizers and almost no pestizides or herbizides. So this plant would be a economical miracle.
Guess who prohibited the cultivation of hemp in the USA!

There are Bacteria, called Rhizobacteria, and among them is
a special type which can convert aeroeus nitrogen into nitrogen which can be absorbed by plants (for Legumes as well as for grain crops!).
Now guess which companies have a patent on Rhizobacteria?

It's ESSO CHEMICAL CANADA and Agrium Inc. (a small tiny fertilizer production company,formerly known as Cominco Fertilizers (Calgary, CA)). Funny, isn't it. A Big Oil company investing money in a quite useless technology.
You have to search for the following names:
Kloepper, Joseph (Georgetown, CA, US), Scher, Fran (Bramalea, CA, US)

These are only some impressions what else is possible by working together with Nature in a smart and wise manor.

[PeakingAroundtheCorner]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Graeme', '[')b]Top US engineer in piss-off-everybody car fuel solution

Farmers, oil barons, terrorists, Honda: All bastards

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he answer, according to Zubrin, is to introduce "flex-fuel vehicles" (FFVs) which can run on methanol, ethanol, gasoline or any mixture of the three. In such a car, you could fill up using existing stations - but as cheap methanol and perhaps ethanol became available, drivers would be able to use them easily. You could gaily top off a half-tank of petrol with Styrofoam-cup methanol or corn ethanol with no ill effects.

Flex-fuel cars have already been developed, according to Zubrin, by pioneering Ford engineer Roberta Nichols. They're great, apparently, and large-scale trials took place in California during the 1990s.

Over 14,000 methanol/gasoline FFVs demonstrated “seamless vehicle operation on methanol, gasoline, and all combination of these fuels"... FFV engines were as durable as standard gas engines ... there were incremental improvements in emissions fuel efficiency.
FFVs are also better for the environment than gas-powered cars... mitigating the immediately pressing problems of air pollution and toxic spills, both on land and on water. Unlike oil, gasoline, kerosene, and virtually all other petroleum fuels, alcohol fuels can mix with water. They dissolve and are readily consumed by common bacteria, which averts long-term environmental degradation.

[Ferretlover]

HHHmmm... Is he talking about a new generation of "flux capacitator?" lol

[efarmer]

There simply isn't any viable personal motoring scheme that is possible without relatively inexpensive petroleum at the present or predicted scales of usage on the horizon. This creates a huge vacuum that sucks the Rasputin energy out of folks and brings them public with techno-hype that is so awful that it ain't even wrong. I would remind people that being desperate about having to change our lifestyles will continue to open us up to clutching at the most useless straws possible. Figure out some simple things that keep you fed, warm, plugged into life and bring you joy, and let the Flim Flam Man, Tinker Bell, and Rasputin rock on with a smaller audience.

[lorenzo]

This is dumb.

The best solution is electric cars with carbon negative bioenergy.

And you know it.


Why would anyone want to drive a carbon neutral vehicle or one that emits CO2 (as Zubrin's), when you can drive one that takes emissons from the past out of the atmosphere?

I don't understand all this endless nonsense when the solution is so clear.

Zubrin is an idiot pimping old school flex-fuel technologies and fuels the Brazilians have been using for 3 decades. Why does this guy even get the word in a mediocre journal like the Register?

[KevO]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('ohanian', '[')size=200]Does it run on single malt whiskey?[/size]

[h20]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('efarmer', 'T')here simply isn't any viable personal motoring scheme that is possible without relatively inexpensive petroleum at the present or predicted scales of usage on the horizon.

[mos6507]

I think the absolute best way to move a car would be a serial plugin hybrid, preferably diesel so it can run on SVO/WVO. Under this scenarios you have 3 ways to fuel the car, electricity for commuting, SVO/WVO to cover you if you run out of electric range, and petrodiesel if you need to go on a rare road trip. So if you had solar panels to charge the battery and a small garden to generate the vegetable oil, you'd probably be covered for all your driving needs without ever resorting to petrodiesel.

