$1/Gallon "Green Gasoline" In Sight

mattnyc99 writes "We've gotten excited here about the startup that claims it can make $1/gallon ethanol out of anything from trash to tires. But we've also seen how cellulosic ethanol is a better option, and how ethanol demand in general is only adding to the worldwide food crisis. So what about $1/gallon gasoline? NSF-funded researchers at UMass Amherst just completed the first direct conversion from cellulose using a new method of hydrocarbon refining, which they claim can be commercialized within 5-10 years and essentially make fuel out of anything that grows. Quoting: 'We already have the infrastructure in place to distribute liquid fuels. We're using them to power transportation vehicles today, and I think that's what we'll be using in 10 years and in 50 years,' Huber says. 'And if you want a sustainable liquid transportation fuel, biomass is the only way to go.'" The process is running at about 50% efficiency now; the $1/gallon figure is based on getting to 100%.

Comments

I say!

[jawtheshark]

Mr Fusion!

Seeing doc putting in that banana peel was just too much :-)

Re:I say!

[Erioll]

So this technology is 5-10 years away? Kinda like how fusion is always 20 years away?

Basically, I'll believe it when I'm pumping it into my gas/ethanol tank.

Re:I say!

[jawtheshark]

Kinda like how fusion is always 20 years away?

... I might have been too subtle, but that was my point.

Re:I say!

[0racle]

Mr. Fusion only powered the time circuits and the Flux Capacitor, the engine runs on ordinary gasoline, always has, always will.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, I can't say exactly how long it will take to commercialize, but the company I work for, which may or may not have been mentioned in the article (wink) has a production-scale run of the catalyst scheduled for later this year. I wouldn't scoff too hard at a 5-10 year projection.

Re:I say!

[Rei]

Actually, it reminds me of thermal depolymerization. Anyone remember that?

Really, though, what we're looking at is one of the things that drives me crazy about a lot of environmental "trends" and congress's role in pushing them. And don't get me wrong; I say this as a hardcore green with CFLs in every socket who is on the waiting list for an electric car.

Most of these new biomass-to-ethanol plants work based on syngas. That is, partial oxidation of carbon-and-hydrogen-bearing matter into a mixture of CO and H2. They then either, through an wasteful catalytic process or an even more wasteful biological process, convert the syngas into ethanol. Great. Except that we've been converting syngas to gasoline, in a rather simple and fairly efficient process, for the past century. The main syngas source was coal. This Fischer-Tropsch process powered a large portion of Nazi Germany's war machine (until their plants were bombed flat). It powered South Africa during the Apartheid regime.

Let's state this again: they typically are using *more energy* to create *less output* of a product with *less energy density* that *can't be transported in normal pipelines* and can only be used in *small amounts* in cars unless they're *specially modified*, rather than, more efficiently, just creating gasoline. Why? Because gasoline is a dirty word. Because there aren't the same sort of subsidies for "cellulosic gasoline" as there are for cellulosic ethanol. Because cellulosic gasoline won't win you green cred, or get the investors lining up. So the inferior solution gets chosen.

Re:I say!

[jawtheshark]

Damnit! I bow to your nerdiness... You're right, or course! I completely forgot!

Re:I say!

[Trogre]

What about the hover conversion? Did it need gasoline to fly up to 88mph too?

Re:I say!

[CSMatt]

Probably. The DeLorean traveled to 2015, so expecting this in 5-7 years would make sense.

Re:I say!

[chaim79]

So, what you are saying is that the Test is 5-10 Months away, and getting it to 100% efficiency is 5-10 years away.

So in theory we could be seeing this with $2 or $3 a gallon gas fairly soon, and after a while the production cost will be reduced (though the price will probably stay where it is.) :)

Re:I say!

[Torsoboy]

Truth. The premise of the third movie was that they couldn't get the Delorean up to 88 MPH since they had no gasoline.

Re:I say!

[Markspark]

Fischer-Tropsch can be used to make gasoline also (and was used to make gasoline in SA), but as you say, however it's not energy efficient, and i hardly believe that this process is either. on a sad note neither is Bio-Butanol at the moment (i am currently doing a study on this, and it doesn't look good, at all.) and btw.. someone please mod parent up, this is the most Insightful post in this tread.

Re:I say!

[Markspark]

i probably need to get out my reading glasses, you since parent clearly stated that the Fischer-Tropsch process was used to make gasoline. On a side note, one thing that seems feasible (if we solve the corrosivity issues) is Steam reforming of biomass to methanol, which is an exothermal process.

Re:I say!

[Flunitrazepam]

Let's state this again: they typically are using *more energy* to create *less output* of a product with *less energy density* that *can't be transported in normal pipelines* and can only be used in *small amounts* in cars unless they're *specially modified*, rather than, more efficiently, just creating gasoline.


but other than these points, it seems like a good idea wouldn't you say?

Re:I say!

[Shark]

And don't get me wrong; I say this as a hardcore green with CFLs in every socket who is on the waiting list for an electric car.

Wait a minute there... Those CFLs are *mercury free*, right? And that electric car isn't going to be charged from a coal plan, is it?

Re:I say!

[budgenator]

actually they were talking about reducing the cellulose to hydrocarbons in a tight-lipped way

Using a catalyst commonly employed in the petroleum industry, Huber and his colleagues heated small amounts of cellulose very quickly for a matter of seconds before cooling it, producing a high-octane liquid similar to gasoline. âoeThe temperature window is very critical,â Huber says. If you heat too slowly, you produce mainly cokeâ"elemental carbon residue. If you heat too fast, you make mainly vapors. The sweet spot, about 1000 degrees per second, transfers roughly half the celluloseâ(TM)s energy into hydrocarbons. âoeIf we can get 100 percent yield, we estimate the cost to be about a dollar per gallon,â Huber says. âoeRight now weâ(TM)re at 50 percent. Can we get 100 percent? I donâ(TM)t know. Hopefully weâ(TM)ll bump those numbers up.â

Now the $1 a gallon part is assuming 100% conversion so that will never happen, but even $3.00 at the pump looks good right now especially since it isn't killing people through starvation to get there.

Re:I say!

[wxjones]

Germany under the Nazis, South Africa under apartheid, USA under Bush. Fischer-Tropsch would give us one more thing to have in common.

Re:I say!

[rlbond86]

This was the first thing I thought of, too.

Re:I say!

[Derrikex]

Yeah but you could use the flux capacitor to go back to when gas was cheaper.

Re:I say!

[hardburn]

It's a DeLorean. It needed a good push to get to 88mph even with gasoline.

Re:I say!

[Mr. Slippery]

Those CFLs are *mercury free*, right? And that electric car isn't going to be charged from a coal plan, is it?

If you trashed the CFLs, the amount of mercury released would be less than the mercury released by coal-fired plants to power the equivalent in incandescent lights.

And CFLs can - and should be - recycled, so no mercury is released except for the occasional broken bulb. If you break one, you just take some simple precautions to clean up. They have about 1/100th of the mercury in a old thermometer, the type everyone had in their house not very long ago.

Environmentally, mercury in CFLs is a very very small issue.

And an electric car powered by a coal-fired generating plant still emits much less pollution than a gasoline car.

So what's your point?

Re:I say!

[Skillet5151]

Post to undo accidental modding. A long set of dropdown boxes that take effect immediately with no way to confirm or change...what could go wrong?
(Or have I missed something?)

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

The argument that Hg in CFLs or that Electric cars just shift emission was designed to confuse people who really didn't want to think through the problem. It's usually offered by someone who has or thinks that they can gain by people using the same old technology. You don't see it so much in CFLs any longer but with Electric cars is still used. The difference in efficiency with electric cars comes mainly from the fact that converting heat into electricity in a turbine and then into work in an electric car is a much more thermodynamically efficent process then converting heat to work in a gasoline or diesel engine.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

a hardcore green with CFLs in every socket I get power from hydro. For me CFLs would do absolutely nothing in terms of greenhouse gas, but would add to the mercury problem.

However, there seems to be a law going in effect soon banning my good old non-eye-hurting incandescents.

This annoys me.

But something annoys me more: People who call themselves green, but promote fossil fuels.

Re:I say!

[PresidentEnder]

Replying to correct mismoderation

Re:I say!

[Rei]

For me CFLs would do absolutely nothing in terms of greenhouse gas

Might want to rethink that one. Not to mention the huge ecological damage that comes from building a dam.

would add to the mercury problem.

The "mercury problem", plus the problem from *all the other heavy metals* and *many other types of pollutants* comes mostly from the burning of coal. Point out to me a single time you objected to the ubiquitous use of fluorescent tubes that contain an order of magnitude or more mercury, found in every officebuilding across the country, and I'll lay off you on this one, but CFLs have a tiny, miniscule amount of mercury. There's a tiny amount of all sorts of toxic chemicals in a computer chip. Are you going to stop using a computer, too? And even for this tiny amount of mercury, when disposed of, only a tiny fraction of *that* escapes. I can dig up the ref againfor you if you want, but in a previous debate on this subject, I dug up an EPA document on how much mercury is released from a CFL disposed of in different manners. If the trash is incinerated, a little over 20% of it ends up released. If it's buried, about 3% of it gets released. If it's treated as hazardous waste, the amount is negligible. In short, we're talking about small fractions of what starts out as only a couple milligrams. Oh, and to top it all off? It's inorganic mercury, which has low toxicity. What coal plants emit is largely organic.

But something annoys me more: People who call themselves green, but promote fossil fuels.

Gasoline isn't a "fossil fuel" when you make it from biomass.

Re:I say!

[Dare nMc]

And an electric car powered by a coal-fired generating plant still emits much less pollution than a gasoline car.

not sure where you pulled that from? Their seams to be one clean coal plant in the US, and with batteries not being exactly green, and a pure electric car costs more to run than the same car running on hybrid (if battery replacement cost is not subsidized.) Throw in all the radio-active emissions of coal plants (none in gasoline.)
Their is hope in a few years electric will be enough better, with cleaner electric power source, and better batteries. That will be the way to go "for the global environment".
Don't get me wrong, the electric cars beat the current mass production gas cars by a wide margin, but it would cheaper and possibly greener to power those same aerodynamic chassis, and low rolling resistance tires from liquid, until things improve. For the local environment, electric would be better in theory. Considering low emission gas vehicles currently exhaust cleaner air than they take in (in heavy traffic), even that may be a long term goal.

Re:I say!

[cayenne8]

"And CFLs can - and should be - recycled, so no mercury is released except for the occasional broken bulb."

Yeah, but, let's be honest. I'd dare say that MOST of the CFLs are going to just be tossed in the trash can like most waste is today. Out of all of my friends, I only know 2 people that recycle anything....and one of them lives in an area where it is required (first I'd ever heard of mandatory recycling). I throw everything in the garbage...no exceptions so far. The one friend I know here takes cans to be recycled....I think he said the place is a few miles away, but, he has to do it. I've only got a 2 seat car...even if I wanted to, I don't really have a way to do it unless I was devoting a lot of time to it every few days to keep the loads small.

Most people around here throw everything out...computers, trash, glass, paper...etc. If CFLs get common, they're gonna end up in the regular trash too.

Re:I say!

[cayenne8]

"It's a DeLorean. It needed a good push to get to 88mph even with gasoline."

Actually it was easier than that. All you had to do with the DeLorean is "snort" start it.....and it would follow any white line down the road...

:-)

Re:I say!

[KevinIsOwn]

Your car is not the problem. Admit it: You are just being lazy. I know, you may not want to hear this. Most people don't, but recycling isn't very difficult.
Consider your car excuse: The total amount of waste is exactly the same. It just gets separated into multiple containers. And when it comes to cans, just bag them and take them with you to the supermarket, recycle them on your way in, get groceries on the way out. It's really not that hard.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Put the cans in the garbage. That way they'll end up in the landfill with all the other unrecycled garbage. Future generations can mine our garbage piles to get the raw materials they need, like old cans and plastics.

Throwing stuff in the garbage pile will help future generations! Won't somebody please think of the future generations?

Re:I say!

[Pfhorrest]

The correct quote says "flying circuits" rather than "time circuits". The hover conversion was powered by Mr. Fusion was well.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

What an interesting coincidence... I just checked the Wikipedia entry for the word "Ignorant."

Ignorance is the condition of being not informed or educated, having little knowledge and information.


See also: cayenne8 and his friends

Never heard of mandatory recycling? Get ready, because your wasteful behavior is bringing it down on yourself.

Re:I say!

[drinkypoo]

Consider your car excuse: The total amount of waste is exactly the same. It just gets separated into multiple containers. And when it comes to cans, just bag them and take them with you to the supermarket, recycle them on your way in, get groceries on the way out. It's really not that hard.

Recycling is a boondoggle. It takes more energy to recycle glass or bimetal than to just make new stuff. Most plastics are sorted and then landfilled (Australia has taken a lot of the USA's plastic bottles.)

Recycling of anything other than electronics and batteries is a bunch of horseshit at this point.

This is a much bigger issue than the difficulty of recycling. Mind you, I recycle everything I can; they have forced me to do so by shrinking the trash can and giving me a gigantic recycling can into which I cannot put the majority of my trash because, even if it is technically recyclable, it is not marked for recycling.

Re:I say!

[tyler_larson]

Actually, it reminds me of thermal depolymerization . Anyone remember that?

It should... since that's what it is. Apparently they've improved the recipe to get a better yield from specific materials.

News, but not new.

Re:I say!

[dgatwood]

Plastics should be pretty easy. Every plastic I've ever seen dissolves in petroleum. Since the oil refineries have to do hydrocarbon chain splitting for the heavy parts anyway, I just don't see why plastic recycling shouldn't be cash-positive as long as it is done by the oil refineries.... This, of course, discounts the fact that the oil industry can get more money by selling new petroleum to people to make plastic because of the artificial scarcity produced by people throwing away the old plastic instead of recycling it....

Re:I say!

[bussdriver]

I know a professor who is creating fuel from just about anything and has been since the 70s. Tires, waste oil, waste biomass, it seems like anything is converted to something he can power his stuff with.

He said it works great except it can't scale and only works well for people rural situations and could be useful for normal people for heating or running the lawn mower... It can't solve our problems now or back when he started it in the 70s.

Re:I say!

[TempeTerra]

Insightful? Shame on you mods.

Other than that Mrs Lincoln, how was the play?

Re:I say!

[osu-neko]

Recycling is a boondoggle. It takes more energy to recycle glass or bimetal than to just make new stuff.

Is your second sentence a non sequitur, or are you asserting that the only good reason to recycle things is to save energy? I've actually never heard that as a reason. Usually, the reason for recycling is to avoid depleting a resource (we're going to run out of that metal eventually if we keep this up), or despoiling the environment further (sure there's plenty more of that metal around, but do we want more strip-mines?), or just filling landfills unnecessarily (glass is silicon, the most abundant element on earth -- sure we're never going to run out and don't need to destroy the environment mining it, but why keep filling landfills with it if we can find something else to do with it?). Saving energy is not even in the top three reasons for recycling, although if there are cases where you *can* save energy by doing so, that's a pretty nice benefit.

Re:I say!

[drinkypoo]

Saving energy is not even in the top three reasons for recycling, although if there are cases where you *can* save energy by doing so, that's a pretty nice benefit.

Actually, quite a bit of the environmental cost of using steel or aluminum is related to the energy cost of refining it.

It would make more sense to stop making so much plastic shit than to recycle it. We can make compostable hemp plastics. No shit. You can make them with corn too, but corn is not a good feed stock for reasons which should be obvious.

Given that most of our energy comes from Coal in this country, you should be concerned about the energy cost issue.

Re:I say!

[Rei]

not sure where you pulled that from? Their seams to be one clean coal plant in the US, and with batteries not being exactly green, and a pure electric car costs more to run than the same car running on hybrid (if battery replacement cost is not subsidized.) Throw in all the radio-active emissions of coal plants (none in gasoline.)

It's very, very simple. Gasoline engines are very inefficient. Non-hybrids average less than 20% tank-to-wheel efficiency. Hybrids, just over. Fuel-burning power plants, 30-50% efficiency. Transmission losses, ~8%. Charger losses, ~7%. Battery losses, ~0.1% in Li-ion. Motor losses, ~10%. Do the math. I can give you several peer-reviewed studies on the topic if you're prefer.

As for batteries, you're just not up to date with the technology. These aren't lead-acid or nickel-cadmium batteries here. For example, my Aptera is to use lithium phosphate batteries. These last 10-20 years and are almost completely nontoxic. Their raw ingredients are things like iron, phosphoric acid (the same stuff as in soft drinks -- made from fluoroapatite, the same stuff as in well cared-for teeth, plus sulphuric acid, which is an oil industry *byproduct*), graphite, and even sugar (for the carbon binding). These aren't "in a few years" -- they're already here. They're becoming the new standard for cordless power tools, for example.

Considering low emission gas vehicles currently exhaust cleaner air than they take in

That's nearly always a myth promoted by the manufacturers. If you look at the actual numbers, they usually lower one pollutant by a tiny amount (say, particulate matter caught up in the air filter) while still emitting the other pollutants.

Re:I say!

[dko1625]

Well as long as only waste is used, I'm all for bio-fuel. But using crops / foods, is dis-tasteful to me - no pun intended. Using food for fuel may very well set back our civilisation to the first stage of three - the three stages being, Survival (How can we eat), Inquiry (Why do we eat) and Sophistication (Where shall we have lunch) - Normality has been restored, anything you can't cope with is your own problem.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

and with electric car you can change the power source of all the cars in the world (atleast the electric ones) whereas with gasoline cars it's just burning fuel to the end.

Re:I say!

[nickname29]

(and was used to make gasoline in SA),

The sentence should read: Is still used to make gasoline (petrol, diesel) in SA, and Qatar.

however it's not energy efficient, and i hardly believe that this process is either.

CTL and GTL is energy efficient. It is cheaper to manufacture gasoline from gas or coal than to pump it out of an oil field. SASOL (the company in SA that makes gasoline from coal and gas) has grown considerably during the high oil prices. Their stock price doubled in a year. They made huge profits at $40 dollars/barrel - imagine what they are making now. There were even calls for a special tax on this company (since it makes humongous profits).

Here is a stock chart for SASOL (on the LSE). As you can see, the stock price is 6 times what it was in 2004.

Just a side note, making cellulistic ethanol is a much harder and difficult beast â" it is more difficult (by a few orders of magnitude) than making ethanol from corn.

Re:I say!

[couchslug]

"So this technology is 5-10 years away? Kinda like how fusion is always 20 years away?"

But VC funding could be much sooner, especially if one sees it on a Slashvertisement!
In 5-10 years the company may be forgotten, but the folks who made a buck from it
regardless of outcome will remember it fondly. ;)

Re:I say!

[couchslug]

"And when it comes to cans, just bag them and take them with you to the supermarket,"

Aluminum scrap pays well. Check with commercial recyclers in your area before
giving away aluminum.

Re:I say!

[StormyWeather]

Recycling fails the same way socialism does. If there is nothing directly in it for the participating individual then any effort is too much.

Re:I say!

[electrictroy]

I think California had the right idea with their EV Mandate. Electricity is a practical solution that is here NOW, not some future time which may or may not ever arrive.

And over time, we could transition to nanoscale solar cells on top of people's roofs so they can charge their cars.

Re:I say!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

Electricity is a practical solution that is here NOW, not some future time which may or may not ever arrive. Well, if you consider "practical" to mean a car that has a third of the range of a gasoline powered car, needs hours to "refill", costs twice as much (when you consider the federal subsidies), needs battery replacements every 18-24 months (if you want to maintain range), and can't tow anything to be "practical" then you're right on the money! I'm sure people are flocking to electric cars because they're so darn practical! They are flying off the showroom floors, aren't they? Aren't they? Hello?

Practicality is only one of the issues facing your "practical solution." Electric cars need to be plugged in to something called "utility power" in order to recharge. Where do those magical electrons come from? I'll take "power plants" for $500, Alex. California already has a utility power shortage crisis, with rolling blackouts and brownouts thrown in for fun. Suppose the entire state went electric with their cars tomorrow? Just where do you think all that juice would come from? Pixie dust? Nano-solar isn't going to save you anytime soon, either.

Electric cars are neat. For some people they fit the bill. For the vast majority of people they do not. You've got a lot of learning to do about what the meaning of the word "practical" is for folks who aren't clones of you.

Re:I say!

[deroby]

LOL, how much cans do you consume that you're unable to transport a weeks-worth of them in a car ? I think the average family takes at least a month to mass up a bin-bag full of the stuff. Heck, even a two-seater has *some* amount of storage. Simply put a plastic sheet on the passenger sheet and place the "can-bag" on top of that. Come to think of it, if you paint a smiley on the bag you might even try using the carpool-lanes =P

All joking aside, recycling EVERYTHING indeed can be cumbersome, but recycling the easy things (glass, alu & tin-cans, paper, etc...) isn't hard at all and it sure makes a dent in your overall "waste-budget".
The only thing it requires is a small effort to actually do it, so stop finding excuses and do your bit.

(And FYI : yes, I plan on bringing any broken CFLs to the recycle station, and yes I'm pretty sure most of the people I know will too... (well, those aged below 60 in each case, which demographic group do you want to belong to ? =))

Re:I say!

[Bombula]

A couple of things. First, beware the Green Scam. I looked closely into biodiesel-from-algae as a possible startup last year, and found a number of scammers in the market - most notably Global Green Solutions (www.globalgreensolutionsinc.com) whose technology claims turned out to be not only ambitious by thermodynamically impossible: over 80% total efficiency. The physical limit of photosynthesis is under 20%.

Still, algae biodiesel is probably the way to go because it can use seawater in concrete raceway ponds paved onto otherwise unarable land. Thermal depolymerization looks good too, but we have to wait to see the long-term numbers for the Butterball Turkey test plant.

It powered South Africa during the Apartheid regime.

Not completely. A number of Gulf countries illegally supplied oil to South Africa during aparteid. In Oman, this turned brothers Omar and Qais Zawawi into billionaires.

Re:I say!

[Garse Janacek]

Recycling fails the same way public highways do. If there is nothing directly in it for the participating individual then any effort is too much.

Fixed that for you.

Recycling fails the same way police and fire departments do. If there is nothing directly in it for the participating individual then any effort is too much.

Fixed it again.

Recycling fails the same way universal education does. If there is nothing directly in it for the participating individual then any effort is too much.

I could go on..... invoking "socialism" (which, by the way, is not the same thing as communism, nor is it obvious that "socialism fails," since all governments including the US have socialist elements [see above]) is not a good argument against something. You still have to weigh the actual costs / benefits of the case. The situation you describe is extremely common. Conflicts where common action would significantly improve everyone's situation, while personal inaction would marginally improve the individual's situation, are almost the canonical argument for the existence of government.

I'm not advocating any specific government action here (though there are some that I think would be beneficial with almost zero inconvenience) -- but your statement as it stands is an argument for government intervention to support recycling, not an argument against recycling. Recycling itself still stands or falls on its actual benefits.

Re:I say!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

For example, my Aptera is to use lithium phosphate batteries. A quick Google search yields the following website: http://www.aptera.com/. I'm assuming that's the source of the car you're referring to. Digging around in it a bit, I find the following:

What will be the battery life and cost replacement?

