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Around The Country Without Gasoline
IronChefMorimoto writes "Autoweek has an interesting write up on an Australian man's 16K mile trek around the United States using anything but gasoline to power his variety of alternative fuel vehicles. Featured are bio-diesel Hummers and RVs, a solar-powered canoe, and an excrement-powered scooter." Note that if your car generates electricity, you could conceivably make a few bucks selling juice to the grid at peak hours.
Biodiesel doesn't have anything to do with cutting down emissions. You're still burning hydrocarbons.
Yeah, Daryl Hannah is on the interview circuit telling the world that the only byproducts are harmless steam and a wonderful flowery smell. She's a fucking moron.
Not relying on fossil fuels is a noble goal, but the problems of CO and CO2 emissions (and others) are still there. Burning biodiesel even creates a whole new range of compounds that burning petrolium diesel doesnt.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
I've lived in the burbs for most of my life so far; once after taking a bus home from college I was dropped off at a mall about 2 miles from my home, and my ride didn't show so I walked. There was no way to do this that didn't involve walking down the shoulder of a highway and running across onramps (not even a decent median to walk on). Going anywhere at all requires a car.
On the other hand, a lot of my friends in cities with reasonable transit systems haven't learned to drive at 21 years of age.
" Biodiesel doesn't have anything to do with cutting down emissions. You're still burning hydrocarbons."
Actually, regardless of whether or not Darryl Hannah is a moron, you are wrong.
Because the carbon in the vegetable oil used to make biodiesel is already part of the carbon cycle (opposed to having been sequestered underground for millions of years), biodiesel does not, for the most part, contribute to a NET INCREASE in carbon dioxide.
In fact, research by the US DOE suggests that biodiesel use cuts net CO2 emissions by 78%.
http://www.ott.doe.gov/pdfs/biodieselfuel.pdf
The reason it isn't 100% is because the methanol reacted with the veggie oil to make the methyl ester comes from petroleum in the US. You can make ethyl ester biodiesel using non-petrochemical based ethanol, but the process control is less forgiving.
the military's humvee replacement is going to have 4 electric motors, one on each wheel, a generator, and a diesel engine to power the generator, and enough batteries to drive the vehicle without the generator (for stealth)
because the vehicle has 4 motors, it doesn't have to do a 3 point turn, it just puts one side forward, the other side in reverse, and it turns in place.
this vehicle is also supposed to be more fuel effiecient.
the solution to gasoline, is probably going to be hydrogen, we'll never run out. I've heard of people with hydrogen cars producing their own hydrogen from solar panels at their houses. (cheaper than paying through the grid)
I think he bought a processor for over $1000, and gets the grease for free.
Well, if I could get raw crude oil for free I would be happy to sell you gasoline at $1 a gallon...
The input is free in this example only because biodiesel is in its infancy, so the community refiner you reference has no competition for the used grease. Within five years you can expect that the restaurants that pay this person to take the grease away or give it to him for free will have several competing offers to pay the restaurant for the priviledge of hauling away the grease for later refining.
This McNuggest Nation may use a lot of vegetable oil every day, but it is not even a drop in the bucket compared to the amount of diesel fuel that is used daily (which is only a small fraction of the amount of gasoline used) so there is no way this scales up beyond proof-of-concept stages.
Of course, this sort of leads one to wonder why the companies which are actually in the business of hauling away and disposing of the contents of the grease traps in american restaurants are not starting to produce biodiesel to increase their profit margins. I am sure it will be fairly common soon, but does anyone know of anyone doing this already?