I really don't know the math but I'm thinking there might already be enough WVO in the US generated to fuel the above plugins. I mean, you might only need a tank or two of the stuff a year.

Unfortunately the Chevy Volt is going to use a gas generator, not diesel, which must be in order to simplify emissions.

[nocar]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') think the absolute best way to move a car would be...

[Mesuge]

Well, I'm all for public transport and bicycles for most of the commuting. The human power machine - bike is not that efficient in terms of the energy imputs necessary to get that food per km/mj..

However, two-three seater electric car could be also a 450kg aerodynamic thingy, consuming sub <4kWh on the wheels, which is sub <6kWh from the plug, depending on AC/DC technology, battery chemistry etc. This kind of power could be relatively easily harvested from renewables in most parts of the world.. Add V2G so you can offload some of the energy back to the grid in the peak demand and/or increase efficiency of the nightly winds which can't be easily utilized now..

This concept would work nicely in theory,
but not in our culture of 7mld. peoples and rising..

[efarmer]

I am extremely pro bio-fuels. I hate the idea of viable bio-fuels and other alternative energy technologies falling on their own swords by immediately attempting to replace gasoline automobiles on the present scale of usage before they are ready. Instead I am convinced we should greatly expand our rail and light rail and then to satisfy the places where alternative technologies to petroleum engines are a must and where they can build legitimate inroads and flourish. I could be completely wrong, and I would like to be wrong on the readiness of viable alternatives to petroleum engines that are on par with scale and readiness.

[TheDude]

Mesuge - there's a new article at TOD on The Post Peak Car. This is about retrofitting existing small cars as EVs, but little Italian 3 wheelers are mentioned in the commentary. Interesting factoid: these were called APE, which means "bee" in Italian. And the much better known Italian motor scooters of course is the VESPA - "wasp."

Worth looking at just to check out the very curvy spokesmodel, too.

Permaculture helped to fill stomachs in Cuba, who have gone through the PO crash and survived.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')ransportation - A System of Ride Sharing

Cubans also faced the problem of providing transportation on a reduced energy diet. Solutions came from ingenious Cubans, who often quote the phrase, "Necessity is the mother of invention." With little money or fuel, Cuba now moves masses of people during rush hour in Havana. In an inventive approach, virtually every form of vehicle, large and small, was used to build this mass transit system. Commuters ride in hand-made wheelbarrows, buses, other motorized transport and animal-powered vehicles.

One special Havana transit vehicle, nicknamed a "camel," is a very large metal semi-trailer, pulled by a standard semi-truck tractor, which holds 300 passengers. Bicycles and motorized two-passenger rickshaws are also prevalent in Havana, while horse drawn carts and large old panel trucks are used in the smaller towns.



This unique Cuban transport vehicle, called a "camel", can carry 300 passengers. (Photo by John Morgan)

Government officials in yellow garb pull over nearly empty government vehicles and trucks on Havana's streets and fill them with people needing a ride. Chevys from the 1950s cruise along with four people in front and four more in back.

A donkey cart with a taxi license nailed to the frame also travels Cuba's streets. Many trucks were converted to passenger transport by welding steps to the back so riders could get on and off with ease.

[Mesuge]

Yes those italian PO guys and their Fiat conversion has been posted on the net for almost a year now. However, there are couple of problems with their particular approach:

- platform (this oldtimer has -5stars for crashtest even in 50km/h)*
- using low production volume high end AC traction and lithium batteries (shelf life unknown most probably worse the quality lead or NiMH)

---

as posted before it's has not been a technical problem at least for past 20yrs or more to have similar capability in modern & safe car, even using lead, which can be massproduced and recycled with given infrustructure..

The best overview of all the diversity in electric conversions,
categories of vehicles, technologies:
http://www.austinev.org/evalbum/

--
* personaly I've nothing against recycling old cars for econversions, but in reality there are too many SUV tanks and idiot drivers these days, so there might be other platform alternatives from newer vehicles..