This depends largely on usage and if you have an "All Electric" or an "Electric Plug-in Hybrid" version of the Aptera. We will share these exact numbers when they become available closer to the start of Aptera production.

So your 10-20 year lifespan of the battery isn't documented on the website anywhere that I can find.

To its credit, Aptera does say its car will cost between $26,900 and $29,900. I wonder how much of that is subsidized, though. And paying $30K for a car that does 0-60 in 10 seconds, carries two passengers, and practically no cargo isn't exactly a screaming bargain. You'd be far better off buying a more conventional gas/electric hybrid like the ones currently available.

I also note on the Aptera site that the car isn't designed for cold climates. Availability is almost non-existent as well. Last, and perhaps most distressing, Aptera offers no warranty on the vehicle. Sure, they're working on something, but as of now you get nothing. Remind me again why anyone except the most die-hard tree hugger with deep pockets and no family would ever want to buy this thing?

Re:I say!

[cayenne8]

I'm well below 60

:-)

But at least for right now...I'm in tight quarters post Katrina, so no place in the house really for separate tubs for dividing up everything. Then...I'd have to find the time to bag and manually transport my 'trash' for recycling (they don't pick it up for you here)...and risk getting crap all over my 2 seat car.

My days are pretty filled now with work, trying to fit in working out in the gym, etc. I try to do all my grocery shopping once a week and cook most of the days on Sunday so I can eat all week (and work out). I fill in the small amounts of down time, with something fun, like going to a show, maybe hitting a bar with friends. I just don't see trying to fit into my already VERY busy schedule...driving my trash around to different places to try to recycle it....and taking up valuable real estate in my apt. at the same time.

If it were more convenient for me and my already filled daily schedule, I might do it...but, I'm not gonna bust my ass for activities that I don't see any perceived return on my $$ or most especially....my time.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha! That was my first thought too! :)

Re:I say!

[Ganesh999]

Without nitpicking, fusion as a viable power source "is always" *50* years away, not 20.

This 50-year estimate is actually pretty detailed and is based strongly on timescale & results of research conducted to date, not "pullafigureoutofyourarse" methods of project management.

The reason that the 50-year estimate has been static for the last decade is that the scientific community never anticipated that it would take a decade to obtain the funding. The countdown from 50-odd years restarted last year.

Cheers,

C

Re:I say!

[clonan]

Actually, most small (sub compact) size electric cars have similar ranges to gas powered cars. Since to this point most electrics have been intended as in-town cars, so long as the recharge time was under 8 hours it didn't make a difference. Now that electrics are trying to go more mainstream, the recharge time is gropping fast. I have seen systems that can recharge in under an hour and this can drop even further.

As for replacing the batteries, even with older systems like lead-acid, it has ALWAYS been cheaper to maintain electrics than gas powered vehicles. Things we take for granted like regular oil changes, tune ups, timing belts etc aren't on electrics at all. On top of that, newer battery systems are projected to last the life of the vehicle. Think about the only maint. you need to do is to change your tires.

You are correct that electric cars must be powered off power plants. However, electric cars are so much more efficient that california would end up with GOBS more power if they simply redirected the gas for cars into powerplants. Currently electrics have an 85-90% efficiencey considering battery and motor loses. Gas vehicles have a 26% efficiency at best. Considering transmission losses, about 5% of electric power is lost and a similar percentage is used in the transportation of gas. Finally, the processing. Power plants typically operate on a 60% efficiency. Therefore, gas powered vehicles operate at around 20% efficiency at best while electrics are hovering around 50%. Two and a hoalf times better! Plus much of the US power is generated by hydro electric and wind, solar-termal and nuclear are starting to come back...

Over the last 10 years electric cars have been a niche market. However the current technology actually allows for wide spread use and the price tag (especially when you include power/fuel expenses) are actually comperable. With near term developments in super capcitors and batteries, the range of applications will increase, the fueling times will decrease and the cost will drop.

Re:I say!

[Bloke down the pub]

Every plastic I've ever seen dissolves in petroleum.

Thanks for the heads-up, you just saved me from wasting seven and a half quid on one of these.

Re:I say!

[fifedrum]

you aren't a hardcore green if you are using CFLs, pony up the dough for truly efficient LED bulbs or turn in your green card

Re:I say!

[Mr. Slippery]

It takes more energy to recycle glass or bimetal than to just make new stuff.

Citation needed. Wikipedia says glass recycling saves 5-30% of the energy, and 20% of the air pollution. Bimetal, I don't know about, but recycling aluminum can saves 95% of the energy, and steel 60%; recycling bimetal cans would only waste energy if it took a tremendous amount of energy to separate the parts, and if that's the case we ought to redesign or eliminate them.

I cannot put the majority of my trash because, even if it is technically recyclable, it is not marked for recycling.

Where do you live that paper, aluminum cans, and glass bottles, are supposed to be specially marked for recycling? Here in the U.S. the only things marked are plastic, so you can tell what type it is. It was the same way when I was in Japan (where they do a tremendous job of recycling).

Re:I say!

[Mr. Slippery]

If there is nothing directly in it for the participating individual then any effort is too much.

There's nothing directly in it you you to use a toilet rather than taking a dump in the middle of the road, yet through legal and social means we've managed to get most people to use toilets.

Throwing away recyclables is an indication you're not housebroken yet.

Re:I say!

[neurovish]

Plus much of the US power is generated by hydro electric and wind, solar-termal and nuclear are starting to come back... Wikipedia disagrees with you. Hydro is 7.1%, Wind and solar-thermal aren't even significant enough to get a slice of the pie, but combining "other renewables and other, you get another 3.1%".

Just sayin'

Re:I say!

[The_Wilschon]

That's what's caused the oil shortage to begin with!

Re:I say!

[d3ac0n]

A couple problems with your argument.

Actually, most small (sub compact) size electric cars have similar ranges to gas powered cars

True. The problem is that most subcompact cars aren't practical either. Maybe for single people or childless couples, but for people with families these vehicles are entirely impractical. Thus the popularity of SUVs.

As for replacing the batteries, even with older systems like lead-acid, it has ALWAYS been cheaper to maintain electrics than gas powered vehicles. Things we take for granted like regular oil changes, tune ups, timing belts etc aren't on electrics at all. On top of that, newer battery systems are projected to last the life of the vehicle. Think about the only maint. you need to do is to change your tires.

This one is COMPLETELY wrong, and shows a real lack of understanding of basic mechanics. Most of the "Electric" cars out there are actually HYBRID cars. Why? Because of the inherent problem of the lack of range of full electrics Since they are hybrids, they have small gasoline engines in them. These engines need all the maintenance of any other engine. So take the normal maintenance costs of a standard automobile, THEN add the costs of replacing the battery pack (roughly 3-5 grand US each 3-5 years) ON TOP of that. NOT cheaper.

Even for full electrics, the maintenance costs are still comparable, because even though there is no Internal Combustion Engine (ICE) in the vehicle, it still has plenty of moving parts that need regular lubrication and get worn out and need replacing over the life of the car. The average full electric vehicle needs about 50% to 75% of the year-to-year maintenance that a hybrid or a standard ICE vehicle needs. But you still need to calculate in the cost of replacing the battery pack every 3-5 years, which pushes the maintenance costs of an Electric to WAY over the cost of an ICE vehicle. if I may demonstrate with a simple chart:

ICE vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $5000.00 US

Hybrid vehicle expected maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $1000.00 US
Hybrid replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $7000.00 - $10,000.00 US

Full Electric Expected Maintenance costs on a yearly basis over 5 years: $500.00 - $750.00 US
Electric replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US
Total average maint. costs: $5500.00 - $8750.00

These are rough figures, but I'm sure you can spend some time on edmunds.com or Google and find similar numbers.

One additional point, you aren't taking in the disposal costs of the HIGHLY TOXIC batteries. Yes, some can be recycled, but many cannot. What do we do about those? ICE vehicles are 99% recyclable. Hybrids and Electrics are not, due to the batteries.

california would end up with GOBS more power if they simply redirected the gas for cars into powerplants

Power plants DO NOT run on gasoline. MOST are coal-NG plants, some are Nuclear, some are Hydro power, and a very small number of low-capacity plants run Diesel. So you CANNOT re-direct the gasoline to power plants, they can't use it!

Also, California's power grid problem is twofold:
1) Over-regulation by the California government has economically strangled the power plants, making it a loss-proposition to run a power plant in California.

2) The Eco-Freaks and NIMBYs have wrangled a practical ban on building any NEW power plants in CA, such that demand has now FAR outstripped supply. Thus the rolling blackouts and brownouts. There simply isn't enough power to go around, and no way to get more power plants built.

You will notice that NEITHER of these problems are IN ANY WAY related to Gasoline or automobiles.

You can talk all about supposed efficiency gai

Re:I say!

[Silentknyght]

If you trashed the CFLs, the amount of mercury released would be less than the mercury released by coal-fired plants to power the equivalent in incandescent lights. I figure about 5-6 mg Hg per CFL. Do you have a quote/article for your statement? I'd be interested in reading it.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish power plants operated at 60% efficiency. My guess is that a more typical value would be in the 40% range. There is enough bad info being pushed out already. At any rate, your figures corrected to more realistic levels still give a better result for electric cars than I had thought likely.

Re:I say!

[operagost]

Think about the only maint. you need to do is to change your tires.

Safety tip-- you might want to check your brakes, wipers, steering, and bulbs too.

Re:I say!

[Retric]

Electric car fuel cost is ~1/2 that of a gas powered car.

So using your numbers:

IC: Total average maint. costs: $5000.00 US
Electric: Total average maint. costs: $5500.00 - $8750.00
(Assuming 30MPG and 3$ a gallon gas)
That works out to:
(8750-5000)/(3MPG/(30$/g)) = 37,500Miles in 5 years.

Assuming light driving @ 12k miles per year your saving 2250$ on fule.

PS: Golf carts use electric because it's cheaper and with better batteries so would normal cars.

Re:I say!

[mrchaotica]

I've only got a 2 seat car...even if I wanted to, I don't really have a way to do it unless I was devoting a lot of time to it every few days to keep the loads small.

Even if your car has only 2 seats, it still has a trunk or hatch. Even if it's a smart car or something, it ought to be able to hold all your recycling for at least a week (assuming your household is small, which we can do because if you had a bigger household you would also have a bigger car!).

Besides, that doesn't even matter: unless your community is completely backward and idiotic, the trash service is also capable of picking up recycling. That's how my parents do it: they have to containers, one for trash, the other for recycling. They don't even have to sort the different kinds of recyclables; they just carry both down to the curb on trash day and let the utility deal with it.

Re:I say!

[mrchaotica]

Recycling of anything other than electronics and batteries is a bunch of horseshit at this point.

Aren't you forgetting a little thing called metal? The majority of steel is recycled!

From http://www.recycle-steel.org/rates.html:

Steel is North America's Number #1 Recycled Material. Each year, more steel is recycled than aluminum, paper, glass and plastic combined!

Scrap has become the steel industry's single largest source of raw material because it is economically advantageous to recycle old steel into new steel. In light of this, steelmaking furnaces have been designed to consume steel scrap.

In fact, in the past 50 years, approximately 50 percent of the steel produced in this country has been recycled through the steelmaking process. Thanks to the steel industry's impressive history of recycling, a wide variety of collection programs exist to recycle steel products.

(Note: I was going to make a claim that a lot of aluminum is recycled too, which I believe is true, but I can't find a source to cite for it.)

Re:I say!

[CannedTurkey]

I just saw a study from florida that showed the average occupancy of minivans at 1.67 people. I can't imagine SUV's being any different. The fact of the matter is, that people routinely buy and drive unsuited for their needs.

Re:I say!

[slic_nick579]

But Mr Fusion only powered the time circuits and the hover conversion. The internal combustion engine runs on ordinary gasoline, always has. "So what do we do?" --Marty McFly

Re:I say!

[mrchaotica]

We can make compostable hemp plastics. No shit.

Unfortunately, the second you say "hemp," the idiots making the laws assume you're a pot-smoking hippie.

<sarcasm>Besides, didn't you know that hemp makes blacks and Mexicans rape white women? William Randolph Hearst said so! (And his investments in the timber industry, which was threatened by hemp, had nothing to do with it.)</sarcasm>

Re:I say!

[qweqwe321]

What planet are you from? The California energy crisis only started AFTER the electricity market was deregulated. Look at the timeline. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_energy_crisis

Re:I say!

[operagost]

Public education is pretty much a failure in the USA. And police and fire departments are not socialism in the American republic, because one of the Constitutional responsibilities of the government is to protect public safety.

Re:I say!

[Firethorn]

Actually, most small (sub compact) size electric cars have similar ranges to gas powered cars

Do you have figures on that? I've always figured that the range for a gasoline car is ~300 miles. All the EV sites I've seen touting economical EVs(excludes the Telsa) is around 100 miles.

As for recharge time, it's all dependant on two factors. Well, one usually ends up being the limiter. The first is battery chemistry. You can only charge a lead-acid battery so fast. NiMH is a bit faster, and you have a better 'fast charge' ability. LiIon is better yet, though it gets really slow near the end. The second is the wattage capacity of your charging system.

If all you have is a 120V outlet, you're only going to be able to push about 1.5KWh into the batteries in an hour. 2KWh for a 'heavy duty' 20Amp dedicated circuit. Switch to a dryer type outlet at 240V@30A, and you're up to 6KWh. Which would fill most EV batteries in about 3 hours. The Tesla, sportscar that it is, has a 53KWh battery. That dryer outlet would take 9 hours to charge it from empty. There's nothing except the pain of handling 000 gauge* wires and running most of a modern house's capacity to it to keep you from charging it in just over an hour. Well, assuming the charging system can keep up. Of course, at that point a transformer and kicking the voltage up to levels only line workers normally see**.

However, electric cars are so much more efficient that california would end up with GOBS more power if they simply redirected the gas for cars into powerplants.

Better yet, just burn the crude oil, better still, build nuclear plants, wind farms, etc... Leave the gasoline for other areas.

Over the last 10 years electric cars have been a niche market.

They've been a niche market for the last 100+. Look up Jay Leno's antique electric car.

However the current technology actually allows for wide spread use and the price tag (especially when you include power/fuel expenses) are actually comperable.

Not yet. You can obtain a ~35 mpg gasoline car for around $15k. Zap wants $14k for a truck with a max speed of 25mph, a payload capacity of 770 pounds, and a range of 30 miles. Great for zipping around a warehouse, not so great for commuting in most areas. The Zap-X, which looks like a car has a ESRP of $60k. The Tesla is $100k.

Conversion kits seem to run around $10k, excluding the batteries.

Even if you assume power is free, in many cases battery aging and replacement needs exceed the cost of the gasoline in and of itself.

It is getting better, but slowly.

With near term developments in super capcitors and batteries, the range of applications will increase, the fueling times will decrease and the cost will drop.

Fueling times, at this point, are generally limited by infrastructure. There's not magic bullet out there to make batteries cheap enough to make them the right choice anytime in the near future, I'm afraid.

*IE bloody huge
**lethal very quickly if not done right. I'm thinking 600-1000V. A thousand volts could handle the charge using 'only' 4 or 5 gauge wire. Still going to look and handle worse than a garden hose full of water.

Re:I say!

[RingDev]

If you can see $3 gas in a year, you'll never see $1 gas, regardless of production and efficiency improvements. A CEO somewhere will be driving a gold plated Bentley though.

-Rick

Re:I say!

[GnarlyDoug]

Note sure where you got your numbers from, but I'm going to refute some of them.

Hybrid replacement battery pack costs within a 5 year period: $3000.00 - $5000.00 US

Battery packs for hybrids are generally warrantied for 8-10 years, and they are expected to last the lifetime of the vehicle. To date Toyota claims that they have never needed to replace a battery pack on a Prius due to it simply wearing out, and there are Priuses with over 300,000 miles on them on the road today. So if you need to replace a battery pack, it'll be because you were in a wreck (you should have insurance) or you had a defective battery pack (warranty). You're probably not going to have to pay to replace it. (Cue the exceptions to post.)

Second, maintenance costs for a hybrid are much less. As the link to the hybrid taxi cab experiment shows, while standard maintenance costs were about the same, the unscheduled maintenance costs were dramatically lower, around 19 cents per 100km of driving, vs. around $2 per 100km for the other vehicles. That's with over 60 hybrids, not one vehicle, so it should not be a statistical anomaly. That's big-time savings, and since 'unscheduled maintenance' is going to be a euphemism for stuff breaking, they're more reliable as well.

So no battery pack replacement needed and almost a 50% reduction in total real maintenance and repair costs over the life of the vehicle and a lower failure rate = you're saving thousands of dollars and have less hassle.

Add in the savings for the better gas mileage ($10,000 to $20,000 in savings over the life of the vehicle) and that hybrids are almost free in terms of their cost vs. a regular new car even with the slightly higher premium you pay for them.

One other thing. Hybrids hold their value. You don't take a 30% reduction to the value of your car the moment you drive it off the lot, and used hybrids can go for almost as much as new ones.

Re:I say!

[AshtangiMan]

Stay out of my car, my pocketbook, my life, and my government. We, The People will decide how to live our lives, not you, the enviro-commies.

Wow. If you don't want an EV then don't buy one. There are a lot of people for whom an EV would be the perfect car who would want one (myself included). That option does not exist right now mostly because of the economics and technology limitations but that is likely to change. I wonder why this is a problem for you. I did not notice anywhere in previous posts the suggestion that you, or anyone should be forced to live a certain way. Indeed, the only people being forced to live a certain way are those who would rather have an EV. And the only thing forcing them to live this way is the lack of this choice in the marketplace. The good news is that this is probably changing and so everyone can be happy.

As for people staying out of pocketbooks, I agree completely. To the point that my tax dollars should not be used to subsidize the extremely profitable oil and gas conglomerates. Subsidies should only go to emerging technologies that can be good for the country and should stop as soon as they become profitable, in my opinion.

Re:I say!

[morari]

True. The problem is that most subcompact cars aren't practical either. Maybe for single people or childless couples, but for people with families these vehicles are entirely impractical. Thus the popularity of SUVs. Funny, almost every SUV I see on the road has one sole person driving in it. SUVs are a status symbol, not a lunge for practicality. Especially when you take into consideration the pitiful four wheel driver performances that they give to suburbanites who'll never need it anyway. Smalls cars seat four to five people, which is plenty for a family. Any four door would have enough leg room in back for the older kids too.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

And CFLs can - and should be - recycled, so no mercury is released except for the occasional broken bulb.

Should be recycled, but I haven't read of anyone building the recycling facilities. And some people are waking up to the fact that 10,000 CFLs in a landfill does amount to a mercury problem. Pollution is almost always a matter of scale.

Re:I say!

[ahabswhale]

Fuck the planet...you just got shit wrong (not the that the other guy was right).

First off, you suggest having to replace a hybrid battery every 3 - 5 years. Lets use a real example, the Prius, instead of some hypothetical bullshit. Toyota has never had to replace a Prius battery (other than defective ones). Here's a link since I know you don't believe me: http://cleangreencar.vibrantplanet.com/page/faq-prius#Q12. I doubt you believe that so perhaps Toyota's 10 year 150,000 mile warranty on the battery is more convincing?

Second, you talk about how regulation has strangled the power plants in California and that's why they've had rolling brown-outs, etc. Perhaps you aren't familiar with Enron. They analy butt-raped California after getting them to deregulate the power in the state. They then requested various power plants they had ownership to arrange shutdowns to drive the price up. They would also arrange to ship power out of the state so the price would rise and then only bring it back after it was 3x what it was before. This little game cost California 30 BILLION DOLLARS, fuckhead. Regulations are put in place to stop greedy fuck-head companies like Enron from doing this shit and as soon as they deregulated, they dicked over the state. There's a whole film on it with actual recordings of their energy traders doing this. It's called Enron: The Smartest Guys In the Room. Of course, you probably believe it's some kind of liberal BS campaign.

Any power shortages California has now are due to it's continuing rise in population combined with the ban on new nuclear plants. It has nothing to do with plant profitability you stupid dumbfuck. Here's a link showing how there's four plants currently under construction: http://www.energy.ca.gov/sitingcases/all_projects.html#announced. I guess the builders aren't planning on making any money?

So STFU until you learn something other than what people like Rush Limpdick shove down your throat.

Finally, I'm not a democrat of liberal. I'm a realist. All power is abused and greed will grow to the point of ridiculous wherever and whenever it is allowed to. That's the nature of humanity and I'm sick and tired of all these idiots (like yourself) talking about how we don't need to control it. These regulations were put in place because people abused this shit in the past. Fuck it, you're a waste of time.

Re:I say!

[Rei]

So your 10-20 year lifespan of the battery isn't documented on the website anywhere that I can find.

They've stated they're using lithium phosphate in news articles (example here). Lithium phosphate batteries have a 10-20 year lifespan in normal use. Normal laptop cells have a few hundred to a thousand or so cycles before 50% degradation. A123 cells have 1000 cycles to 5% degradation (in an Aptera, 1000 cycles is 120,000 miles). And everyone I've seen who's talked about using A123 cells in their own experience says that if anything, the spec sheet is too pessimistic. A123 was initially saying "10+ years and 7000 cycles+" for the Volt's pack (which will be a lot more stressed than the Aptera's, since it's a PHEV). Now GM is saying they expect it to be good for 15, and are planning to give it a very long warranty. And even then, you're not talking about the battery dying; you're talking about it being down 20% capacity or so. Spinels can last even longer -- LG Chem expects theirs to be good for as much as 40 years in typical EV use.

There's nothing inherent about batteries that means they have to rapidly degrade. Jay Leno has a 1909 Baker Electric that still runs on its original Edison cells. It all depends on the stability of the battery chemistry. Lead-acid and LiCoO2/graphite li-ion are not stable chemistries. LiP, titanates, and spinels are.

I also note on the Aptera site that the car isn't designed for cold climates.

Says who? Aptera has only said that it's not initially going to be *tested* in cold climates. A123 lithium phosphate cells are rated for -30C for operation and -50C for storage. And lightweight tadpole configurations like the Aptera can do exceedingly well in the snow -- for example, the Messerschmidt KR200 (which is a far more primitive and less stable design). Smaller vehicles have lower moments of inertia, so they're easier to stop. Compare the stopping time on a semi with a typical sedan, for example.

Availability is almost non-existent as well

Availability *is* non-existant because it's pre-production; only the prototypes exist. They've fully raised their final round of funding for production and they brought on board the head of production for the Dodge Viper and Ford GT projects to manage it (a perfect match, as he's used to working with low volume cars with light alloys and composite structures). The first deliveries to customers are scheduled for late this year.

Last, and perhaps most distressing, Aptera offers no warranty on the vehicle.

Wrong. The site explicitly says, "The details of our financing and warranty are still being defined" and "We will announce further information regarding the battery lifespan and warranty policy well before we begin manufacturing the Typ-1 next October.", not "There will be no warranty". How do you have terms on a warranty when there is none? Perhaps you were looking at the terms of use of the *Website*? ("Aptera PROVIDES THIS WEB SITE, AND ALL CONTENT AND MATERIALS ON THIS WEB SITE "AS IS" AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY OF INFORMATIONAL CONTENT, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.")

Re:I say!

[clonan]

Couple of counter points...

#1) I was NOT talking about hybrids...by there very nature (two power sources) hybrids will always have significantly higher maint costs. I was speaking of pure electrics, which is the conversation you started. Depending on the design, electrics can either have a central motor and a traditional drive train OR have 4 wheel based motors and completely remove the drive train. The one motor version will have similar costs since you are replacing an engine with a motor. The 4 wheel version will have significantly reduced cost since you are removing some of the most expensive pieces to replace (drive train, transmission). In addition current battery technologies have a life span of 8-12 years NOT 2-3. Most cars don't last much longer than 12 years anyway. Plus in all but a catastrophic failure (which would probably total the car anyway) batteries are still functional when they are replaced they just have reduced capacity. Therefore many of the newest electric cars (and hybrids) have no need for battery replacement over the expected life of the vehicle.

#2) True that a sub compact is NOT practical for a family vehicle. Never said it was HOWEVER it is practical for commuter cars or those singles or childless couples you mentioned. You seem to think I am suggesting that we should all turn in out ICE's for Electrics tomorrow. I never made that argument. I am saying that Electrics are now a viable options for more than a niche market and this market is growing well over twice as fast as the general auto market.

#3)Toxicity. Yes, some older batteries are extremely toxic. Those technologies are not typically used in newer electric vehicles. While there is an issue with disposal, it is comparable to 60-100 gallons of used oil, not to mention transmission fluid, extra coolant and of course gas spills from pumps etc. Plus, who says you can't recycle used batteries? Why MUST they go into a landfill?

#4) Power plants. True, gasoline fired power plants are relatively rare (but they do exist). However Diesel power plants are relatively common (and significantly more efficient than gas plants). The difference between gas and diesel is how the crude is processed. The excess oil from reduced ICE can be turned into diesel and used to power the electrics. In addition, you should check up on your news. Slashdot has had a half dozen articles about building power plants in California, primarily solar-thermal but others as well. While the CA power grid IS strained, it is primarily due to extreme population growth rather than oppressive regulation. In addition CA has had more than it's fair share of fraud and other hindrances which strain the system even more (think Enron and others).

#5) The power grid: Projects suggest a 10% increase over current infrastructure growth would handle the power needs of 100% of all transportation if every vehicle was made electric using today's technology. This is because most electric cars would charge at night when there is already a huge surplus in capacity (capacity created for office building as and AC's) at both the power plants AND the electric grid. We need to update the grid for other reasons but NOT because of an influx of electric cars.

#6) Ethanol was always stupid as a power source. It was NEVER suggested in anything but PR documents that it would even help. Ethanol is harder to move, more volatile and contains less energy/Gram than gas. It was a give away to the farming industry. HOWEVER even with that said, the amount of corn that was directed to ethanol was minuscule. We (the US government) could easily double or more the crops grown simply by stopping the farming subsidy. The primary reason for the corn shortage is distribution issues rather than production issues. Corn is bulky and it is expensive to ship it from the US to where the hungry people are.

#7) Powering the cars. One thing you forgot to mention is that with CURRENT technology, home photo voltaic are economically competitive with

Re:I say!

[mrchaotica]

It's inorganic mercury, which has low toxicity. What coal plants emit is largely organic.

That statement doesn't make sense. Mercury is an element; elements can't be organic. Do you mean that coal plants emit compounds containing carbon and mercury?

Also, you're wrong: even elemental mercury (which is within your "inorganic" category) is -- and I quote -- "extremely toxic".

Re:I say!

[clonan]

I said MUCH not Most :-)

Re:I say!

[Mr. Slippery]

Yes, about 5 mg per bulb is right (though falling as technology improves).

I think this is where I first saw a calculation of Hg emissions: if mercury emissions are about 0.079 mg/kWh, and a CFL saves 296 kWh of electricity over its lifetime, then 23 mg of mercury emissions are prevented. Even if you take one quarter of the mercury emissions (the author of the linked page notes that his value is high), you still save 5.9 mg of mercury, more than the 5 mg in the bulb.

And of course if you recycle them, no mercury is emitted. (Well, maybe some trace.) If you live near a large city, there's probably an IkeaMOM's stores collect CFLs for recycling.

Re:I say!

[g8oz]

You think you had a completely free say in your car? Don't you think govt regulations affected the design and cost? You already pay taxes as well, do you as an individual get to pick which ones you like? Society already makes collective decisions, this is about making better ones.

And whatever reasonable points you made are lost in your name calling. Learn some manners and stop generalizing about your opponents.

Re:I say!

[clonan]

Just an idea I had seen floating around...

Why does it have to power directly off the house grid? Assuming fast discharge/recharge systems like super capacitors are availible at a reasonable price (hey it's my imagination :-)) why not put a small bank in your garage or parking spot etc and recharge from them quickly? They would recharge at your house current rate.

Re:I say!

[HuguesT]

Is it gas or Diesel fuel? With Diesel you can simply use things like used cooking oil directly (after simple filtering). With gas, it's more refined (pun intended).

Re:I say!

[PitaBred]

10% ain't much. It's a dime when you wanted a dollar.

Re:I say!

[PitaBred]

Hybrid GAS cost may be half that of a traditional vehicle, but did you factor in what you pay to charge the batteries up with electricity? No? Try again.

Re:I say!

[Blakey Rat]

Yes, and I own a car with 4 seats which has one person in it most of the time. However, you're still retarded:

1) Quite frequently I need to drive more than one person around. For instance, every single weekend. Those SUVs you see being driven by one person are probably used for other reasons at other times.

2) Buying a new car for every situation is expensive and impractical. Sure I could own a SMART, a Corolla, a SUV, and a pick-up truck, but where would I park them? How could I afford it?

Try engaging the brain before typing the post, and you might actually come up with why a lot of SUVs have a single driver.

Re:I say!

[clonan]

And the 10% is growing significantly faster than the other 90%.

So in 10-20 years it will hit 25% and grow even more. That is assuming nothing odd happens like a new technology shows up (fusion...I know, but it COULD ;-) ) or maybe there is a spike in petroleum prices....A spike huh, that could NEVER happen ($3.53 average / gallon and went up 2 cents over the day before).

Re:I say!

[dgatwood]

I suspect that would eventually dissolve, but the odds are it would get brittle and break long before that. To dissolve it rapidly, you would presumably need to powder it to dramatically increase the surface area, then apply heat and an appropriate catalyst just like you do in an oil refinery to break up the heavy hydrocarbon chains.

Re:I say!

[BlackSnake112]

Define needs. Just going to work every day, then a small car would work. Hauling all the gear for the small car doesn't fit the bill. Now if you can afford to have more then one car then good for you. A lot of us out there cannot. Renting the bigger car is not an option for a lot of us.

I moved closer to work. Paying more for a lot less just to cut the commute down. I fill up 1-2 times a month with my bigger car. The two prius people fill up once a week at least (according to them). So 47.6 (11.9*4) gallons a month vs 32 (assuming both fill ups). Who is burning more fuel? Usually I fill around 1/2 tank not empty so it is more like 8-10 gallons a fill not the full 16. I figured I give the full amount on both to be fair. The prius people were quite pissed off at me. When I told them how often I fill up. Both prius people have a second bigger car for family trips. The prius is too small for all of them plus their stuff at the same time.

Re:I say!

[Damvan]

Exactly,

The California energy crisis was caused by the "letting the market decide" and the market decided to screw all the people of Califoria.

Re:I say!

[LunaticTippy]

Saving energy is the single most important benefit of recycling. Energy is expensive, dirty, and scarce. Some recycling is a slam-dunk: aluminum, steel, copper, etc. You save the equivalent of 8 oz of gasoline from recycling a single aluminum can compared to raw bauxite refining.

Ideally, I'd like to see this hugely profitable and beneficial metal recycling subsidize the more muddled areas such as paper, plastic, glass. I'd also like to see huge advances in these areas because honestly we aren't doing well right now recycling these.

Re:I say!

[Damvan]

Where is his post did he say that they should or would force you to get rid of your ICE car? All he mentioned was the California EV mandate, which only required a very small percentage of cars to be EV, not all. And by no means does it mandate that people are forced to give up their ICE cars, nor forced to buy a EV car.

Either way, the market is not allowed to decide right now as their is no EV's available right now that are more than a enclosed golf cart. GM made sure of that.

Re:I say!

[LunaticTippy]

Refineries heat petroleum to at least 600C and usually have high-pressure processes as well. You're damn right plastic dissolves in petroleum at high temp/pressure.

It's actually a good idea.

Re:I say!

[tonyreadsnews]

He included Nuclear in his statement which, according to that page, accounts for another 19.3%. that totals to 30%, which is a bit closer to that dollar.

Re:I say!

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

My golf cart is gas. EZ-GoOWorkhorse.

Re:I say!

[RobertM1968]

Even at 5-10 years away, the current 50% efficiency level still makes gas production through this method (far) cheaper than the current crude->gasoline method.

Re:I say!

[SteveMurphy]

No, you're reading the OLD schematics, my friend. Doc Brown ditched the old DeLorean internal combustion engine when he had it converted for flight. :-)

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep in mind that "practical" is totally subjective.

Where were all the SUVs 50 years ago? Family sizes were even *bigger* back then.
Where are all the SUVs in Europe?

Re:I say!

[electrictroy]

>>>"Currently electrics have an 85-90% efficiencey considering battery and motor loses. Gas vehicles have a 26% efficiency at best."

Actually the most efficient vehicles are "at best" 50%. I'm refering to cars like the 70mpg Insight and 88mpg Lupo. Electrics are efficient at the motor, but inefficient at the charger, usually achieving 60-70% overall. So yes EVs are more efficient, but not the huge dramatic difference you proclaim.

Re:I say!

[electrictroy]

>>>"Most of the "Electric" cars out there are actually HYBRID cars. "

The original poster (me) was not talking about hybrid cars. Different animal entirely, where most hybrids are 99% gasoline-power and only 1% electric powered.

I was referring to 100% electricity with a battery for storage of the energy.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

The total cost of Electrical energy to the wheels is far cheaper than gas. Because, coal costs less than highly refined oil and coal power plants are far more efficient than IC engines. So while it might sound strange it's cheaper to mine coal > burn it > store that energy in batteries > use that energy to turn a wheel than it is to go the IC route of: Pumping oil, transporting it to a refinery, refining it into gas, transporting that gas to a gas station, burning the gas in your engine > transmistion > wheels.

Re:I say!

[electrictroy]

>>>"Well, if you consider "practical" to mean a car that has a third of the range of a gasoline powered car, needs hours to refillIf you have an EV1 with 150 miles range, and you only drive 100 miles a day, then your point is irrelevant. Yes its true that an EV1 won't work for everybody, but it would work for ~75% of Americans commuting to work or store, and that would be significant reduction in gasoline usage.

>>>"costs twice as much (when you consider the federal subsidies), needs battery replacements every 18-24 months"

Modern NiMH batteries don't require replacement except every ten years or 200,000 miles (whichever happens first). In other words, about the same replacement interval as a gasoline engine. As for cost, there's no more cost to recharge the battery, than refueling your $60-per-tank gasoline engine.

>>>"They are flying off the showroom floors, aren't they? Aren't they? Hello?"

Not since close-minded people such as yourself (do you work for Exxon?) yanked them off the floor. Hard to sell something that you've purposefully drug to the junkyard (despite owners' demands to keep the cars) and crushed into metal bricks.

See the video Who Killed the Electric Car at isohunt.com

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

True. The problem is that most subcompact cars aren't practical either. Maybe for single people or childless couples, but for people with families these vehicles are entirely impractical. Thus the popularity of SUVs.

This is a typical American attitude - "I need all the space that I can get".

Why are subcompacts impractical? Sub-compacts like Honda Fit can sit 5 adults. It might be little tight, but you can and still have space for luggage in the back. And seriously, what is the percentage of time you have full occupancy in your vehicle? Rest of the world and their families do just find with sub-compacts. Hell, in developing countries, a moped is a family vehicle.

SUV's are popular because they stroke our egos, not because they are necessities.

Re:I say!

[electrictroy]

>>>"AFTER the electricity market was deregulated."

The California market was NEVER deregulated. You've fallen for the typical politician trap of calling something "patriot act" when it's actually a "spy on our citizens" act. The California electricity market was changed, but it was still strictly controlled & overseen by the California Legislature.

Simply put, the corporations were not free to buy/sell power without first getting an "okay" for the government... so it was NOT a free market.

Re:I say!

[lansirill]

What happens if you, say, post as an AC to undo accidental modding?

Re:I say!

[electrictroy]

>>"Hybrid GAS cost may be half that of a traditional vehicle, but did you factor in what you pay to charge the batteries up with electricity? No? Try again."

As the saying goes, "People may think you're dumb; don't open your mouth and confirm their suspicions." My Honda Insight doesn't use ANY electricity. It doesn't even have a plug!!! It's 100% gasoline powered, with a battery to capture & recycle any excess energy (example: braking).

Re:I say!

[h2_plus_O]

So in theory we could be seeing this with $2 or $3 a gallon gas fairly soon

Cost of production isn't the driver of current fuel pricing- the fact that demand is increasing is what drives commodity pricing of fuel. (if you think about it, this makes sense. It doesn't cost more to drill and refine fuel today than it did last year.)
The only way we'll see fuel prices go down is if supply increases to match demand.

Re:I say!

[clonan]

When you are charging off of an ICE you are right but with current battery systems you can achieve 90+% chrging efficiencies.

Honda is incorpoating these into thier hybrids for 2009 or 2010.

Re:I say!

[Blakey Rat]

Where were all the SUVs 50 years ago? Family sizes were even *bigger* back then.

50 years ago, average cars were the size that most SUVs are today. And there were plenty of station wagons on the road, which amount to the same thing. I don't see that as a valid point.

Re:I say!

[j_166]

"What planet are you from? The California energy crisis only started AFTER the electricity market was deregulated. Look at the timeline. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_energy_crisis"

What planet are *you* from? This is planet slashdot, where regulation of *anything under any circumstances* is bad bad bad. Especially things required by and/or derived from the commons. The free market always works on planet slashdot, my friend. And don't go trying to argue about it, with your "facts" and "timelines". The real fact is, government regulation is Communism, pinko, and Communism was proven to be bad (by the government). And the government can never be wrong. Except about regulation. Don't make me think too hard about it because that hurts my head.

Re:I say!

[shmlco]

"Stay out of my car, my pocketbook, my life, and my government. We, The People will decide how to live our lives, not you, the enviro-commies."

Just in case you haven't noticed, it's not just environmental, but also politcal and economical. With gas hitting $4 a gallon, a person's "choice" to drive, say, a Ford F-350 impacts everyone else. You can drive nearly five Priuses for the amount of fuel that one single vehicle consumes.

I'm also not too big on adding trillions of dollars to the national debt, nor sending our children off to die elsewhere in order find enough oil to support your "choice".

You have rights, and you also have responsibilities. Grow up.

Re:I say!

[OwnedByTwoCats]

The market can decide, as long as Internal Combustion Engine users aren't getting a subsidy from the rest of us by letting their CO2 emissions build up in the atmosphere for free.

Mandating Seat Belts and Air Bags from the top down has worked. Mandating unleaded gasoline from the top down has worked. Mandating emissions standards from the top down has worked. Mandating fuel economy from the top down worked in the 1970s, but then we gave up. My 1987 car went twice as far on a gallon of gas as did my 1973. My 1996 car didn't do any better than my 1987 car. Current cars aren't appreciably better than my 1996.

Re:I say!

[electroniceric]

These are all good points, and there's a really large climate problem with all biofuels beyond just the obvious EROI problems with corn ethanol. The demand for fuels does nothing to reduce demand for crops. So any added use of land to produce fuels is in competition with both crops, human occupancy, and forest. In the case of the latter, the conversion of forest is an accelerator of climate change (both from an albedo perspective and from direct carbon emission, and from non-sequestration). In most scenarious any biofuel result in net carbon emissions (the emissions from the energy to grow and harvest the fuel, plus the emissions from burning the fuel itself). So while the math on cellulosic ethanol is much better, unless it's very carefully managed (e.g. finding a way to grow a lot of fuel in a small space) it only represents punting the problem down the road.

Re:I say!

[ahodgson]

You should follow your own advice. The Insight is obviously not an electric car - it's a gas car.

Re:I say!

[Rei]

That statement doesn't make sense. Mercury is an element; elements can't be organic.

It's like saying hexavalent chromium. Chromium is an element. Hexavalent chromium can only be found in compounds where it's in the +6 oxidation state; virtually never will you find lone hexavalent chromium ions. But it's still called "hexavalent chromium", in short for "hexavalent chromium compounds". In this case, "organic mercury" is short for "organic mercury compounds". A google search will show you that this is a common term.

Also, you're wrong: even elemental mercury (which is within your "inorganic" category) is -- and I quote -- "extremely toxic".

As even Wikipedia notes, "The most toxic forms of mercury are its organic compounds, such as dimethylmercury and methylmercury. " Organic mercury compounds have much higher bioavailability. Methylmercury is the most common one, and it's what coal plants emit large amounts of. It likes to bond its way into proteins and it bioaccumulates. CFLs contain pure ("inorganic") mercury.

Re:I say!

[Mozk]

That "excess" energy doesn't come from nowhere. Think about it. You're still essentially burning gas to charge the batteries.

Re:I say!

[jawtheshark]

Sure I could own a SMART, a Corolla, a SUV, and a pick-up truck, but where would I park them? How could I afford it?

You really got to explain how I can go grocery shopping, run around a family and be happy with an Audi TT.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

Um, if you really were "hardcore green" you wouldn't be poisoning your food and water supply. You do realize that CFL's has mercury right? If you were really hardcore green you'd be using LED bulbs, then using geothermal, wind, and solar energy to power them. If you were UBER hardcore green you'd be living in a pile of sticks and mud in the forest.

Re:I say!

[mrraven]

People aren't starving to death because of environmentalist grease cars:

http://www.greasecar.com/

They are starving to death because among other reason big corporations like Monsanto want to sell their product (GMOd corn) to big agribusiness so they can get subsidies from big government so asshats like yourself can drive big SUVs because your egos are too fragile to be seen in a Honda Civic or Prius. The problem here is biggism the very opposite of what environmentalists want which is a world where small is beautiful:

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

Re:I say!

[Blakey Rat]

Are you a homeowner? In addition to my main vehicle (a PT Cruiser), I have a pickup truck I frequently use to haul gravel, make dump runs, etc. Between myself, my friends in the area, and my brother and parents, it's well-worth owning. It's a nice gas-guzzling 1965 Chevy S-10 which probably drives the green freaks around here insane-- only a pity I can't buy leaded gas for it anymore. ;)

Seriously, though, if you live in a condo or apartment and you have a small family (either in number, or midgets to fit them all in an Audi TT), then good for you. But my point is that you can't assume every SUV on the road is owned by someone exactly like you. Maybe they like to go jet skiing or camping and they need the towing capacity. Maybe they have a large family. You don't know, and you can't make judgements about them until you do.

I'd love to see you bring a load of gravel to my yard in your Audi TT, though.

Re:I say!

[mrchaotica]

Ah, thanks for the clarification. But still, rather than saying that non-organic mercury compounds have "low toxicity," wouldn't it be better to say that they have extremely high toxicity, but are still less toxic than organic mercury compounds with are super-ultra-mega-toxic? Although I now realize you were speaking in relative terms, it sounded like you were implying that stuff like the metallic mercury from a thermometer would be good spread on toast. ; )

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

More difficult than making ethanol from corn you say? I should hope so...

"Early forms of distillation were known to Babylonian alchemists in Mesopotamia (in what is now Iraq) from at least the 2nd millennium BC. Distillation was later known to Greek alchemists from the 1st century AD, and the later development of large-scale distillation apparatus occurred in response to demands for spirits. Hypathia of Alexandria is credited with having invented an early distillation apparatus, and the first exact description of apparatus for distillation is given by Zosimos of Alexandria in the fourth century."
- that old rag Wikipedia

Re:I say!

[prisoner-of-enigma]

They've stated they're using lithium phosphate in news articles (example here [usatoday.com]). Lithium phosphate batteries have a 10-20 year lifespan in normal use. I'd like to see that data backed up somewhere, because all the links I've been able to find say LiP batteries are very new technology and have yet to see any widespread use. The best example of deployment on a "massive" scale is the OLPC project, and that's not particularly massive.

Additionally, LiP batteries suffer from lower charge densities than typical Li-ion batteries present in your common laptop. One of the most touted benefits of LiP is not recharge cycles, it's the (relative) inability of the battery to cause a fire due to thermal runaway. LiP costs are also much higher than Li-ion, although this is likely due to the relative immaturity of the technology vis-a-vis Li-ion.

Says who? Aptera has only said that it's not initially going to be *tested* in cold climates. And did you stop to consider why? Sure the cells themselves are rated to perform at the temperature range you specify, but performance will be degraded nonetheless. You also have a heater to consider which, while present in the car's current design, creates an additional load on the cells. Somehow I doubt waste heat from the electric motor is being used to heat the cabin.

Availability *is* non-existant because it's pre-production; only the prototypes exist. Yet you speak of the car as if you already had one in your garage and you use it for daily transportation. If it's a prototype them stop referring to all its abilities as if they're all going to make it into the production vehicle.

The site explicitly says, "The details of our financing and warranty are still being defined" and "We will announce further information regarding the battery lifespan and warranty policy well before we begin manufacturing the Typ-1 next October.", not "There will be no warranty". Much like you should be doing, I'm speaking of the "here and now" Aptera, not the "what it might be at some indeterminate point in the future if all goes well." You're putting forth a mix of what's here now (the prototype) and the yet-to-come (full production) and taking the best case of both. Reasoned objectivity would say that's very unlikely to occur.

Re:I say!

[sumdumass]

It doesn't matter if it was available tomorrow. The $1 a gallon isn't what we would pay for. They would simply sell it for the $3.50 or whatever the going rate is. As long as they hold the patent or the keys to the device, they can ensure only a limited amount is produced in order to not change the status quo.

And from a business stand point, why would they. I mean if your willing to change $1 for something that is bringing 350% more, your already in some financial troubles. They would maximize profits by charging just under the current rates to attrach clients but still high enough that they can make the most money possible.

Re:I say!

[sumdumass]

It doesn't have to be bad bad bad to be a false statement. The california utility market was not deregulated. That was a buzz word put to the puzzle when it was changed but they did not deregulate it.

And no, you cannot claim a failure in a free market when no free market has ever existed. I don't know why you think you can rant about things like this at a site who's users don't generally fold into popular hysteria without paying attention to details. In fact, I would say that attention to detail is what make Slashdot significantly different then other sites even when it conforms to political group think.

So in short, your wrong about being wrong because you aren't allowing yourself to be properly educated in the ways of what your speaking about.

Re:I say!

[Erioll]

And from a business stand point, why would they. I mean if your willing to change $1 for something that is bringing 350% more, your already in some financial troubles. They would maximize profits by charging just under the current rates to attrach clients but still high enough that they can make the most money possible. That gets into supply and demand actually. If you can sell 100 units at $3.50 or 1000 units at $2.00, (let's say base costs are $1 on the product) you're going to price at $2 per unit, as your overall profits are much higher.

With this product specifically, they are CARVING OUT a piece of an existing market rather than trying to expand the market, which affects the number of potential customers. Because it's gasoline, you'll probably won't carve much of a market if you're very near the existing price, but can take a HUGE share if you price not that far below where it is now (kinda like how people will flock to the station priced only $0.10 cheaper).

Supply of this product also affects this, as what's the point of pricing lower than the amount you can supply? If you know you will ALWAYS be sold out with the prices you're giving, price so that you're exactly at that line. Pricing lower really only costs you, and pricing higher will mean you have excess supply which is essentially wasted.

So yes, it won't crash as far down as the price of production, but it will be priced to take over as much of the market as they can supply, which is probably still cheaper than current gas prices, though it will likely "follow them, but cheaper" to keep cutting into the market as they want to.

Re:I say!

[Rei]

I'd like to see that data backed up somewhere, because all the links I've been able to find say LiP batteries are very new technology and have yet to see any widespread use

Go down to a local hardware store. Buy a DeWalt cordless power tool (or any of several other brands). Congrats, you just bought a LiP battery pack.

Additionally, LiP batteries suffer from lower charge densities than typical Li-ion batteries present in your common laptop. One of the most touted benefits of LiP is not recharge cycles, it's the (relative) inability of the battery to cause a fire due to thermal runaway. LiP costs are also much higher than Li-ion, although this is likely due to the relative immaturity of the technology vis-a-vis Li-ion.

Yes. I'll sum up. LiP gains:
* Nontoxic
* Extreme stability (long lifespan)
* No thermal runaway
* Low flammability
* High power density

It loses:
* Drops from ~160Wh/kg to ~100Wh/kg

Neutral:
* Currently more expensive, but should be much less expensive in mass production due to ditching the cobalt (which makes up 60% of the cost of a traditional li-ion).

And did you stop to consider why?

Yes -- because they're in freaking California, and that's the only place they're going to be available in the first year -- and of that, SoCal gets them first. You know, where the temperature is so reliably above freezing that non-cold-hardy palms and citrus grow.

Sure the cells themselves are rated to perform at the temperature range you specify, but performance will be degraded nonetheless.

At the very least, fliers of hobby airplane and helicopters, which have largely switched over to LiP (the battery tech that you think doesn't exist anywhere ;) ) report no noticable performance difference in freezing weather with A123 packs. Even if they start out lower power (li-ion and variants lose no charge density (range) -- only power density (performance)), they'll heat up with use. As if gasoline engines don't have their own, more significant problems starting in cold weather, using lead-acid which is far more cold sensitive, and using fluids that become less viscous.

If it's a prototype them stop referring to all its abilities as if they're all going to make it into the production vehicle.

Yeah, it's not like these are features promised for the production vehicle or anything. Oh wait...

Much like you should be doing, I'm speaking of the "here and now" Aptera,

Oh, so you were claiming, in all caps that there is no warranty for a product that isn't on the market yet and which will have a warranty when it comes out? What, exactly, was the point you were trying to make, then? That the $3 million hand-built prototypes don't have warranties?

You're putting forth a mix of what's here now (the prototype) and the yet-to-come (full production) and taking the best case of both.

I'm putting forth the case of *precisely what Aptera has said will be in the vehicle*. They have a well-defined featureset, which is what people put their deposits down for. There are *additional* things that they've said will be there but haven't announced the specifics on (such as the warranty), and *additional* things that they've been considering but haven't announced decisions on. The fact you haven't followed the company's statements is no excuse; if you're ignorant about a subject, you're in no position to criticize.

Re:I say!

[sumdumass]

Wow, that maintenance cost analysis is a largely inflated piece of crap as far as saying what your attempting to claim it says. If they wanted an accurate comparison, they need to compare Toyota ICE cars like the Camry with Toyota hybrids.

Instead they picked 4 Chevrolet Cavaliers- one year earlier then the newest cars. Something as simple as warranty coverage which the study that the numbers you used was pulled from admits, could more then make up the difference in costs that you cite. the hydirds had a longer warranty period then the Cavaliers making the year of the cars more important. Your going to find a wide difference in maintenance costs between a chevy and a toyota to boot. Let alone attempting to make that difference say something special about a hybrid car of one make know for their reliability and another make not necessarily noted for theirs. Look at why Chevy is losing money and sinking in sales where Toyota is selling like hotcakes and replace GM as a sale leader. It isn't because Toyota cars are pretty.

Also, you are ignoring that total cost differences. The costs of the Cavaliers were around $16,467. The Honda was $12,240 more and the Toyota Prius was $16,610 more then the Cavaliers' price. The study goes on to claim that in order for the savings to recover the extra costs involved with the hybrid vehicles, they would need to be employed 11.9 year for the Honda and 16.3 year for the Toyota but the estimated life cycle of the vehicles are only 8 years.

All in all, I don't think you were purposely misleading people. On the contrary, I think you were mislead by the article you cited. It seems to be the one taking things out of context.

Re:I say!

[sumdumass]

First, I was taking the $1.00 per gallon as the theoretical costs to a consumer. It wouldn't make sense to say I can make X for $1.00 then after tacking shipping, additives for oxygenation and other environmental concerns, maybe some low temperature anti gelling treatment and so on, to have the final consumer price be more then the current costs at the pump.

Second, I understand that supply and demand are at work here. Assuming that the product is at least equal to the current crop of fuels or could be mixed to be so, I think your a little off on the niche of the markets. They wouldn't be necessarily carving a piece of the market out nor expanding it. They would be simply substituting products for currently available products. This would be like me using slave labor and stolen materials to pump oil from alaska, refine it and have a total cost of .20 cents a gallon and selling it at the same or slightly less price as the existing gasoline on the market. (and yes, I am talking 2 tenths of a cent and not being redundant on the percentile.)

Anyways, you sell it for going cost if you can control the supply chain to the customer. If you can't then you sell it just under the current market so other companies will buy it and sell it to their customers. If you run out, you simply use the real stuff for the time being and ad more later. The problem here is that you won't ever be able to produce a significant amount as to actually control the going price of gasoline. This is the real problem with alternative fuels, the more popular it is, the less demand on petroleum there is which lowers the cost of it which eventually makes you the higher priced dog on the hunt.

So instead of selling at a reasonable price based on supply verses demand compared to actual costs, it will be a situation where they avoid influencing the market costs and take as much profit as possible. I don't see it as ever being a separate market, it will always be just a revenue generator. We have been working on alternative energy since the 70's pretty aggresivly and the only time real progress seems to be reported is when the costs of normal energy is so high that the alternative groups can make an enormous profit by sitting in the markets instead of replacing them. We will never see the benefits of $1.00 alternatives because of this. Let's not fool ourselves, just because something is being billed as green or environmentally sound, it doesn't mean the people pushing the products aren't greedy. I don't really blame them either, if I could get 200% more for something and always sell my products to my production capacity, I would do it too. Hopefully, a benefit of working on the cellular/cellulose levels, we can divert wastes meant for landfills and maybe save on some other costs in the process.

Re:I say!

[bussdriver]

its some kind of alcohol. largely a by product of heating actually; not sure what he does with the stuff. I suppose the tractor runs from it.

Re:I say!

[sumdumass]

What do you mean getting a subsidy..lol What the hell do you think? That you own the air? Co2 coming from my car isn't cause any of the problems being talked about, my car doesn't produce that much. And of we where to divide the air into cubic feet per person, my Co2 emissions from my internal combustion engine wouldn't fill my allotted space anywhere near the rate that is supposed to be a problem.

As far as current cars, they actually are better then your 1996 models. The government changed the way Fuel economy were estimated/reported to better reflect real world conditions which means the Rated mileage today that is the same as in 1996 is actually more.

Oh and BTW, if you changed classes of cars between 1996 and 1987, that can explain the difference in mileage. But the actual CAFE standards increased between that time so you did get better mileage of you would have stayed within the same classes of vehicles. Perhaps you should look into things before forming your opinions. I'm willing to bet that half of what you believe surrounding these issues is more then wrong.

Re:I say!

[drinkypoo]

Unfortunately, the second you say "hemp," the idiots making the laws assume you're a pot-smoking hippie.

this is why true grassroots proselytization is so important; so that you can tell the people that the reason marijuana is illegal is largely due to lobbying from Hearst and DuPont. The People have been getting more and more irate about being fucked by the corporate masters, so this is a useful thing to tell them. I have brought several people at least partially around with this information.

(Not to mention alcohol deaths per year in the US... statistics get attention too, when they're big enough.)

Re:I say!

[drinkypoo]

Where do you live that paper, aluminum cans, and glass bottles, are supposed to be specially marked for recycling? Here in the U.S. the only things marked are plastic, so you can tell what type it is. It was the same way when I was in Japan (where they do a tremendous job of recycling).

That's right, the only thing is plastic. Most of my trash is plastic, so that in no way contradicts my point. We burn most of our paper trash, because we have a fireplace and it helps to start fires for heat.

Most plastic packaging is not marked for recycling. This is getting better over time, and recently I've been seeing more cookies, crackers, &c whose unnecessary, redundant packaging is recylable. However, I have never seen a recylable blister pack cover, and most full-plastic packages (e.g. anything small and electronic any more) are not marked for recycling. This means that it can only be landfilled, because no one is using the process that permits recycling of all plastics together (it has lower return than other methods.)

In Japan, people sort their trash into what, five bins or something? Burnable, compostable, recylcable this, recylcable that, landfill... That's great, and I'd love to see that happen here. But here, we can't even get some little triangle stamps on most of our packaging.

Re:I say!

[drinkypoo]

Aren't you forgetting a little thing called metal? The majority of steel is recycled!

That's true. Steel is recycled. We sell unrefined scrap steel for 1-3 pennies a ton. Traditionally, much of this has been in the form of cars which are crushed, and eventually make their way to Japan.

However, recycled steel has a more limited set of applications than non-recycled steel. The fresh stuff is softer and can be hardened simply by working it; you have to add a lot of material to recycled steel if you want it to be soft, and so mostly no one does. This is why Japanese cars have traditionally had lighter bodies than American ones - they could! The recycled steel is stronger and harder, but more brittle. Japanese body design, therefore, must be better than American design to achieve a given structural integrity, but generally comes out much lighter.

Even in spite of these restrictions, Steel is still highly recylable (although the actual environmental cost of recycling cars, which usually involves most of their fluids spilling out into the dirt, is probably very high) so yes, I did leave out steel. I was discussing household recylables, and should have been more specific; sorry. The simple truth is that most people will landfill anything they have made of steel that needs to go to the trash, short of a car. I don't know if you've seen how many washers and dryers end up in the landfill, but it's actually a lot. And this is pathetic, because they're almost entirely steel. If I had to get rid of one, I'd break it down to the motor, gearbox, controller, and the steel parts; Gearbox gets landfilled (sorry) while motor gets kept if it works, the control unit goes to the landfill, and all the steel goes to Timberline (a refuse/recycling place near me) which will take it for free, no questions asked. I've ditched numerous car body parts there over the years.

Re:I say!

[GnarlyDoug]

Hmmm. I didn't think about the overlapping warranty issues. I'll have to give you that those numbers for the unscheduled maintenace costs might be bogus then. At worst however it means that the hybrids are comparable to standard vehicles in maintenance costs.

Also, what I said about the battery packs still stands. The whole bit about having to replace them is a red herring. If it happens, it'll be an exceptional event akin to blowing your engine in some catastrophic way, about as rare and about as expensive.

I couldn't find the total cost differences numbers you cite. Can you provide a specific link or description on where the numbers are at? I looked at their price calculators and those tools did not support the hybrids being dramaticaly more expensive.

Nor do those numbers make any sense. Hybrids are not that much more expensive to initially buy than ICE cars, they get better gas mileage, and are at least comparable in terms of maintenance costs. Where is this +$16K for total cost difference for a Prius coming from?

There are a lot of companies and governments trying out hybrids for taxi and fleet vehicles, and they mostly report that they are doing well with them. If you google for hybrids and taxis you find more positives than negatives, and they generally report total cost savings, not dramtic cost increases. If the numbers you cite were real, nobody other than a few rich eco-freaks would use hybrids. They would join the all electric cars in the nice try category.

Re:I say!

[sumdumass]

Hmmm. I didn't think about the overlapping warranty issues. I'll have to give you that those numbers for the unscheduled maintenace costs might be bogus then. At worst however it means that the hybrids are comparable to standard vehicles in maintenance costs.

Don't forget that Toyota is an altogether better car then the Cavalier. The report the page you linked to claims a better comparison would be to the Toyota Camry but the BC fleet didn't have any.

Also, what I said about the battery packs still stands. The whole bit about having to replace them is a red herring. If it happens, it'll be an exceptional event akin to blowing your engine in some catastrophic way, about as rare and about as expensive.Also, what I said about the battery packs still stands. The whole bit about having to replace them is a red herring. If it happens, it'll be an exceptional event akin to blowing your engine in some catastrophic way, about as rare and about as expensive.

People are having them replaced. Just google for replacing a hydird batter pack and you will find all sorts of stories that range from out of warranty replacement to in warranty replacement and waiting 6 weeks or longer to get it done. It seems that the common failure point is the Batteries charging computer that causes them to go when it goes. I will admit that the majority of the articles I read said they were warrantied but they were without a car to 2-3 months.

I couldn't find the total cost differences numbers you cite. Can you provide a specific link or description on where the numbers are at? I looked at their price calculators and those tools did not support the hybrids being dramaticaly more expensive.

Sure I could. Although the link is present on the page that carries the tables. They pulled them out of a Toronto emissions study for Kyoto compliance. Yea, it's a PDF.

Nor do those numbers make any sense. Hybrids are not that much more expensive to initially buy than ICE cars, they get better gas mileage, and are at least comparable in terms of maintenance costs. Where is this +$16K for total cost difference for a Prius coming from?

They don't make sense because your not comparing them to a comparable type of car. If you compare a Cadillac to a Ford pinto, your going to see some strange numbers.

There are a lot of companies and governments trying out hybrids for taxi and fleet vehicles, and they mostly report that they are doing well with them. If you google for hybrids and taxis you find more positives than negatives, and they generally report total cost savings, not dramtic cost increases. If the numbers you cite were real, nobody other than a few rich eco-freaks would use hybrids. They would join the all electric cars in the nice try category.

I'm sure they are doing well. But doing well compared to other options is a difference story. Breaking even is doing well. Coming slightly above costs for the added assurances of and image of being green is doing well. Doing well is a comparative measurement that needs a proper analysis of the events and facts before and after. The page you linked to picked between two separate reports to grab what it though pushed it's agenda without the proper context. Sure it linked to the studies but they didn't state the full story in the same ways.

One thing you have to remember, the Cavalier that the hybirds are compared to are budget cars. Costs may have moved since 2001 but your still dealing with two different classes of cars.

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

due to it's continuing rise

"its".

Re:I say!

[Anonymous Coward]

by there very nature

"their".

when they are replaced they just have

"replaced; they".

more than it's fair share

"its".

Also, it is better to use <i> and/or <b> tags, rather than capitalization, to emphasize words.

Re:I say!

[Bloke down the pub]

Purists might suggest that chemically transforming a substance into a different substance is stretching the definition of dissolving just a teeny weeny bit.

By your logic, gasoline dissolves in water. All you have to do is burn it into carbon dioxide and water first.

"out of anything that grows" ...

[thrillseeker]

well, it should be fun driving the Hummer around in all that future desert such "cheapness" will lead to

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[cayenne8]

"well, it should be fun driving the Hummer around in all that future desert such "cheapness" will lead to"

Shouldn't be a problem. Hell, if they started using all the fuckin' kudzu we 'grow' down south here, we'd have plenty of fuel to get off the foreign oil teet immediately....and probably fuel for 30-100 years in the future without any other source of plant needed.

Seriously, we've got tons of the stuff...and if we took all the lawn clippings from everyones yard in the US...I'd have to guess with other sources of waste plant life, we could make a huge dent in the need for fossil oil.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[moderatorrater]

I think that you're confused and assuming that this gasoline will add carbon to the atmosphere. In reality, the carbon that's being added to the atmosphere is carbon that was taken out to make the gasoline in the first place. The reason oil's such a problem is that the carbon was sequestered in the earth's crust and not being released until we got to it. In this case the carbon would have almost certainly made it back into the atmosphere, which means it's effectively carbon neutral (although there might be some electricity costs that would add more carbon to the air).

That brings an interesting thought to mind, though. I know that we can't sequester carbon very well in a gaseous form, and that other forms are expensive to produce, but what if we were to grow plants, cut them down, and stick them underground in some salt mines or something?

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Desynergy]

I doubt a Hummer will be able to use this type of gas. It'll more likely be e81 automobiles.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the poster is referring to the possibility that they actually WILL make fuel out of everything that grows. Including, for example, forests.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am pretty sure that it takes a lot of fuel to cut down plants and move them around.

Perhaps a better idea would be just to plant a lot of plants (e.g. trees) and let them grow.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Surt]

I assume the parent was alluding to the stripfarming that will naturally occur when we can get gasoline for $1/gal just by ripping out foliage and dumping it into some machine.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[fredklein]

Hell, if they started using all the fuckin' kudzu we 'grow' down south here, we'd have plenty of fuel to get off the foreign oil teet immediately....and probably fuel for 30-100 years in the future without any other source of plant needed.

Seriously, we've got tons of the stuff...and if we took all the lawn clippings from everyones yard in the US...I'd have to guess with other sources of waste plant life, we could make a huge dent in the need for fossil oil.


Which is why they need to look into a bacteria that 'eats' cellulose, 'drinks' water, and 'shits' ethanol. Dump your lawn clippingd, raked leaves, wood chips, kudzu, whatever, into a barrel, add just enough water, and dump in a packet of bacteria. Keep insulated in a warm place (too hot or cold will kill the bacteria or at least stop them from working. It's a safety device to stop them from escaping and eating the leaves off the trees, etc). A few days/weeks later, pour off the layer of ethanol, and the remaining sludge might make a good fertilizer. Repeat.

Of course, that's just for private use. Commercial production would be slightly different. but you get the point- waste, water, and bacteria in, ethanol (or whatever the bacteria are designed to make) out.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Rorschach1]

That brings an interesting thought to mind, though. I know that we can't sequester carbon very well in a gaseous form, and that other forms are expensive to produce, but what if we were to grow plants, cut them down, and stick them underground in some salt mines or something?

It's been done before. Works great, until some stray asteroid happens by and wipes out your civilization, and 65 million years later those scrappy little mammals that survived the nuclear winter in their cozy burrows have evolved a civilization of their own and are busy pumping all your carefully sequestered carbon back to the surface to be burned and released into the atmosphere...

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[budgenator]

I suppose one could argue that burning coal and oil is carbon-neutral because it's carbon captured by plants from the air as well!

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the the OP was refering to the desertification as a result of the massive expansion of agriculture required to fuel our economy.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[geekoid]

Wow, how incredibly short sighted.

Yes, within the whole global environment, it's 'neutral', but that's not the point. How much is in the Air, and how many millions of years worth of carbon are we releasing, right now? those are the points.
We could burn everything on the earth and still be 'neutral', but we wouldn't want to live here.

Carbon neutral means NOT adding more carbon into the air.

The amount of carbon is high and rising, hence global climate change.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[swimin]

There are already plans to sequester gaseous CO2 generated by coal plants.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[zsau]

I don't have any mod points because I don't usually moderate so I've disabled them, but what they hey:

+1 funny
+1 insightful

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Anonymous Coward]

My impression was that he expects us to harvest everything that grows to keep up with demand (or just typical greed, your choice), leaving us with a desert.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[hardburn]

Carbon neutral isn't the end of the story. The exact composition of the end molecule matters. If you're absorbing CO2 to make your fuel, but make methane after burning your fuel, then it's a bigger problem because methane is a much greater greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

For sequestering with plants, the best way, by far, is algae. It grows far faster than any other plant with a minimum of nutrients beyond carbon and water. Most of the plant material that was turned into oil millions of years ago started out as algae. If you could figure out a way to jump start oceanic algae growth to absorb the carbon we've been dumping, I'm sure you'd get a Nobel Prize.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[lorenlal]

Brazil: The new Saudi Arabia.

I can feel my karma dropping.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Or the deforestation of the land that will occur just so people can grow food. We're already having problems with half our corn going to alcohol production, and this just removes the problem to the next level. It doesn't go away. Land is another limited resource, and if we devote food crop land to cellulose production, then we're still working with a food vs. fuel tradeoff. We're not conflicting on the crop, but we're conflicting on the land which either food or cellulose needs to grow.

It is much more efficient to just figure out a way to convert people to alcohol. Why not work on that instead?

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[mortonda]

No, No, NO! This is just wrong. It doesn't matter whether the carbon comes from 1 inch or 500 feet. If we burn more carbon into the atmosphere than we take out, we are not carbon neutral. The only way this would balance is if we produce enough plant life to eat the carbon to then feed this process.

Cars and stuff put X amount of carbon into the air ... To be carbon neutral, X amount must be *removed* from the atmosphere, or we must reduce X.

All this process does is change the source away from the middle east.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Jflatnote]

It isn't exactly true that biofuels are carbon neutral. Just because the direct source material for the fuel did not come from sequestered carbon does not mean that it was free carbon that would have been released into the atmosphere. In a normal process, soil-sequestered carbon is turned into plants, which die and return the carbon to the soil. Biofuel releases that stored carbon into the atmosphere. Also, the use of petrochemical fertilizers can be an additional input of formerly-sequestered carbon from outside the system.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Sparky McGruff]

If you make the bacteria "shit" some form of oil, or very long chain alcohol, it will rise to the surface and you can just skim off the good stuff. Another note: In my experience growing bacteria in the lab, most small scale production isn't limited by feedstock, it's limited by pH. Bacteria acidify their media as they grow, and eventually that halts the growth. The "high efficiency" growth stocks don't add more "feed", they have buffers for pH. I'm sure that this is taken care of in large-scale production runs, but if you're planning on trying this at home, keep the pH in mind.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[compro01]

1. yes, corn ethanol is a very bad idea and anyone with brains (i.e. not politicians) knows that.

2. switchgrass doesn't require food-growing-quality land. it'll grow just fine on marginal drought-prone land that is unsuitable for food growing, so no tradeoff needed. put your food crops on the good land and spread switchgrass all over the lousy land, which was likely covered with switchgrass a few hundred years ago anyway.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[TheLink]

"Bacteria acidify their media as they grow, and eventually that halts the growth. The "high efficiency" growth stocks don't add more "feed", they have buffers for pH. I'm sure that this is taken care of in large-scale production runs"

Instead of doing things in batches, you could have a continuous process - like an assembly line or "conveyer belt".

You keep putting feed in at the start/head (replenishing the bacteria at the "gut" section from time to time), and get "waste" right at the end of the line/pipe/whatever. And somewhere in between, you get the fuel.

But anyway I don't think that's the biggest problem.

Assuming the efficiencies are actually good. The problems are it's still going to require a LOT of feed and lots of infrastructure ($$$), and even more political will to actually do it.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[drinkypoo]

I know that we can't sequester carbon very well in a gaseous form, and that other forms are expensive to produce, but what if we were to grow plants, cut them down, and stick them underground in some salt mines or something?

All you have to do is dig ditches. Digging an on-contour ditch called a "swale" causes trapping of moisture, seeds, and dust, which leads to growth. It works pretty much anywhere but a sand dune.

The best thing you can do is plant trees, but trees don't really stand on their own. Once the good soil is washed away you have to start with small grasses and lichens, which trap the dirt so that worms, mushrooms, and bacteria can do the work of making it into soil.

The rainforest decomposes so fast that it consumes almost all of the oxygen it produces, but others do better because they build up a deep layer of humus which has time to become soil.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Great, we'll get central planning on this right away, and our farmers will receive their new growing orders from the national directorate this winter.

Oh wait, that won't work. Corn and potatoes are going to sell for X dollars a pound, and switchgrass is going to sell for 10X dollars a pound. Farmers with good land are going to grow corn and potatoes when they can grow shitloads of switchgrass on their very fertile land? Come on.

Plus, switchgrass cannot supply our needs. Demand is too high. That means that the prices will NEVER come down to make growing food profitable in relation. Even the holy invisible hand of the market won't save us.

This is a recipe for mass starvation in the world.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[junglee_iitk]

It is not feasible, since plants rot (aerobic and anaerobic) - and create a lot of unpleasant gases.

You might want to see "Landfill" and "Mechanical Biological Treatment" on Wikipedia.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ...

[mrchaotica]

I don't know about oil, but most coal was deposited during the Carboniferous Period, which, as part of the Paleozoic Era, was considerably earlier than the Cretaceous Period (part of the Mesozoic Era) that you're referring to.

I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[ottawanker]

I'm willing to pay $2/gallon for the opportunity to use the 50% efficient stuff.. Why wait until you reach your target of $1/gallon when what you have is already cheaper than normal gas?

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Devin Jeanpierre]

Because gas is cheaper than even the USD 1.00 figure. Some countries see prices below USD 0.50 .

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[morgan_greywolf]

Maybe where you are. I'm the U.S. and I'm currently paying somewhere around US $3.50/gallon. If I could get gas for $2, I, along with a few million of my closest friends, would literally shit bricks.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[salahx]

You will be at then some if it were avaiable. Keep in mind gasoline prices include heavy taxes (state, federal, excise, etc).

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[aliquis]

For the consumer or in some huge volume?
1 US gallon = 3.78541178 litre

Over here in Sweden the taxes put the gasoline price at something like 12.49-12.99/litre in this town right now according to a webpage.
Say 12.70 sek / litre * 3.785 = 48.07 sek.
8.36$ / gallon in the gasoline station.

So yes, people would gladly pay 2$/gallon here. In face people already pay almost 1.5 $ / litre for etanol/E85. (And we do have tax reduction / no taxes(?) on that.)

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[CowboyNealOption]

... I, along with a few million of my closest friends, would literally shit bricks....

So this would be a boon for the construction industry as well?

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[XorNand]

You're assuming that the costs scales linearly, which is pretty unlikely given the huge fixed costs associated with any type of energy production/distribution network on this scale.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[kingbyu]

I'll gladly sell you 50% efficient fuel at $2/gal. Steps:

1. Take 1 gallon of 100% efficient fuel at $3.26/gal
2. Add 1 gallon of water at $0/gal
3. Result: 2 gallons of 50% efficient fuel costing $3.25
4. Sell to you for $2/gal = $4 total.
5. Profit!

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Valdrax]

Because gas is cheaper than even the USD 1.00 figure. Some countries see prices below USD 0.50 . This is purely because these countries subsidize fuel costs as part of public welfare programs.

See here for a nice, detailed breakdown, week-by-week of gas prices in California. Admittedly, CA is one of the most expensive gas markets in the country, but as of April 21st, $3.08 of $3.85 in average gas prices there come purely from the fuel itself. 11 cents goes to marketing & distribution. 66 cents goes to taxes (many of which rise with fuel costs).

Dropping $3.08 to $1 or even $2 would be a *huge* savings in gas prices there.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[johnlcallaway]

The federal gas tax is $0.184 gallon. It varies by state from $0.264 in Alaska to $0.639 in California. Here is the source I used, but I also saw a couple others that backed this up.

So .. that $2 would be $2.50 here in AZ. Where do I sign up!!! I paid $3.35 this morning for 2 gallons in my motorcycle which gets 50mpg and only cost $7K new and has half the insurance cost. AND I get to use the car pool lane. Eat your hearts out hybrid lovers!!! (Sorry .. couldn't resist.)

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[N1ck0]

Because they don't have a process... According to the article they can make this high-octane cellular extraction in small quantities.

This is not a large scale production process running at 50% capacity, its an lab-scale process which can see a 50% energy extraction. Extracting more energy might require a completely different method.

Also where they heat the cellulose 1000 degrees per second will probably not scale very easily to the hundreds to thousands of gallons needed in mass production (its easy to do to a few ounces...a lot harder for a few gallons).

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I checked, water does not burn.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Qzukk]

How much of that $3.50 is tax?

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Zymergy]

Remember that we use "Heat Engines"... The more BTU's per gallon of fuel translates into more miles per gallon!
With the new mandate for 35 MPG cars on the horizon, I'd imagine they will be using Diesel. (Anyone notice the new Volkswagen "clean Diesel" commercials?)
Also, the US Government pays a $0.50 per gallon as a subsidy. (I think this is at the production level). Otherwise, Ethanol production could not compete with oil.
FYI:
Methanol 64,600 BTU per gallon
Ethanol 84,600 BTU per gallon
Gasohol 120,900 BTU per gallon (10% Ethanol to 90% Gasoline)
Gasoline 125,000 BTU per gallon
Biodiesel 130,000 BTU per gallon
Diesel 138,700 BTU per gallon
Most from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[cyclopropene]

How much of that $3.50 is tax? It varies by state. National average is $0.42, of which $0.184 is federal (at least in 2002).

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[toadlife]

Between federal and state, I think about $0.60 of it is tax.

It depends on which state you live in. Here in California were up around $3.75 - $3.90 a gallon.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Curunir_wolf]

It's $0.18 for the federal tax. State taxes vary from state to state, the average being about $0.23.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[graphicsguy]

So you're claiming that this solution is also vaporware?

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[the eric conspiracy]

In general production costs scale with a 0.7 exponent. That is production cost is proportional to Capacity^0.7. So in fact he production cost part of the total cost per gallon should decline as volume increases.

Now of course I am not sure what kinds of assumptions are being made here to get a $2.00 gallon cost at 50% conversion efficiency, And of course thermodynamics bars 100% efficiency.

It would be interesting to see what a CPI cost analysis would come up with for a full lifecycle cost.

Also - one thing that people forget is how much military budgets are influenced by the need to protect offshore petroleum sources. If that cost were brought into the calculation biomass ethanol might look pretty good.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey sparky, try paying $4.40 a gallon for diesel (which is cheaper to produce than gasoline). For $2 a gallon I'll come haul away all those bricks.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Jeff DeMaagd]

The figures promoted by people that make, tinker or promote alternative fuels rarely factor in taxes and distribution costs. You really have to nail them down and make them specify "at the pump" prices in clear writing or you're being bamboozled by a weasel. Then, you have to nail them down in terms of comparing the amount of energy you get out of a gallon of this alternative vs. it's typical gasoline or diesel counterpart.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[modmans2ndcoming]

Yeah.. .those loser car own.. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[adsl]

I would be willing to pay $3.00 per gallon for the opportunity of buying fuel that has not been imported. i.e. This would help to drastically reduce our Trade Deficit and would not put petro dollars into the hands of Soverign Wealth Funds.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[morgan_greywolf]

At least you have the option of running biodiesel. Some diesel engines will even run on biodiesel unmodified.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we're missing data. Sure, $2 a gallon, but how much energy is in a Gallon compared to Gasoline?

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

marketing? wtf?

do you really need to market gasoline? it practically sells itself. not unlike your sister.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Dannkape]

Countries that have gas at those prices have it because they produce it themselves, and refuse to trade it on the international market, at international prices.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Dannkape]

For whatever reason, the energy/volume doesn't translate directly over to mileage.

LPG (propane+butane) only has 77% of the energy compared to regular gasoline (26.8 vs 34.8 MJ/liter), but cars running on it only has a 10-20% increase in fuel consumption, not 30% as the energy content would assume.

And diesels also usually has a lot more than 10% increased mileage compared to gasoline. Looking at the engines available for a VW Passat, the diesels typically use 25-40% less fuel than petrol engines with similar specs/performance.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Heh in Belgium it's 7 dollars per gallon (7.05, and rising). And that's diesel.

8.5$ per gallon for normal unleaded fuel.

The rest of Europe isn't much cheaper than this.

$1/gallon would be VERY welcome.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[RedHat Rocky]

And that's why gas is $3.40+ in most of the States. Supply and Demand determine price, not how much it costs to make the thing in the first place. Otherwise no one would have paid $500 for a Wii pre-Xmas.

The current high gasoline prices have very little to do with costs, as the oil companies continue to post record profits (and not just by a small margin). One could argue that the large profits are because no new infrastructure investment is happening, but lower supply/high demand also = big $$$$ for big Oil.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

And the US Government subsidizes the US oil prices with military actions every 10+ years.

The war in Iraq is all about strategic interests in the region.
If the oil producers in the Middle East ever smarten up and start selling their oil in Euros the US are hosed. Because right now they benefit double: a) they get cheap oil and b) oil is paid for in $US.
If anybody wants to buy oil they have to buy $US first - subsidizing the US economy.

Also higher oil prices in the parts of Europe come from significant taxes on oil products - as a positive side effect of this the European and Japanese car makers have had to produce fuel efficient cars forever. That's exactly the reason why they are kicking Detroits butt right now: fuel efficiency and better engineering.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[IpalindromeI]

The word you're looking for is figuratively.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[IpalindromeI]

Unfortunately, you have to eat bugs.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[Anonymous Coward]

New records from the Netherlands:
1.60 euro per liter for petrol/gasoline, 1.32 a liter for diesel. That's 9.58 dollar per gallon for gasoline and 7.79 for diesel.

Beat that.

Re:I'm willing to pay $2/gallon

[harrumph]

To translate for those 97% who use civilised units:

Remember that we use "Heat Engines"... The more [energy] per [volume] of fuel translates into more [distance] per [volume]!

With the new mandate for [6.7 cL/km] cars on the horizon, I'd imagine they will be using Diesel. (Anyone notice the new Volkswagen "clean Diesel" commercials?)

Also, the US Government pays a [0.13 USD/L] as a subsidy. (I think this is at the production level). Otherwise, Ethanol production could not compete with oil.

FYI:

Methanol [18.0 MJ/L]

Ethanol [23.6 MJ/L]

Gasohol [33.70 MJ/L] (10% Ethanol to 90% Gasoline)

Gasoline [34.8 MJ/L]

Biodiesel [36 MJ/L]

Diesel [38.66 MJ/L]

Most from this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline

no way.

[thhamm]

The process is running at about 50% efficiency now; the $1/gallon figure is based on getting to 100%.

this sounds all too good to be true. (especially the 100% efficiency).

Re:no way.

[Smidge204]

Gotta be careful with how they're defining "efficiency" here.

They are not talking about thermal efficiency, they are talking about conversion efficiency: how much of the input gets converted to final product. The thermodynamic limits on efficiency do not apply here, so 100% is technically doable.

=Smidge=

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

why wouldn't they? claiming ANY process is 100% efficent is plain out lieing.

Re:no way.

[urcreepyneighbor]

I heard about a guy that knew a guy that got 500%, but a Big Oil company bought all rights to the process, murdered his wife and slept with his dog!

Re:no way.

[XorNand]

Execution by shooting a single bullet into the back a person's head is a pretty efficient process. I would bet money that it's pretty close to 100% efficient in the countries that use that method. As the GP says, a process can be 100% efficient, depending on how you define efficiency.

Re:no way.

[dfghjk]

How about electric heating?

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

" a process can be 100% efficient, depending on how you define efficiency."

anything can be anything you want if you use a crappy enough definition. whats your point?

oh and there are documented cases of the nazi's doing shootings to the head which failed, and they buried the person only to have them claw their way out.

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

err no electric heating produces both heat AND light, so it's not 100% efficent, not even close. not only that but the generation of the electricity isn't 100% efficent. you have to go all the way back in the supply chain or your just fooling yourself.

Re:no way.

[__aajfby9338]

why wouldn't they? claiming ANY process is 100% efficent is plain out lieing.

Only if it's claimed that the thermodynamic efficiency is 100%. The word "efficiency" is also used in other contexts where values of 100% or more make sense, and do not violate the laws of thermodynamics.

For example, home heat pumps are generally given an efficiency rating that indicates the ratio of heat output vs. electrical input (i.e., how many watts of heat are blown out the vents divided by how many watts of electrical power are consumed). This value is usually greater than 100%, but this is OK because this definition does not include the heat which is removed from the outside air and transferred to the indoor air. In other words, that specific definition of efficiency does not consider the complete system, and it deliberately ignores some of the energy that's being consumed.

Heat pump efficiency is defined this way because it allows useful comparisons to other kinds of climate control devices. A plain electric space heater would consume 1000W of electrical power in order to dump 1000W into the room, while a heat pump might only consume 500W of electrical power (I made that number up) in order to dump the same 1000W into the same room. While that doesn't reflect the thermodynamic efficiency of the heat pump, it does let you see that this example heat pump will consume half the electrical power of a space heater in order to heat the same room.

I'm not trying to debate whether the "100%" value in TFA makes sense here, because I haven't read TFA yet. I'm just pointing out that there are valid and honest uses for the word "efficiency" where values of 100% or more make sense, without implying any sort of perpetual motion.

Re:no way.

[Smidge204]

Poor grammar, little understanding of the subject, being unjustifiably pedantic AND a Godwin! You're on a roll today!

As others have pointed out, including myself, limits to thermodynamic efficiencies do not apply to physical processes. They just don't.
=Smidge=

Re:no way.

[Smidge204]

Hey guess what! Light is directly equivalent to heat! I guess you slept through the whole "radiative heat transfer" portion of Physics 101.

And it's not like you can build an electric heater that doesn't get so hot it visibly glows...

You said something profoundly stupid and now you're embarrassed and have to defend it. It's okay, happens to everyone. Just eat your crow and move on... it's good for you anyway.
=Smidge=

Re:no way.

[glitch23]

The book I'm currently reading (A Thousand Barrels a Second by Peter Tertzakian) says that we can achieve only around ~40% efficiency with diesel and that is basically at the physical limit of the fuel too. So even if we came up with a better way to burn it it wouldn't matter because physically there is no where else to go. I don't see why they are even quoting $1/gallon (based on 100% efficiency) other than for sensationalism because 100% can't be achieved.

Re:no way.

[hvm2hvm]

1. that was his point, they define efficiency not as the percentage of raw energy transformed because we all know that is impossible to do that with 100% efficiency. they probably found out that they can do it for say a maximum of 70% efficiency and they are now at 35%. something like a practical efficiency not theoretical.

2. well in that case the definition is again misleading, if you want the bullet to get in the head, then shooting them in the head is 100% efficient. if you want to kill the guy then those that lived afterwards will lower the efficiency.

Re:no way.

[bored_engineer]

You're looking at two different efficiencies, there. The "~40%" is for a heat engine, or what happens when you use fuel. There are articles on wikipedia if you want. Search for "carnot", "diesel cycle" and "otto cycle" for a start. Maybe "heat engine" would be a good idea, too.

The "100%" quoted in the article is the efficiency with which the submitter hopes they can one day convert plant matter to gasoline. Note that the researcher didn't suggest that they could get to 100%, only that they'd try to get the number above 50%.

Re:no way.

[AresTheImpaler]

I heard about a guy that knew a guy that got 500%, but a Big Oil company bought all rights to the process, murdered his wife and slept with his dog!

That clearly shows that Big Oil companies are either stupid or into bestiality.. they should have killed the dog and slept with the wife..

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

"thermodynamic efficiencies do not apply to physical processes"

right so your claiming there isn't going to be ANY engines or motors involved in the process? doesn't apply to physical processes... care to explain how that works since thermodynamic's is all about energy loss moving physical parts around?

and how the fuck am i a Godwin? it's not like i was trying to say the nazi's used bio fuel or anything.

Re:no way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Shh. The grown ups are speaking. Have a lollipop and sit quietly in the corner.

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

Light is NOT heat, heat and light operate at a different wave length. While it's not a bad try and it's close to 100%, it's got nothing to do with the production of biofuel, and the fact that's obvious to anyone who has actually worked in a real processing plant (eg. ME) that nothing is even going to approach 100%.

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

let me guess you can't come up with a good answer so you have to post babble as an AC

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

maybe on paper the 1000W heater example works, but in practise it's less than the 1000W, even if only by a small amount.

Re:no way.

[budgenator]

The process is running at about 50% efficiency now; the $1/gallon figure is based on getting to 100%.

this sounds all too good to be true. (especially the 100% efficiency).

"If we can get 100 percent yield, we estimate the cost to be about a dollar per gallon," Huber says. "Right now weâ(TM)re at 50 percent. Can we get 100 percent? I donâ(TM)t know. Hopefully we'll bump those numbers up."

  the only one talking about efiency was the submitter in his summary

Re:no way.

[Smidge204]

care to explain how that works since thermodynamic's is all about energy loss moving physical parts around? *BZZZT* WRONG! Thermodynamics is all about the transport of energy, specifically heat energy (hence that "thermal" part there). It has nothing to do with physical processes. Even more specifically, the second law of thermodynamics ("you can't break even") applies only to cases where a conversion in energy is performed. To be as pedantic as you are about it, the second law says you can't convert heat into work with 100% efficiency.

The fact that things like friction, cohesion and viscosity exist has absolutely nothing to do with thermodynamics. Nothing.

How about a practical example?

I have a bottle of water here. Using a number of processes, I can remove the water from the bottle: Drink it, pour it out, jab a hole in the bottom, pump it out, heat it until it all evaporates, etc. Are you saying that it's impossible to remove ALL the water, since no "process" can be 100% efficient?

Another example, more relevant to this article: I have a graphite pencil here as well. Are you saying that no matter what I do, it's impossible to convert all of the carbon in this pencil to carbon dioxide?
=Smidge=

Re:no way.

[Smidge204]

Riiiight. So I guess they measure light sources with temperature ratings for completely arbitrary, non-scientific reasons? Electromagnetic energy does not magically become different with wavelength. It's a continuous spectrum, after all. If anything is arbitrary it's the classifications that we use (eg "thermal" IR, Visible Light, etc) which are based entirely on human subjectivity.

I'm not entirely sure what type of processing plant you supposedly worked in, or what the necessary qualifications were, but more and more I suspect it involved a mop and bucket.

Here's an experiment you can try for under $50: Get decent laser pointer with a known wavelength output (which will certainly be in the "visible" range...) and a little toy called a Radiometer. Point the laser pointer on the black side of the veins and wait a few moments.

If what you said was true = "heat and light operate at different wavelengths" - then the radiometer will not react at all. It would be impossible for the monochromatic light to heat up the device since light and heat are not the same thing, right? The photon momentum alone is nowhere near enough to overcome the static friction and inertia of the device. You can go ahead and work out the math to figure out how much that is depending on the laser's wattage and wavelength.

However, if heat and light are really two forms of the same thing, eventually the radiometer will begin to move.

Isn't science great?

For added value, you can shine the laser on the white side of the veins to drastically reduce the absorption, and thus rely almost entirely on the photon momentum. Good luck with that.
=Smidge=

Re:no way.

[rcw-home]

a heat pump might only consume 500W of electrical power (I made that number up) in order to dump the same 1000W into the same room.

Real numbers, for the curious: Not more than 303 watts, for Energy Star compliant geothermal heat pumps, and not more than 427 watts for Energy Star compliant air heat pumps. The ratio for the first is the Coefficient of Performance (COP) rating - the lowest mentioned there is 3.3, 1000/3.3=303. For the second, it's Heating Seasonal Performance Factor (HSPF), which is the same thing except in BTUs/hr per watt instead of watts per watt. The lowest HSPF is 8.0, or 2.34 watts per watt. 1000/2.34=427.

Re:no way.

[timmarhy]

that's not the point i'm trying to make. my point is that you can't convert one source of stored energy (bio mass in this case) 100% into another source of stored energy (ethanol).

none of your examples are an energy conversion, so they don't apply.

Re:no way.

[krazytekn0]

You never met his wife I see...

Re:no way.

[marvinglenn]

I'm just pointing out that there are valid and honest uses for the word "efficiency" where values of 100% or more make sense, without implying any sort of perpetual motion.

That's why heat pumps, and other processes like this, use the term 'coefficient of performance' rather than 'efficiency'.

Re:no way.

[Smidge204]

In that case, you completely fail to understand the underlying process described in the article.

Nobody, at any point, claimed that the energy was, or even could be, converted with 100% efficiency.

What they did claim was a 50% efficiency on chemically converting the source biomass into a hydrocarbon fuel. In other words, right now they can convert half the biomass to fuel, and the other half ends up as vapor and/or soot (both undesirable outcomes, eg waste).

That conversion efficiency is a physical process and not limited to thermodynamic efficiency.

From a strictly energy point of view, there are no clues on the efficiency. However (and I'm sure this with make your head explode...) the efficiency is hopefully greater than 100%.

Explanation: If you don't count the latent energy in the biomass (which is, from the standpoint of the conversion process, "free") then adding a small amount of energy should result in an end product that has more energy in it than what we put in.
=Smidge=

Re:no way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but my interpretation of the summary was "the process is currently 50% as efficient as it should be once we come up to speed/have all the kinks removed." Makes perfect sense, and you don't need to posit any fancy accounting of the numbers.

Well

[SheepLauncher]

The day theres one dollar gasoline is the day cowboy neal isn't in the poll or yellow stone explodes. I don't see this happening

Re:Well

[cayenne8]

"The day theres one dollar gasoline is the day cowboy neal isn't in the poll or yellow stone explodes. I don't see this happening"

However if it does come back....maybe we can start having fun, big block engine muscle cars again!!!

OH man...it would be fun to drive again!!! Just imagine, redo the old GTO Judges...Camero's, and even the late 455 4-speed Trans Ams, but, this time, with good suspension and handling. Maybe with retro looks (the newer versions after the mid 70's just suck). And....no more fugly Priuses....ahh....

Re:Well

[budgenator]

With modern computerized fuel injection and engine management we're getting more power out of 6 cylinders that those old rat motors made. Now pro-comp is running faster than TF1 was when those cars were ruling the street imagine what could be done.

Re:Well

[cayenne8]

"With modern computerized fuel injection and engine management we're getting more power out of 6 cylinders that those old rat motors made. Now pro-comp is running faster than TF1 was when those cars were ruling the street imagine what could be done."

Yeah...but imagine the raw horsepower you could get out of a HUGE 455 engine with modern fuel management, etc.

ON the other hand...it kinda sucks that with all the computerization, it is kind of hard for the avg shade tree mechanic to work on his own car, but, if you overlook that...think of the brute power you could get combining the large V8's of the past, with modern tech.

And those old cars...sure, they don't have the output of todays cars mostly...but, they sure sound better....nice rumble you can't get out of a V6.

Re:Well

[budgenator]

a real sleeper are those Secret Service Limo's, 700+ CID Keith Black Hemi's, multi-stage Nitrous and a couple other wicked tricks, they got to be pushing 2500 HP when the hammer is dropped and purrs like a kitten when putzed around the parking lot.

What?

[Devin Jeanpierre]

How is turning ethanol to gasoline supposed to help the food shortage the ethanol production makes? It seems to me to be bound to make it worse, due to extra inefficiencies caused by the extra step, and yet the article seems to imply otherwise. 100% efficiency is impossible.

Re:What?

[Anonymous Coward]

this process uses non-feedstock/waste materials so it shouldn't have an impact on food supplies.

Re:What?

[Devin Jeanpierre]

How is a conversion to gasoline supposed to help make it even better? Unless you can get an above-or-at-100% efficiency in conversion, it should stay as ethanol.

Re:What?

[clampolo]

How is turning ethanol to gasoline supposed to help the food shortage the ethanol production makes?

They are claiming that they can convert any plant with this, not just food plants. So you could just grab some weeds and make fuel out of them, as opposed to growing crops which is far more expensive(weeding, insects.)

Re:What?

[kithrup]

Different articles. First link is about a company that can convert ethanol to gasoline. (And the advantage of that is that you don't have to buy a new car -- your existing car, which runs on gasoline and not ethanol, will still work with the new fuel.)

The fourth link is about converting cellulose (i.e., plant material) into something that seems to resemble gasoline. The 100% efficiency they're talking about isn't thermodynamic -- they're talking about doing 100% of the conversion that is possible, when they're doing 50% of it right now.

I still don't trust it; as someone above commented, with gasoline costing more than $3/gallon in the US right now, being able to do it for $2/gallon would mean they could raise as much financing as they could produce. (On the other hand: one of the reasons gasoline is so expensive in the US is because of the refineries, and this stuff would -- one presumes -- still need to be refined. And might need a different refinery, which would raise the cost even more. The article, sadly, doesn't give any significant details.)

It's amazing how many things are 5-10 years away.

Re:What?

[Delwin]

Actually if you break down the cost of gasoline in the US right now you get this:
http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/index.html
And you see that the cost of crude oil - pre-refine, pre-distribution, pre-everything is spiraling quickly to $3/gallon (it's at $2.80 right now) If this can produce the effective equivalent of light sweet crude for $2/gal then screw any more improvements get that into full scale industrial production right now. We can get it more efficient once we stabilize the world oil and food markets. We haven't had crude at $2/gal since Dec of last year and I personally would love to see gas prices drop back below $3/gal at the pump please.

Re:What?

[Courageous]

Energy density would I suppose be one reason, although I don't find it intensely compelling.

C//

Well hell, I'll pay $2/gal now for 50% efficiency!

[Anonymous Coward]

Amen?

Huh What?

[tgd]

FWIW, we do NOT have an infrastructure for distributing liquid fuels that are predominantly ethanol... thats one of the real big problems. It corrodes the living sh#% out of virtually all of our liquid fuel transportation infrastructure.

Cheap ethanol is good if the production of biomass to produce it doesn't displace food production, and $1/gallon would certainly be nice, but we have to be realistic about ALL the problems an ethanol-based fuel economy will entail... replacing all the pipelines being just the start.

Re:Huh What?

[Anonymous Coward]

All your pipelines are belong to us!

Re:Huh What?

[Anonymous Coward]

and if we need to replace pipelines, why not use something that does not need pipelines?

Re:Huh What?

[Dr. Eggman]

The article appears a bit vague, but it appears they are not talking about running ethanol through the pipelines, but gasoline. Infact, talking about converting Biomass into gasoline, not ethanol. Atleast that's the idea I got from the quote:

Huber and his colleagues aren't the first to derive hydrocarbons from renewable sources. Virent Energy Systems, for example, just signed a deal with Shell to produce gasoline from plant sugars and expects to open a pilot facility in the next two years. UOP is working on a project to produce jet fuel for U.S. and NATO fighters from algal and vegetable oils. But Huber's work stands out as likely the first direct conversion from cellulose, opening up as potential fuel sources virtually anything that grows. Commercialization of the technology may take another five to 10 years, the researchers predict.
...
Developments in so-called "green hydrocarbons" arrive as ethanol continues to come under attack as expensive, inefficient and a contributor to rising food prices around the world. (More than a billion bushels of corn are diverted to ethanol production each year.) "There's certainly a lot of historical inertia for ethanol. It's gotten us off to a great start, but I can't see the country transitioning to flex-fuel," says John Regalbuto, director of the Catalysis and Biocatalysis Program at the National Science Foundation. "I almost think, long term, that we will go to plug-in hybrids. But we're still going to need diesel and jet fuel--you can't run trains or fly planes with ethanol or hydrogen." But, then again in describing the process it goes back to vague (emphasis mine:)

Using a catalyst commonly employed in the petroleum industry, Huber and his colleagues heated small amounts of cellulose very quickly for a matter of seconds before cooling it, producing a high-octane liquid similar to gasoline. The article seems to be trying to distance this technology from ethanol, stating that ethanol has its problems and that it's not going to be the right direction

Re:Huh What?

[joggle]

Good point. It also doesn't address the ongoing problem of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate that can't be reabsorbed naturally (so the concentration of CO2 keeps increasing without limit). As others point out it also exacerbates the world food problem.

While I'd love to see cheap gas, if we need to make a major infrastructure investment then it should be with the mindset that it is truly sustainable and won't ruin the environment for future generations and starve poorer countries.

I'm not saying ethanol won't be the fuel of the future, but if it is then there should be plans on how to address these major issues (perhaps by growing ethanol fuels in locations that currently aren't growing anything--such as within buildings as they do in Japan for some crops--and creating some sort of device to extract CO2 from the atmosphere in large quantities efficiently).

Re:Huh What?

[jawtheshark]

*blink*
I know that ethanol has some solvent properties, but corrosion? Yeah, it will dissolve the paint of your car.... Not nice, but don't spill. I have an ethanol powered oven. It's for decoration only, even though it puts out a substantial amount of heat. The ethanol I filled in the stainless steel furnace is still there. I can turn it on anytime I want. No rust (=corrosion) whatsoever.

So, frankly, the typical concrete gas bunker won't corrode. It also won't corrode any of our modern car tanks because they're plastic and ethanol and plastic get along quite nicely.

Yes, in pure gasoline cars it will attack the rubber in the engine. No, this has nothing to do with what you mention.

I really must be missing something.

Re:Huh What?

[tgd]

Yes, the corrosion of aluminum...

Re:Huh What?

[jawtheshark]

How many cars are made of aluminium? The Audi A2 and the Audi A8. Engines? I don't know.

Re:Huh What?

[hey!]

It also doesn't address the ongoing problem of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate that can't be reabsorbed naturally.

The carbon in biomass comes from the atmosphere. You have to take it out of the atmosphere before you put it back into the atmosphere via your tailpipe. Increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by burning biomass is like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps.

Of course the reabsorption process isn't natural, but that's the point. It kind of balances the books on humanity's use of atmospheric carbon.

Re:Huh What?

[Anonymous Coward]

It corrodes the living sh#% out of virtually all of our liquid fuel transportation infrastructure.

And yet somehow, manufacturers produce and ship hundreds of thousands of gallons of liquor (Which is ethanol) to hundreds of thousands of stores every month.

Does the ethanol corrode the tubes in the distillery ?

Re:Huh What?

[metalcoat]

Why exactly would we have to use existing pipelines, This could essentially be made anywhere then stored/trucked/etc

Re:Huh What?

[hackingbear]

But have you read the article? Isn't this problem they claim to solve in their research?

Re:Huh What?

[Dr. Eggman]

Yes... plans...

What we need is a genetically engineered plant! One that matures and spreads quickly. One that absorbs an inordinately large amount of C02 and perhaps stores it within itself like some sort of fat breath! It would need to have a relativly odd sort of reproduction; one that would require human intervention (like a bee and its flower, but without a self-pollination method or an asexual reproduction method.) Requiring human intervention would help prevent uncontrolled spread, but like everything else written above would be a complex and difficult development process decades in the making.

...maybe we should invest in those C02 scrubber towers instead. What if we could string them between city buildings or up the sides of skyscrapers? Like through an artificial canyon, winds would drawn the carbon through the scrubbers.

Re:Huh What?

[hey!]

The idea is to produce hydrocarbons. An alcohol is a hydrocarbon with a hydroxyl (-OH) group stuck on.

If I understand the process correctly, biomass fuel is produced mainly from the cellulose in plants. Well, just look at the cellulose molecule, and you'll see it is bristling with hydroxyl groups and chock full of oxygen atoms linking carbons together. But if you take the oxygen out, you'd end up with a mix of hydrocarbons, the raw stuff of plastics and petroleum based fuels.

Now tinkering with hydrocarbon mixes to produce something with just the right mix is something we're very, very good at after over a hundred years of a petroleum based economy. It might require some novel processes to get to gasoline, but there's every reason to believe that if we could get to hydrocarbons without using more energy than remains in them, refining won't be an issue.

Even if the process of converting biomass to hydrocarbons takes too much energy to be practical for fuel production, it's still a very useful thing to be able to do. If there is very little petroleum left in the world by, say the year 2100, it isn't hard to imagine other sources such as nuclear or solar electric taking up the slack. But it's hard to imagine a world without plastics.

Re:Huh What?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ethanol is hydro-philic, absorbing moisture from the air. The water assissts in rusting the fuel lines. Also, the rubber parts of fuel lines are generally made to be resistent to gasoline dissolving them, but on some cars alcohol will dissolve them. Perhaps that's why your oven is stainless steel ? Most vehicle fuel parts are not stainless steel.

In the 70s some people just put high-grade moonshine in their vehicles, with some tweaking to timing and etc, and got driveable results. But the corrosion of fuel parts and the hoses leaking was an issue.

Re:Huh What?

[Anonymous Coward]

do you consider the tubes in the distillery liquid fuel transportation infrastructure?

Re:Huh What?

[ceroklis]

You sir, have impressive reading skills. They are making gasoline, not ethanol.

Re:Huh What?

[Grishnakh]

We're never going to lose plastics, even if petroleum disappears entirely. Plastics are currently made from petroleum, but there's other ways of making them using other biomass sources. As this and other technologies have shown, it's possible to make any petroleum byproduct from just about any type of biomass, it's just a question of cost and efficiency. So we're not going to "run out" of plastics, but they might not be as cheap to make as they are currently.

Re:Huh What?

[greenguy]

It corrodes the living sh#% out of virtually all of our liquid fuel transportation infrastructure. Well, perhaps building our liquid fuel transportation infrastructure out of living shit was not a good move.

Re:Huh What?

[tgd]

Lots of engine blocks. Most heads. Most valves. Most fuel lines. Most pipelines, at least parts of them.

What the body is made out of doesn't matter. You're not pumping fuel through the body.

Re:Huh What?

[geekoid]

yes, but the less plants, the more carbon that is in the air, when you burn a plant, the CO2 in the air increases. over time it is neutral. For example, if I burned all the plant mass tomorrow, would the world have more carbon over all? no, but it's puts a lot into the air.

However, humanity is releasing millions of years of carbon in a VERY short time. That mean a lot more in the air.

Yes, plant's give half the CO2 the absorb during the day back into the air, but a lot of CO2 is in the plant, which can keep grow, removing more from the atmosphere.

Re:Huh What?

[AvitarX]

Rust != corrosion.

one of the few things I remember doing in school was putting nails in various acids and bases.

either the acid or base (I forget which) corroded without rust. Only the PH neutral (distilled water) rusted.

Re:Huh What?

[Anonymous Coward]

The carbon in biomass comes from the atmosphere. You have to take it out of the atmosphere before you put it back into the atmosphere via your tailpipe. So, I could grow a bunch of beans, which will pull the carbon out of the atmosphere. Then, after I eat the beans and I would release the methane . . . wait, I thought we were talking about ethanol. Oh, oh, oh, sorry . . . wrong tailpipe.

So...

[ExploHD]

I'm no economist, but if it's going to be $1/gallon at a 100% efficiency, and it's only at around 50% effienct, wouldn't that make it almost $2/gallon? That is still less than the market prices we have now.

Re:So...

[megaditto]

No it wouldn't. You are making lots of assumptions if you think so. To point out just one, the unconvertable 50% might cost money to dispose of.

doing research != speaking well

[l2718]

Quoth the scientist:

"Crude oil looks more similar to gasoline than biomass does"

More importantly, if they get 50% of the cellulose's energy into hydrocarbons then processing twice as much cellulose should given them a $2/gallon hydrocarbon. What they should tell us is whether a gallon of their hydrocarbon mixture has the same amount of energy as a gallon of oil For example, a gallon of ethanol has about 2/3rds the energy of a gallon of regular gasoline, so if it's only priced at 2/3rd the price of regular it won't break even.

The bottom line: we need price in dollars per kilojoule, not in dollars per gallon.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[N1ck0]

The 50% efficiency is how much of the biomass energy they can convert to the "high-octane liquid". Can they get to 100%? No...you cannot extract 100% energy from something, also the process that is getting you 50% yields will probably require much more energy then what you are doing right now.

Also does this $1/gallon figure account for the energy needed to raise/cool this biomass the 1000 degrees per second? Also the cost of getting the biomass? And the cost of collecting (and probably liquifing/straining/etc this biomass. Is this $1/gallon number include current tax rates for transportation maintenance? I have a funny feeling that that might just be the cost to actually execute the refinement assuming everything else was free.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[Jacer]

The way I read it was reaching 100% efficiency would mean one gallon of of this would contain the same amount of energy as one gallon of gasoline.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[N1ck0]

FTA: The sweet spot, about 1000 degrees per second, transfers roughly half the celluloseâ(TM)s energy into hydrocarbons. âoeIf we can get 100 percent yield, we estimate the cost to be about a dollar per gallon,â Huber says.

He is transferring 50% of the cellulose's energy to a gas-like hydrocarbon solution, not 50% of the energy in that of gas.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[Curunir_wolf]

The 50% efficiency is how much of the biomass energy they can convert to the "high-octane liquid". Can they get to 100%? No...you cannot extract 100% energy from something...

Ok, since I read the article (yea, I new here), let me correct you on this point. They are looking to get 100% energy efficiency out of the process - the process they are using converts organic cellulose into pure hydrocarbons - but they only get 1/2 of the cellulose converted in the process. The ideal would be to convert all of it.

Yea, they probably will never get to 100%, so your point is valid there - but it's very different from trying to produce a 100% energy efficient process.

If we were talking about energy conversion, I'd be astounded at a 50% efficiency. Damn if I could buy solar panels that were 50% efficient, I would snip the cord and live off the grid.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[Curunir_wolf]

The 50% efficiency is how much of the biomass energy they can convert to the "high-octane liquid". Can they get to 100%? No...you cannot extract 100% energy from something...

Ok, since I read the article (yea, I new here), let me correct you on this point. They are looking to get 100% energy efficiency out of the process - the process they are using converts organic cellulose into pure hydrocarbons - but they only get 1/2 of the cellulose converted in the process. The ideal would be to convert all of it.

Yea, they probably will never get to 100%, so your point is valid there - but it's very different from trying to produce a 100% energy efficient process.

If we were talking about energy conversion, I'd be astounded at a 50% efficiency. Damn if I could buy solar panels that were 50% efficient, I would snip the cord and live off the grid.

Oops - that should be "They are NOT looking to get 100% energy efficiency out of the process..."

Re:doing research != speaking well

[Anonymous Coward]

Also does this $1/gallon figure account for the energy needed to raise/cool this biomass the 1000 degrees per second? Also the cost of getting the biomass? And the cost of collecting (and probably liquifing/straining/etc this biomass

The nerve of these people trying to pull stuff like this! Next thing you know they'll be claiming that you can get oil pumped out of the ground, loaded into tankers, shipped across the world, refined, piped, trucked, and put into gas stations for you to buy all for the low, low price of the $2.50 or so per gallon (before taxes) that we're paying now! I mean, does that even begin to cover the salary of the Texaco CEO?

Re:doing research != speaking well

[Bryansix]

There is this organization called OPEC which is a Cartel. Note if this Cartel operated from the US it would be illegal but because it represent many countries not including the US we just sit idly by and take it up the ass. This is why Oil costs more then it should.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[N1ck0]

Of course it depends on the efficiency too...you might convert 100% of the cellulose at 20% efficiency, but be able to convert 50% of the cellulose at 50% efficiency. But now I've gone way beyond the data available.

But yeah the article is using the shell sugar conversion plant to try to make it sound like this process is almost ready for production, where as it really needs a lot more research.

Now what I wasn't to know is if you could find a better process to go from cellulose to electricity without ethanol or gasoline conversion first.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[Curunir_wolf]

Now what I wasn't to know is if you could find a better process to go from cellulose to electricity without ethanol or gasoline conversion first. Why use the plant as a middle man? Just make it directly from the sun!

Re:doing research != speaking well

[N1ck0]

I guess you could say which is more efficient...photosynthesis or solar panels? Thats why I'd like to see how efficient such a conversion would be.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[lorenlal]

It could also be that expensive because we pay for it regardless of the cost. I mean, if most of us decided to go a year without gasoline, I'm sure the price would come back down. The best part is that the in-laws wouldn't show up at your house...

The worst part would be having to farm your own food, and hoping that you can all get to work by walking... And hoping that your work didn't depend on gasoline in any way.

Re:doing research != speaking well

[Bryansix]

It's 32 miles to my work from my home. There is actually a bike path that goes almost the whole way there. I COULD do that but it would be hard in the winter when it gets dark sooner.

Energy Lobby

[Necrotica]

Unfortunately, the energy lobby in the United States will ensure that this never happens.

Re:Energy Lobby

[BigJClark]

I was just thinking this, and if and when this biomass fuel supply does become readily available, guess who it will be coming from? O&G companies, and they will be charging similar prices as gas, because really, who wants to take a pay cut.

Re:Energy Lobby

[Anonymous Coward]

Not if public awareness about it gets to the masses. No one wants to be the senator or representative who voted no to cheaper gas.

Re:Energy Lobby

[Planesdragon]

I was just thinking this, and if and when this biomass fuel supply does become readily available, guess who it will be coming from? O&G companies, and they will be charging similar prices as gas, because really, who wants to take a pay cut. Better a pay-cut, or profit-cut, than federal regulation of your entire industry.

Anyone who thinks the US Government is somehow immune from nationalizing vital industries needs to read a history book.

Re:Energy Lobby

[Grishnakh]

You don't need to read a history book, because the way the government was decades ago is not the way it is now. There's absolutely no way the federal government will regulate the oil industry until and unless 1) a lot of time passes, and everyone involved in the government is dead, or 2) some huge calamity happens, such as a complete economic collapse, forcing huge changes (though I think the voters will have to vote in an entirely new change in leadership first).

The way things are looking now, #2 is actually a real possibility.

Re:Energy Lobby

[Martin Blank]

They'll charge less if they can get it out sooner, because they'll have a high profit margin, which will allow them to cut the profit margin before sale to the consumer to get underneath competitors. Let's say they're making 40 cents per gallon on gasoline right now (30 cents per gallon on oil based on current 10% profit margins plus 10 cents per gallon for company-owned refineries). If they can make 80 cents per gallon and undercut competitors by a third, they would absolutely do this.

Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

The minute the government stops subsidizing the production of ethanol, not only will farmers start moving back to wheat and other foods that the world needs, but ethanol will be forced to survive on its own next to gasoline, and it will vanish in the puff of bad logic that brought it into existence. Let's not forget the recent story about increases in beer cost as farmers switch over to corn for ethanol. Also informative is this recent Time magazine article debunking the benefits of ethanol. This is just another political stunt at the expense of the world's food crops and my inebriation. When will Congress learn that manipulating the economy never has the desired effects.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[Anonymous Coward]

More like Monsenato's genetic crops whose seeds will not germinate, forcing farmers to buy special growing seeds to have a crop the following year. Particularly so in the third world were we can take the piss and abuse our positions of power to the maximum.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[CanadaIsCold]

While I completely agree on ethanol disappearing once subsidies are removed, I can't agree that the increasing cost of wheat is related to ethanol production. In fact it's the rising cost of oil for transportation that is being embedded into the cost of wheat products that is raising their price.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[nuzak]

> When will Congress learn that manipulating the economy never has the desired effects.

Never. Next easy question?

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course they never mentioned that before the corn was used for ethanol we were feeding it to cows. And guess, what - feedlots pay more for the corn mash after it's been fermented and the ethanol extracted because it's easier for cows to digest.

As for the subsidies, not sure what you're talking about there. The ethanol plants were built by private investors and all they got from the gvt was a tax break. Last I checked, taking less money from somebody != giving money away.

So before all this, the farmers were bad because the government was paying them to grow corn at a loss. Now they found a way to make a profit off their product on their own. How dare they!?

To me it seems we're just using something we already had in a more efficient manner.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[businessnerd]

Let's not forget the recent story about increases in beer cost as farmers switch over to corn for ethanol

If the price of the beer you drink has gone up because of the price of corn, then you need to do your taste buds a favor and quit drinking that piss water you've been calling beer.

REAL beer is made from barley or wheat, not corn. Corn is used as cheap adjunct for barley, mostly by the major American breweries.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[amRadioHed]

Your missing the fact that the farmers switching over to corn have to be switching over from other plants. That's where the barley, hops, and wheat come in.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very simple. The parent even mentioned it, you just either didn't read carefully or you can't put two and two together. There is a finite amount of arable land. As the demand for and price of corn goes up, farmers begin to dedicate more of their land to it instead of barley and wheat. Consequently, barley and wheat become more expensive.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[prxp]

Also informative is this recent Time magazine article debunking the benefits of ethanol. I've read the article and I'll tell you I was amazed... read on. First of all, I saw no hard evidence that would debunk the benefits of ethanol nor anything that would imply that more ethanol = less food (though I won't go into the matter itself, the article is just poor on defending these arguments). Also, a good chunck of the article is spent on describing Brazil's vanguard on ethanol and its problem with the Amazon forest (separately). What it is funny (not to mention outrageously stupid) is the way the author goes about these two separate things: he tries to make a correlation between the two issues like the fact Brazilian vanguard in biofuels is somehow destroying the Amazon Forest! It's simply stupid! Come on! There's no correlation whatsoever! Brazilian ethanol program is almost 30 years old and the problems the Amazon Forest faces (now and before) haven't increased nor decreased because the program started and kept going. Hell, sugar cane is hardly one of the most profitable business that comes from deforestation, let alone the core reason for the problem! This Time Magazine article only debunks one thing: the ability its author has to assess his readers' naiveness.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you propose? I can assure you from personal experience that most farmers are tightwads. If GM crops weren't saving them money, they wouldn't grow them. What I imagine you suggest is that Monsanto (out of the kindness of its heart) permit farmers to keep back some of their harvest for replanting the next year, but I can hear the paranoid greenies bitching and moaning from here. Tight control of the "Frankenfood" must be maintained!

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[CodeBuster]

and it will vanish in the puff of bad logic that brought it into existence Those corn farmers and their lobbyists are a political force to be reckoned with and they will definitely attack anyone who attempts to cut farm subsidies, reduce ethanol incentives, lower the tariff on imported cane sugar, etc. The ethanol market (for fuels not for human consumption) exists because of political realities not economic realities. That is one of the major intractable problems in the United States, we are paralyzed by special interest groups and NIMBYs.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[CorSci81]

Malted barley prices have been going up for microbreweries as a result of farmers planting corn instead of barley. My family runs a small craft brewery and we've been feeling this pinch firsthand along with the shortages/high-prices of hops. It's not just the big players that will have to raise their prices.

And FYI corn can be a perfectly valid adjunct if you're trying to achieve a specific flavor. We produce a blonde ale that uses a corn adjunct for that purpose. It just shouldn't be used solely for the purpose of making the beer cheap by replacing as much malted barley as possible. Besides, rice is a more popular adjunct for that since it imparts less flavor/color.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[CycoChuck]

I always thought it was a stupid idea to turn corn (i.e. food) into fuel and drive our food prices up along with the gas prices. If any food item needs to be looked at for conversion into fuel then maybe they should look at sugar beets. The only food prices effected from them is food that nobody really needs.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[Cajun Hell]

If the price of the beer you drink has gone up because of the price of corn, then you need to do your taste buds a favor and quit drinking that piss water you've been calling beer.

And if someone plows under their barley field, to grow corn that they can sell at artificially government-inflated prices? Less barley for us.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[macslut]

I'm afraid the shift from food production to fuel production is just getting started. This is one case where the haves versus the have-nots could have seriously deadly consequences. For some of us the demand for (soon to be bargain) $5 a gallon gas will out-weigh minor details in life like $2 a bottle water and $500 bottles of "El Cheapo" organic soy sauce from Dubai.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[domatic]

We're really getting into the soup though. It is past time the corn farmers by which I really mean large corporate agri-business outfits like Con-Agra were told to shut the hell up. Like everybody else, they've had an almost free on seemingly unlimited petroleum. Now that it isn't unlimited, we can ill afford pump billions into a loser fuel like corn ethanol. The sugar cane ethanol the Brazilians have is a different animal economically and it isn't going to work for us.

Besides, I had some Mexican Coke made with sugar last weekend. Yeah gods but HFCS has turned our soda into swill. They need to start cramming that product where the sun doesn't shine as well.........

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[Ocker3]

I dunno, what about farmers producing corn for ethanol rather than wheat for food production? Straight opportunity cost for a farmer, set amount of land, what gives them the best return on their time/investment/land usage? If corn pays more than wheat per acre, they're going to produce corn and drive up wheat prices due to scarcity.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[geekoid]

This isn't congress, this is activist lying to people and the people putting a demand on congress.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[bnenning]

When will Congress learn that manipulating the economy never has the desired effects.

The desired effect is to buy votes from farmers and campaign contributions from ADM, for which ethanol works quite well.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[tfiedler]

There isn't a food shortage. There isn't a food shortage. There isn't a food shortage. Keep repeating that. The food problem is one of distribution and not food production, along with politicization and propoganda to make you think there is a food shortage. Ethanol is a convenient scapegoat right now, but it isn't the cause of any food shortage.. why? Because there isn't a food shortage.

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[Mspangler]

"The minute the government stops subsidizing the production of ethanol, not only will farmers start moving back to wheat and other foods that the world needs"

Don't count on that. Wheat and corn are not always interchangable. Where I live corn can only be grown under irrigation, and wheat is grown on the "dryland" areas. The problem with wheat is bad weather (too dry in the drylands) not so much substitution with corn. Most wheat would rot where it stands (a rust, actually) if you tried to grow it in corn country.

And corn has not been displacing rice production at all. I don't know what caused the current rice shortage, but it's not the US's ethanol fuels program.

Also, on a more general note, who says the farmers owe you or anyone else cheap food? People now spend 1/2 of what they paid (as a proportion of income) for food in 1950. The continuous price reductions drove most of the family farmers out of business (including both sides of my family). What was left behind is the corporate factory farming that is also rather unpopular here on slashdot. It's not pretty, but it's cheap.

Many people here feel virtuous about paying extra for organic or "whole" foods. But now they are complaining about high food prices? So the upper class gets the good food from the family organic farmers, and everyone else gets the industrial crap? A pretty elitist argument, in my opinion.

If the farmers can finally make money, so much the better. They always spend it again, which is good for the economy, especially if urban consumer spending is down.

I would also note that this new technology, like ethanol from cellulose, oil from algae, and, well, every other transportation fuel I've heard of, is 5 to 10 years down the road. Corn-ethanol is available now. So your options for now, as in today, are to do nothing at all, or build the corn-ethanol plants. If you want to make a case to sit tight for a decade while waiting to see which system works the best, you can. That argument will even have some merit. But until you have a level 4 cost estimate, a fully defined process flow diagram, and matching Equipment Data Sheets from Fluor or Bechtel in one hand, and an approved construction loan from the bank in the other, don't tell me it's "the answer."

Re:Thanks ethanol for world hunger and beer prices

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

"Also, on a more general note, who says the farmers owe you or anyone else cheap food?"

Hopefully, nobody. It is not the farmers that have done anything wrong. It is the government for sticking its fingers into the economy to support an idea that would not stand on its own. The economy is founded on the world's needs, and when congressmen supplant those needs with their fundraisers' wants - using taxpayer dollars - the economy no longer functions according to the world's needs.

"Many people here feel virtuous about paying extra for organic or "whole" foods. But now they are complaining about high food prices?

What a joke! I am not talking about rich people's complaints. I am talking about those in poverty who are getting less and less access to food, not only because the food is becoming more expensive, but because less of it is getting to them. I try to buy produce from local farmers, and I know it costs more than the canned crap at Walmart, but I like supporting local producers and think the food is fresher and tastes better.

"If the farmers can finally make money, so much the better."

They were making money before, it's just that now, the money is being stolen from the people by the government and distributed to selected individuals, rather than being freely exchanged at an agreed-upon price.

"So your options for now, as in today, are to do nothing at all, or build the corn-ethanol plants."

Again, you're assuming ethanol will reduce the carbon footprint, which it will not. The only option is to reject the idea as useless and unsustainable. As far as my options - I can start riding a bike more, try to carpool, use public transportation, etc. Why must the only option always be that the government forcibly manipulate the economy to force consumers to make a change that they can be motivated to do on their own if gas was at the actual price it really is, not at the fantasy price that the government supports.

Hey, I'd be happy with $2/gallon right now

[JSBiff]

Seriously, while I'd love to see them get to 100% efficiency and get this down to $1/gallon, at $2/gallon it's still below market (we're paying about $3.35 right now, so it sounds like it's already commercially viable to me. =) If the government really wants to help promote this technology, declare a national ban on taxing this fuel for 10 years. That way, I'd only be paying the actual cost (plus distribution), and not 30-60 cents per gallon additional for the stuff. Overnight, this stuff would be selling faster than they could produce it.

Re:Hey, I'd be happy with $2/gallon right now

[Anonymous Coward]

declare a national ban on taxing this fuel for 10 years
 
Um, just because a car runs on magic juice doesn't mean that it doesn't cause wear and tear on the roads, which is where most fuel taxes go. How are you going to pay for repairs and improvements if you're not collecting taxes?

And they will call it

[Anonymous Coward]

Mr. Fusion

PopMech!

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought this was a joke, then I saw that the article was in Popular Mechanics and thought "whew" (because every story that has ever run in popular mechanics about technologies of the future has been spot on).

Re:PopMech!

[Dr. Cody]

I like to think of PopMech as the Weekly World News of technology.

Re:PopMech!

[WasWickedFast]

Still waiting for my Urbmobile... [Popular Mechanics, Oct. 1967]

Re:PopMech!

[CrazyJim1]

Urbmobile? Wasn't that in Cheech and Chong's up in smoke?

Re:PopMech!

[Anonymous Coward]

Wo ist mein luftauto??!!

think sawgrass

[gnutoo]

You won't be able to cut it down fast enough, even with your stupid hummer. The great plains could be replanted with native vegetation and we would all be better off.

Re:think sawgrass

[mosb1000]

What? We will still need to eat, right? Unless you intend to eat gasoline, I wouldn't recommend that.

Re:think sawgrass

[Anonymous Coward]

But food just comes from the store, man.

I know

[eclectro]

We can use the cellulose from cardboard boxes. That way we go to the store, recycle the boxes our stuff comes in for more gas, and be able to drive to the store again to buy more stuff. Maybe we could make it a national imperative to buy more stuff in cardboard boxes and save the economy at the same time. This can't be any worse than the energy policy we currently have.

This is just a green friendly suggestion. I await my prize.

Why not commercialize it within 5-100 years?

[heroine]

Still waiting for last year's $1/watt solar panels.

It's always about volume

[Bovius]

Don't get me wrong, this is an awesome idea, and I'm sure they'll jump on even the 50% efficiency option when this is ready for production. Volume of production is going to be a problem, as it is for every alternative fuel source. I don't think this would make an appreciable dent in fuel prices until a long time after its goes into use.

Also! Insert plug about big energy companies and how the only reason they've cared about global warming is because we're rapidly running out of the stuff that contributes to it.

This isn't the solution

[Hojima]

Right now, we're trying to cut down on oil dependency (the US can already sustain itself so don't even get me started on that), but ethanol still creates greenhouse gases. The best solution would be to eliminate the need to drive by working with major developers in order to have housing and all essential needs within a short distance. That and quit wasting energy. I know so many people that drive a block to take their kids to the park (and they don't carry anything so they can definitely walk).

Re:This isn't the solution

[cayenne8]

"The best solution would be to eliminate the need to drive by working with major developers in order to have housing and all essential needs within a short distance."

Yeah...let's tear down cities like Houston, and start all over. Right.

Your example of the kids being driven a block to the park is a valid one, but, not the most common. People in the US just don't like being crammed in so close to each other, we like to have houses with yards. And that is in the cities....many prefer to have acres of land, and live further out in the country. Not to mention that many places where you have to go to work, are not places you want to live and raise kids.

I really don't see the US ever going to an all urban way of life. That is just not the way we are....we prefer to have 'elbow room', which necessitates driving distances to work, live and shop.

.."the startup that claims"

[timmarhy]

and then i lost interest. no product, big claims. i smell bullshit.

ANYTHING that grows?

[QuantumFlux]

...which they claim can be commercialized within 5-10 years and essentially make fuel out of anything that grows. SOYLENT FUEL IS...... PEOPLE!

Re:ANYTHING that grows?

[WolfWithoutAClause]

Yup. Soylent green fuel is people.

Where do you get the 'Biomass'

[HappySqurriel]

Seriously, where do you get the quantity of 'Biomass' you need to generate all of this fuel?

I'm not an expert but from what I know most of the waste materials from products we create is used in some fashion, and I suspect the quantity of 'Biomass' needed to generate 1 Litre of fuel is fairly large. Maybe you can just use garbage and other waste materials to make this fuel, but does 1 person generate enough waste in their daily life to create enough fuel to drive their car?

Re:Where do you get the 'Biomass'

[Digi-John]

The oceans are full of seaweed and algae, the cities are full of yard waste. Farms make plant waste, although a lot of that gets fed to farm animals (straw, corn cannery waste, etc.).

Re:Where do you get the 'Biomass'

[CrazedWalrus]

Maybe, maybe not, but I know a lot of people living in NYC right now that don't drive at all but do produce a fairly large supply of garbage. Maybe they won't mind if I drive their garbage?

Re:Where do you get the 'Biomass'

[Katmando911]

"but does 1 person generate enough waste in their daily life to create enough fuel to drive their car?" There's a bathroom joke in there somewhere

Re:Where do you get the 'Biomass'

[__aaptsy9143]

Bring out your dead!

Re:Where do you get the 'Biomass'

[geekoid]

Yes, and what does it take to harvest from the sea?

Farm waste is reused. It gets plowed back into the soil.

If we converted ALL the farm land in the US to the highest energy producing bio-fuel, it would meet 10% of are needs.

Clearly, using the energy for something else, and just getting the waste would be less.

Re:Where do you get the 'Biomass'

[rdoger6424]

Kudzu isn't farmed. It's the parasitic scourge of the south. Dump some of that in and see what happens.

i want a car that runs on patent applications

[blair1q]

if i had a car that ran on patent applications, i could literally shovel garbage into it and get wherever i needed to go

and it wouldn't cost anything

heck, they'd pay me to take the stuff away

Simple Math

[iluvcapra]

Cheap Gas -> More CO2

Cheap Gas -> Happy Americans

More CO2 -> Unhappy Americans

Re:Simple Math

[CrazedWalrus]

But if this CO2 is coming from plants that are alive today, isn't burning them releasing back into the air only what was recently sequestered by those same plants? In other words, no net increase in CO2?

Re:Simple Math

[iluvcapra]

Interesting question, homeslice. I guess it depends on how much of the carbon cycle you're comfortable having floating around in the air. It's not like it was going to end up there anyways; carbon finds its way from organism to environment to organism in a lot of ways.

I haven't enough information to come to a conclusion on this.

Re:Simple Math

[geekoid]

There is an increase.

While the carbon in the plants does return, the amount of CO2 in all doesn't rise, but instead of having x amount in the plant, it's now in the air. SO the amount in the air goes up.

Oil is just sequestered carbon, but we are releasing millions of years of generated carbon in less then a hundred years, so there is a lot more in the air.

Really, it's not the carbon, it's the location of the carbon.

FYI plants release about half the carbon they take in the day out in the night. The rest is released as pieces fall of and rot.

Re:Simple Math

[Dunbal]

SO the amount in the air goes up.

      And plants everywhere are happy. There are studies that show that increased atmospheric CO2 is sequestered more quickly by plants. After all, if you eat more burgers you're bound to get fat. Feed the plants more CO2 (while avoiding toxic levels), and they will find a way to use it.

It just isn't true

[rudy_wayne]

"ethanol demand in general is only adding to the worldwide food crisis."

Utter bullshit. Consuming crops that are grown entirely in the U.S. cannot create a "worldwide food crisis". Unless you believe that the U.S. is responsible for supplying food to people too lazy and stupid to grow their own.

Re:It just isn't true

[Cyberax]

USA also _buys_ food in other countries. Reduced internal food supply causes less exports and more international purchases.

Re:It just isn't true

[geekoid]

Except the ethanol, bio-fuels in general, demand is global.

It already is starting to creating a food shortage in the US.

Do you grow all your own food? No? so are you stupid or lazy?

You might want to apply your answer globally.

Re:It just isn't true

[budgenator]

at one time there were 4 countries that were not net food importers, the US, Canada and Argentina were net food exporters and China was a break-even country; this was back in the 70's and our agricultural efficiency is much higher now. The US quite literally gives food away, if people don't have enough to eat it's usually political.

Re:It just isn't true

[onefriedrice]

You're blind. Do you know about the butter shortage in Japan? The shortage is a result of a decreased number of cows in Japan, which is a result of decreased availability of feed. It does effect the world. Did you know that for the first time ever, the United States had to start importing wheat this last February? Google it. Did you know that Costco (which never runs out of anything) is now having to ration rice? Please, educate yourself. Ethanol has been a disaster, and Congress is full of idiots trying to save face. Actually, wheat futures have just risen again, so if you think the cost of food is still fine, just give it a few months.

Green Gasoline and The Irish

[chris_mahan]

Subject says it all.

What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[steveha]

I was hopeful when I first saw the news stories about Thermal Depolymerization. This is not complete vapor; there is in fact an operational plant. Given where oil prices are now, we should be reading about TDP plants opening all over the place.

We aren't reading about TDP plants opening all over the place.

So what happened? I can't figure it out. There were allegations that the TDP plant was emitting bad odors, but none recently, and I think they have figured out how to make the plants trap the worst odors. Given the profits they could be making right now, I can't believe that the odors problem would stop them even if they did not have a solution (just put the plants in really remote areas).

My best guess is that they are profitable enough to keep running the plant, but not so profitable that it's tempting to build more plants. Given oil's current price, that is somewhat surprising... maybe the big investors are expecting oil prices to drop again in future?

steveha

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[Anonymous Coward]

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

The reason Changing World Technologies is an instructive case is that, when they started out, they made all kinds of wonderful claims. Yes, they can make oil from turkey guts. That's about it though. My personal theory is that they can't use different feed stocks successfully.

With this and all other schemes, I will believe it when I see it.

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[ShawnDoc]

That's exactly what it is. The cost to drill oil is still extremely low, in the $30/barrel range. Maybe even lower. From your wikipedia article, they are able to produce oil at around $80/barrel. So most of the money is still going to drilling oil wells, and shale oil production which produce 2-3x the profit at current market rates.

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[Goonie]

Short answer: there was a big difference between what they claimed their plant could do, and what it actually could do.

Essentially, it only works on fats and oils, not carbohydrates or cellulose, and the yields are considerably lower than they claimed.

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[Mr. Roadkill]

Essentially, it only works on fats and oils, not carbohydrates or cellulose, and the yields are considerably lower than they claimed.

Hmmm.... Home of the Brave, Land of the Super-Sized Septuple-Cheeseburger meal, a desire for reduced dependence on foreign oil...

Cue mandatory mass-liposuction programmes in three, two...

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[domatic]

My understanding is that in practice TDP has to be finely tuned to the feedstock going into it. So if you can park one next to a rendering plant, then you can wring a bit of extra profit from the combined operation by turning some of the least valuable wastes into fuel. But no, it isn't a panacea. I suppose the next question is how tunable is the process and what are all the feasible feedstocks?

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[geekoid]

There isn't enough waste to provide us with enough fuel to make a difference.

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[slashkitty]

Well, you don't have to just use waste. You can cut down and chop up a forest, and that will make gas as well. First the Oil, then the food, then the forests. Please people, just stop burning up everything in your gas tank!

Re:What about Thermal Depolymerization?

[budgenator]

The odor charge was bogus; most of the problem with TDP is it's a patented process and I suspect that CWT wants to control everything, get royalties for the process, build the plant for profit and probably get a cut of the production. The patent is only good for another 7 years so we'll see what happens.

I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[bill_kress]

I just bought a car that happens to take this E85 ethanol combo gas.

It dropped my mileage from city 22 to like 16, highway 30 to 22.

It was a little cheaper due to government subsidies ($2.77 vs $3.30 at the time), but it didn't come close to breaking even with the drop in mileage.

Overall very disappointed.

Where are the plug-in hybrids?

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[oodaloop]

Yeah, an electric car that runs off my home's power. That would be awesome! Except that my power plant runs on coal.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[night_flyer]

they have done the same will most of the pumps in my city. they switched to E10 and didnt tell anyone, but now everyone is experiencing a 2-25% reduction in fule efficiency. so now they are burning more fuel and filling up more often.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[Idiot with a gun]

Right. That's always been the argument against plug in cars "The power comes from the dirty powerplant!"

Except, there's one simple fact, larger power plants will always be cleaner, and more efficient per Watt of power, than cars will be. So while you still need the energy from somewhere, it's cheaper, and cleaner overall. However, it'll greatly increase the strain on an already drawn-thin power grid. Nothing is free.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[Idiot with a gun]

It all goes back to the fact that by mass, Ethanol provides far less energy than gasoline does. Cleaner yes, but you have to redesign cars to handle it, and it'll take far more of the stuff to provide the same power that gasoline provided.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[manitoulinnerd]

they switched to E10 and didnt tell anyone, but now everyone is experiencing a 2-25% reduction in fule efficiency. I find it hard to believe that E10 has caused a 25% reduction in fuel efficiency. E10 symbolizes 10% ethanol and 90% gasoline. Even if E10 released no energy at all during combustion the largest drop it could account for would be 10%. When it comes down to E10, it is not done for any other reason than to help reduce your carbon footprint.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[The Analog Kid]

Not to mention the fact that the coal power plant is still operating regardless if you plug your car in or not.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

wow that sucks for you, my 88 thunderbird turbocoupe went from 25 mpg in town to 23 and from 30 on the highway to 28. Best part i think about it is that since E85 is like running 104 octane i can bump the boost from 18psi to 25 psi without detonation. maybe you should go buy a mid 80's car.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[Nutty_Irishman]

Where are the plug-in hybrids? Not far off actually: http://www.aptera.com/

Unfortunately, they are only being released in California initially.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[somejeff]

Where are the plug-in hybrids? Sitting in some museum collecting ions.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[domatic]

Plug in enough cars though and it becomes necessary to build more power plants which realistically will be coal fired. Sure, things will be tight enough then that we finally tell all the hippies to "STFU! We're building nuke plants already!" But still. There might even be enough extra generating capacity built under this scenario that America's carbon profile changes hardly at all. It would be an interesting step back to the 19th century when the British Empire was powered by coal....

In any case, a centrally controlled plant should be cleaner than that many indifferently maintained gasoline cars.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[chmod a x mojo]

good god, THINK. even if 85% ethanol runs with 25ish percent less power than straight standard fuel all you would need to do is raise the compression up a small amount to regain that power. Think BIG truck, old engines ( pre mid 70's ) were un-turbo charged. You start adding turbos to the engines you gain 20-60% fuel efficiency AND have more power / faster power response.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[Dunbal]

Not to mention the fact that the coal power plant is still operating regardless if you plug your car in or not.

      Yeah but when enough people start plugging cars in, they'll have to build another coal power plant. Of course there's nuclear, do you mind if we leave the waste in your back yard?

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[budgenator]

E10 does suck in low compression IC engines like in lawn-mowers, especially flat-head designs; but I've gone out of my way to fuel my vehicles with it for decades without a problem.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

> Even if E10 released no energy at all during combustion the largest drop it could account for would be 10%.

From playing around with an electronic fuel injector controller in college 21 years ago, we saw that changing the amount of gas had a greater effect than you would expect. That's one reason the programming for fuel injection took so long to get just right. Even now companies are seeing entire percentage differences in mileage from small programming improvements. Now with good O2 sensors you can build a feedback loop to adjust the fuel air mix and other settings, but for safety the settings aren't changed that far from the default mapping. The first time we played with Ethanol was on a Ford 4 cylinder engine, and it would barely run even with max throttle. We had a nearly 100% decrease in power, but we couldn't measure it because the minimum drag on the dynometer would stall the engine. From that experience, I can easily believe that putting 10% of garbage in with the real gas could cause a 25% decrease in HP.

Something I haven't seen mentioned yet here is the danger of using E85, and even E10. It eats through rubber hoses and seals. I have a bad scar on my forearm from a fire caused by using 50% Ethanol with stock Ford fuel lines. You have to have a specially made fuel system to use Ethanol. Even then E85 is still dangerous. The GM trucks that advertise E85 compatibility have had fires from fuel leaks. While I would consider driving one to save money, I would never let my wife drive one or let my children ride in one.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[barzok]

I saw it last summer. We took a vacation to CT with our E85-capable van and saw 22-23 MPG on the highway with the gas we bought in NY. The stuff we put in the tank in CT (E10) got 18 MPG - a roughly 20% drop, with similar driving.

And that gas was more expensive than what we'd bought in NY. Next time we go to CT, I'm going to fill up before crossing the border and squeeze every drop I can to get back out of the state before refilling.

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[Anonymous Coward]

hmm, whomever rated this post as overrated, must work in the corperate offices of QuikTrip

Re:I just tried this E85 stuff.. it sucks

[bill_kress]

As I understand it, to recharge an electric car in your garage costs you an equivalent of less than $.50/gal--so screw green.

But does anyone have validation of this?

Kudzu!

[680x0]

Start converting kudzu (an invasive plant species... well, invasive in the US anyway) to fuel, and kill two birds with one stone.

NUCLEAR

[plutoniah]

Nuclear, nuclear, nuclear. JTFC, build more nuclear. All this hippie green power bullshit is crap. It will never give us enough energy. Build more nuclear. A LOT more!

Re:NUCLEAR

[Anonymous Coward]

You user name makes me think you might not be the most objective person to ask about this...

Re:NUCLEAR

[Goonie]

Dude, I like nukes too (we'd save tens of thousands of lives every year by shutting down coal and building nukes, let alone the greenhouse benefits) but unless you plan to run a nuclear reactor in your car, it doesn't solve the problem that this technology is trying to solve.

Re:NUCLEAR

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah it does, dude. With crap loads of electricity, fully electric cars become practical.

I've lived through this before

[hey!]

Back in the 70's, we called it the Energy Crisis.

Mining companies chewed up mountains and spit out piles of rubble just to get at a paltry quantity of shale oil. Thousands, probably tens of thousands of startups had ingenious ideas for conserving or producing energy. I knew a lot of smart, creative people who jumped to be part of the new field of alternative energy technology.

Then prices went down and it all collapsed.

I don't think prices will go down as far as they did from the 70s to 80s, but we have to be aware that news of these ideas gets a great deal of play when prices are high, then drop off as prices go the other way. Unless we have reached an era of monotonically increasing oil prices, it will be a long road to replacing oil, littered with companies choked off by fluctuations in cash flow driven by fluctuations in oil prices.

I'm optimistic (???) this time around we're going to see a more consistent trend towards higher oil prices, which means we'll see greater progress in replacing petroleum with renewable energy sources. But I'd be astonished if renewables replaced a significant fraction of our oil consumption within ten years.

Re:I've lived through this before

[nuzak]

> Unless we have reached an era of monotonically increasing oil prices

It's quite possible we have. Most of OPEC, save for Saudi Arabia, has replied to increased demand with "we're pumpin' as fast as we can cap'n, she just won' give us nae more!". Okay, maybe not quite with that accent. Sure, SA can turn a knob and produce more, but their capacity isn't infinite either, and they would rather have supply when others start dwindling. We may not completely run out of oil for quite some time yet, but peak oil is about production rates, and there's a lot of signs pointing to us having reached it.

Re:I've lived through this before

[hey!]

It's really a matter of how much smoothing you have to do to make the increase monotonic.

Energy prices will continue to go up and down over the course of a day, probably even quarters. I think we'll see prices increasing monotonically from here on when averaged over, say, five years, but there yet may be years where oil goes down.

The current global credit crunch may be a good indicator; it's very interesting that we're seeing record oil prices in that context. If the growth of the global economy is relatively sluggish, and oil prices don't abate, that might be the sign of a new era.

Re:I've lived through this before

[DreadPiratePizz]

Oil will not become cheaper. The problem with this line of reasoning is India and China. They are fast developing, and will be demanding a LOT of fuel. Demand will go way up. High demand = high cost.

CELLULOSE != FOOD

[jnadke]

[rant]

Cellulose is plant matter. You know. Grass clippings, corn stalks, etc. I see you really must like eating GRASS CLIPPINGS along with the COWS. Similar intelligence, perhaps?

CELLULOSE IS NOT FOOD!

Cellulostic Ethanol: Educate Yourself!

[/rant]

What about auto efficiency?

[Trevin]

I assume the 50% efficency quotes refers to the ethanol conversion process. What kind of mpg can we expect cars to get which run on ethanol? This article indicates it's only 66% as efficient as gas, so that needs to be accounted for in the comparison. Are current production automobiles equipped to run on ethanol as well as regular gas?

Re:What about auto efficiency?

[danbert8]

Indeed, while it may be $1 a gallon, if you only get 5 miles to the gallon, it's not a particularly good deal now is it?

What I want to know...

[EmagGeek]

First of all, this will NEVER be 100% efficient - not even close. There will be other waste products, possibly a LOT of other waste products. What I want to know is, what are those other waste products and in what quantity are they produced in proportion to ethanol? What does it take to separate the ethanol from these waste products? How toxic and/or disposable are these waste products?

Long on promises, short on details.

$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[Overzeetop]

That's rough, but at $118/bbl, the cost of refined gasoline is somewhere about $2.50/gallon. The $3.50 you're paying at the pump includes distribution and taxes. So you'd pay $3/gallon for a fuel that stores only about 60-65% of the energy as the $3.50/gallon gas your paying now. Not really economical. At their theoretical 100% efficiency, it's about a wash, though you'll still have to visit the pump half again as often to fill up.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[timmarhy]

$3/gal not economoical? fuck me i'm paying $1.5 a LITRE. that's about $6.6 USD/gal.

sign me up if you can make fuel for $3/gal.... or maybe you need to realise there is more to the world then the USA

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[MindStalker]

No your not, your paying 1/2 of that in tax, your gas is not more expensive than in the US, actually less so in terms of buying capacity now that the dollar has fallen. $3 gas would still cost $6 there.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[Original Replica]

At their theoretical 100% efficiency, it's about a wash, though you'll still have to visit the pump half again as often to fill up.

It might be a wash when you just analyze the dollar cost, but when you consider the source of the fuel being purchased, it becomes a bargain again. First off, a dollar will be far more likely to eventually spent on a product that I make a living producing, if that dollar stays my country. Secondly, if our fuel source is domestically produced then the military protection of that fuel source is already taken care of at a great savings to the tax payer. And lastly, even if the biofuel burns inefficiently it is still carbon neutral.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[Anonymous Coward]

Oil closed at $119.37 this afternoon , which works out to $2.84 a gallon for unrefined crude. I don't know how you decided that refined gasoline was only worth $2.50, but it really doesn't sound right that refined gasoline is worth 15% less than unrefined crude oil.

And, this article is about the direct production of gasoline from cellulose, not ethanol. It's certainly possible that the energy density would be different than gasoline refined from crude oil, but I really don't think your guess at 60-65% of the density is accurate.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[timmarhy]

doesn't the USA tax their fuel ? i guess this is a case of another startup using meaningless metrics in their announcments.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[maxume]

The scientists in the Popular Mechanics article are claiming that they can generate 100% gasoline equivalent fuel, not 60-65% gasoline equivalent. Or am I missing something?

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[Jherek Carnelian]

The scientists in the Popular Mechanics article are claiming that they can generate 100% gasoline equivalent fuel, not 60-65% gasoline equivalent. Or am I missing something? You are correct, sir!

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[TubeSteak]

but at $118/bbl, the cost of refined gasoline is somewhere about $2.50/gallon. The $3.50 you're paying at the pump includes distribution and taxes. I can't see how those numbers are correct. Refined gasoline costs nowhere near that much.
The main reason we have high oil prices is because of uncertainty (aka fear) in the marketplace.
Long story short, speculators have been driving up prices, not supply and demand issues.

The record $118/bbl price is a result of those fears being realized:
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5h8eGWN57-1oyt9ClIqUGuYRaRwxA
If you don't want to read the article, Nigerian militants bombed 3 oil pipelines.

Oil prices don't jump around they way they've been doing just because of supply/demand issues. We've been paying an uncertainty premium for years now as a result of the Iraq invasion. Here's a handy graph showing oil & gas prices. Not to mention the weakening dollar is pushing prices up too.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[budgenator]

no they are talking about making "gasoline" whatever that really is, but I suspect that they are talking about a solution of primarily alkanes and alkenes in the 5 to 9 carbon range a few cyclic's and a dash of aromatics

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[quenda]

$1.5 a LITRE. that's about $6.6 USD/gal. Except the US has defined its own gallon as only 3.8L, much smaller than a regular gallon. So far, the only thing about the litre they have changed is the spelling :-)

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[modmans2ndcoming]

Hey now... don't go preaching protectionist economic policies. We need to send all our money over seas to the production plants that feed multinational corporations based in the Caymans.

Protectionism is no way to run an economy... just ask Japan... oh... wait....

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[MindStalker]

About 47 cents per gallon according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_tax#United_States_of_America

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[glitch23]

Gasoline futures are currently at $3.01 so $2.50/gallon is a bit off the mark. On top of the $3.01 price is added federal and state taxes and distribution fees as you mentioned. But profit markups are also added for producers and refiners. That's why the current national average (for regular grade) is about $3.51. Again, that's an average because regular grade in WV right now in my area is about $3.72 or so with premium around $3.95. WV has one of the highest gasoline taxes in the nation. I hope that similar taxes aren't applied to any new fuels that are put on the market but it wouldn't surprise me if they get taxed just as much.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[Overzeetop]

Interesting. I just paid $3.395/gal two days ago, and VA gas tax is 36.5c/gal including federal, state, and local taxes. That's $3.03/gallon for gasoline in my vehicle including transportation, storage, additives, transactions fees, and profit from the refinery door all the way to my cylinders. (FWIW, $3.395 was at the Sheetz on Orange Ave and Williamson in Roanoke, VA, but was pretty typical...I think it went up a nickel yesterday)

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[glitch23]

Interesting. I just paid $3.395/gal two days ago, and VA gas tax is 36.5c/gal including federal, state, and local taxes.

You are lucky. WV tacks on $0.495 cents per gallon in taxes. We are over the Appalachians so there is slightly more cost added in for distribution. Basically as you go west across the country the distribution costs add up of course. CA has the highest in the continental US but Hawaii has the highest gasoline costs when looking at all 50 states.

Re:$2/gal to produce = $3/gal at the pump

[maxume]

The midwest generally has prices somewhat below the national average. California has extra high prices because they use a bunch of boutique blends and won't allow any refineries to be built.

Compare energy, not gallons

[dpbsmith]

This just screams optimistic spin.

First of all, they shouldn't be comparing "gallons," they should be comparing energy. Ethanol has only about 2/3 the energy per gallon of gasoline.

So, today, with the "50% efficiency," the implication is that they could produce $2 a gallon ethanol... which, guess what, is equivalent to $3 a gallon gasoline.

Second of all, we've all seen umpteen press releases that tout how great something is going to be. Remember how OLPC's $100 laptop became a $200 laptop?

Third, even if "It generates 7.7 times more energy than is required to produce it..." (is that for what they're actually doing now, or what it will be after the double the efficiency?) it does use energy, and the cost of that energy is going to rise.

Fourth, even flex-fuel cars don't use pure ethanol, they use E85... which means the fuel the car uses will cost more than the ethanol cost.

By the time they get done with it, my guess is that it may be a very important incremental improvement, but I don't look to be putting "$1 a gallon gasoline" in my car "within five to ten years." For one thing, I don't own a flex-fuel vehicle right now. Do you?

Re:Compare energy, not gallons

[Anonymous Coward]

you really might want to look up the current list of flex fuel vehicles, almost every single chrysler,ford,isuzu,mazda,GM,Chevy,saturn,nissan,and mercedes is a flex vehicle.

Re:Compare energy, not gallons

[WhatAmIDoingHere]

Every single NEW one. I've got a 2006 Honda, by no means is that an "old" car, and it's not on the list. So, what do we do with all the old cars/engines?

Re:Compare energy, not gallons

[geekoid]

If it is producing more energy then it takes to run, why not run it on this new magic liquid?

Who wants to bet...

[vivin]

... that this may not see the light of day? I want to see this come to fruition as much as (most) anybody else and I don't want to be this cynical and/or conspiratorial. But I wonder how the oil companies would react to this, or even the US government - would it be apathetic. I mean... remember the Electric Car? My more optimistic side hopes for this to actually come true.

Re:Who wants to bet...

[aplusjimages]

I agree. 5 years from now, slashdotters will be linking to this article asking "where did this alt fuel go?"

Re:Who wants to bet...

[Carnildo]

But I wonder how the oil companies would react to this, or even the US government - would it be apathetic.

If the oil companies are at all sane, they'll be investing heavily in this if it's technologically feasable. They don't care where the oil comes from so long as they're the ones refining and distributing it. If they can get feedstock from someplace that isn't perpetually on the brink of all-out war, so much the better.

Re:Who wants to bet...

[Anonymous Coward]

Not going to matter. 5 years from now, the staff and readers of slashdot would have already been used for fuel: http://www.theyesmen.org/en/hijinks/vivoleum

-monkeybollocks

Re:Who wants to bet...

[Eli Gottlieb]

Nah. If someone buries this the UMass Amherst student body will riot and kill them.

I *go* to UMass Amherst; I'm in one of their dorms right damn now. This is a huge hippie school.

You heard it here first...

[rickb928]

When we can make affordable fuel out of trash, garbage, and untreated sewage, then trash, garbage, and untreated sewage will nearly immediately be in short supply. Cost of the raw material will increase, and make the finished product less affordable.

Pretty soon after that, we will cut down perfectly good trees for no other reason than to make liquid fuels. Darn. There goes the forest. And the parks, etc. Not so good.

It's just not that easy. But it's attractive, and will keep us until we can do the electric car thing and do away with liquid fuels altogether.

Maybe.

Re:You heard it here first...

[ChrisMaple]

Trees are not a step in any efficient process that goes from sunshine to liquid fuel. It takes too much energy to make wood. Some plants are much better at turning light into useable biomass.

Re:You heard it here first...

[TempeTerra]

That's the same false argument that says the world will starve if we can grow biofuels on cropland.

Being able to choose an appropriate ratio of fuel:food or fuel:park is a good thing. It may mean that we have to, as a society, assign a dollar value to park land and consciously give up that much fuel production, but farming provides the same threat and we still have national parks.

Re:You heard it here first...

[poot_rootbeer]

When we can make affordable fuel out of trash, garbage, and untreated sewage, then trash, garbage, and untreated sewage will nearly immediately be in short supply.

Not with the enthusiasm we have, and have had for generations, for wasteful consumption.

It'll be a long time before the zillions of acres of landfill have all been dug back up for fuel, and by then, hopefully the waste-to-energy conversion process will be efficient enough that we can reach parity between the amount of waste we'll continue to generate, and the amount of energy we need to extract from it.

Re:You heard it here first...

[rickb928]

"That's the same false argument that says the world will starve if we can grow biofuels on cropland."

Not a false argument. Already happening. Well, the 'world' won't starve. The poor will suffer more than they would have otherwise, I think. Hard to tell, since the poor always suffer.

The U.S. has the lowest wheat reserves in recent memory, maybe ever. Corn is the newly favored crop, selling for ethanol production. Oil prices don't help food costs, but the shift in crops is having an imapct already.

"Being able to choose an appropriate ratio of fuel:food or fuel:park is a good thing."

Usually, this choice is made with money. The affluent win, the destitute lose. When the third-world develops a bigger appetite and wallet for meat, then corn will be used to raise cattle etc. As it is already. Wanting corn for fuel adds to the pressure. Even rice is becoming a problem, as land is lost to industrialization in Asia and workers leave for the factories.

"It may mean that we have to, as a society, assign a dollar value to park land and consciously give up that much fuel production, but farming provides the same threat and we still have national parks."

Farming in the U.S. has faced loss of area for decades, and is responding with more fertilizers/pesticides, more intense management, and more mechanization. eg More Oil.

Politicans on Bio fuel

[Wowsers]

Earlier in the month the brainless politicians said the UK had to add 2.5% of Bio fuel to petrol and diesel "to be green". Today the same moron says that we have to do something to cut the price of food for people.

How about reversing the idiot decision to add 2.5% bio fuel, and release that land back to growing food, and thus make the price of food cheaper.

Oh, that idea is a bit too simple though, they'll never go for that.

Soylent Fuel

[DeadDecoy]

"which they claim can be commercialized within 5-10 years and essentially make fuel out of anything that grows."
Soylent Fuel is made from people! PEOPLE!

I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anything.

[Regul8or]

I've been putting used motor oil, hydraulic fluid, transmission fluid, gasoline, solvents, and misc. oils in my truck's tank for years now. I mix in these waste products with clean bio/#2 diesel at a rate of about 33%. Of course I filter down to 20 microns and check for water in my fuel.

When I calculate my fuel mileage based on ONLY how much diesel I actually pay for, I get about 30-33 highway mpg in my 7900 pound 3/4 ton diesel truck.

Gasoline engines are a flawed design and gasoline/ethanol is a flawed fuel. It does have a place such as in motorcycles or small engines. I'll take my diesel powered vehicle any day of the week over some inefficient gasoline powered vehicle.

Cellulosics are intriguing, but other ways work

[ahfoo]

I think the idea of going to gasoline is really great and the most revolutionary approach of all because it can happen without waiting generations for a new transportation infrastructure to be accepted. That's puts radical transformation within realistic reach.

But cellulosics is not the only way to make that happen. There is general concept called the Methanol Economy that you can find an article on at Wikipedia. To summarize, methanol can be produced from all kinds of starting processes including my personal favorite which is solar energy, hydrogen and atmospheric CO2. But there are dozens of paths to the same goal and cellulosic feedstocks are a fine choice as is algae. Basically any process that can produce gasoline as an end product and remain carbon neutral is a kind of perfect solution.

Good luck to these guys.

Re:Cellulosics are intriguing, but other ways work

[ahfoo]

Damn, you'd think with this new layout they'd have put in an edit button.

I forgot to finish the thought. The Methanol Economy concept is relevant because one of the things you can do with existing proven technologies and that has been done on industrial scales in the past at relatively low costs is to convert methanol to high octane gasoline.

Again, the routes to methanol are abundant including just using the gases in the atmosphere and of course gasoline is practically as good as cash.

$1/gal + $$$

[Gates82]

Since ethanol only contains 2/3 the energy that gasoline does the cost jumps to $1.33, plus the transportation cost, add 33-66 cents, plus you have markup, at least $1.00. Now we are up to around $3.00 a gallon. Doesn't sound as good as the summary suggests. Plus I would not want to fill up more often to go the equivalent distance.

--
So who is hotter? Ali or Ali's Sister?

Re:$1/gal + $$$

[cuby]

If it was true I would gladly go more often to the gas station. This could cut global CO2 emissions a lot.

Re:$1/gal + $$$

[postbigbang]

Uh, no.

It's about 80% of the energy. Much depends on engine efficiency, which gets better all the time. SO let's say $1.20. Now add in the 18c/gal tax, so we're up to $1.38. In my state, add in 9% adjusted sales tax, so, about $1.50 per gallon. Markups? Yes, there's a problem.

The key you missed is that going from 50% eff to 100% eff may be unbelievably expensive, this driving it all back up again. Is ethanol a better 'green' fuel? In many ways, yes. Hydrogen would be optimal, but it has other risks associated with it that keep the price and 'greenness' high.

Re:$1/gal + $$$

[Dunbal]

Much depends on engine efficiency, which gets better all the time.

      No, that's the whole problem. It doesn't get better. Which is why the government has to make laws to OBLIGE the auto industry to improve the efficiency of their engines. Otherwise the only "efficiency" you will see is a Hummer...but boy you want that sexy Hummer don't you?

Re:$1/gal + $$$

[postbigbang]

We have to disagree on engine efficiency. The amount of output per cubic displacement has risen steadily. While turbos/superchargers may shorten engine life, they've become more interesting and reliable still. Add in variable valve timing, vastly more intelligent systems controls, and things are much better. My family has five vehicles where I live; the 'fleet' economy gets better with every purchase we make (and not SUVs, but cars and utility trucks).

I call this VAPORWARE!

[cuby]

Today the cost of gasoline in the gas station I use was something like 8.4$/gallon (after converting litres to gallons and euros to dolars )... If there was a way to make $2/gallon gas it would be already on the market.

Re:I call this VAPORWARE!

[Jeremi]

If there was a way to make $2/gallon gas it would be already on the market.

Interesting logic you're using there. Shall we take it a bit further, and assert that there are no more discoveries worth discovering, because if there were they would "already be on the market"?

Re:I call this VAPORWARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess that would be a good thing since its the vapors that burn, right?

Bring on the (gas)VAPORWARE!

Re:I call this VAPORWARE!

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah... because before anyone discover that the discovery exists, everyone new that it was gonna be discovered... the discovery was hiding. BS.

CO2 isn't a significant green house gas.

[timmarhy]

why won't this sink into peoples heads?

Re:CO2 isn't a significant green house gas.

[Anonymous Coward]

why won't this sink into peoples heads? Probably because you are dead wrong. "carbon dioxide emissions, resulting from petroleum and natural gas, represent 82 percent of total U.S. human-made greenhouse gas emissions" http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html

Re:CO2 isn't a significant green house gas.

[nexuspal]

According to wiki here CO2 rates just behind water (36-70% greenhouse effect vs. 9-26% for CO2). So I do now know where you get your idea that CO2 isn't a sig greenhouse gas from, other than your own head...

Re:CO2 isn't a significant green house gas.

[Johnno74]

CO2 isn't a significant green house gas.
why won't this sink into peoples heads? I have also been wondering if this is the case.

Don't get me wrong, I am well aware the climate is changing and the future doesn't look good.

About 15 years ago when I was at university one of my physics lecturers told us that the "greenhouse gas" theories that were starting to get more attention didn't add up.

As anyone with a bit of physics or chemistry knows greenhouse gasses work by letting high frequency light (direct sunlight) through the atmosphere, but the lower frequency IR light radiated by the earth's surface is strongly absorbed by these gasses.
He said the problem is CO2 only absorbs IR in a fairly narrow band, and if you look at earth's IR spectrum from space this band is already nearly black - i.e. there is already nearly enough CO2 in the atmosphere to absorb all of the IR radiated by the surface.
He said the ones to watch out for were methane and water vapour, as they absorb far more IR, and there isn't enough of them in the atmosphere to "saturate" this frequency.

Now once again I'm not a global warming skeptic, our climate is definitely changing and its a worry but it seems to be very difficult to have a rational argument about these things. Its like the debate over WMD in Iraq a few years back, "you are either with us or against us" and all that bullshit where any dissenters are shouted down.

Can anyone else comment on this?

Re:CO2 isn't a significant green house gas.

[pavera]

sure it represents 82% of the gas (probably by weight or volume) but not all greenhouse gasses are created equal.

You have to look at a few chemical properties of the molecules. H20 is a much more potent greenhouse gas than co2. like 10-20 times more effective at absorbing and holding on to heat. Methane is also much more potent (like 5 to 10 times more efficient at storing heat). So yes, CO2 by weight or volume may be the biggest, but if you have a gas that is 5% water and 95% C02 the water will absorb almost as much heat as the CO2. So it sure doesn't take a lot of water vapor to make up for its lack of volume.

Re:CO2 isn't a significant green house gas.

[Big_Breaker]

Water vapor has lower persistence though because in short order it condenses out of the atmosphere as rain. CO2 sticks around a LONG time.

100% Efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

"The process is running at about 50% efficiency now; the $1/gallon figure is based on getting to 100%"

Well, given that practically every machine runs at 100% efficiency, it should be no problem getting this operation there.

Wait. What's that? No machine ever operates at 100% efficiency? Oh. Then maybe that's a problem.

Why Wait?

[Eros]

The process is running at about 50% efficiency now; the $1/gallon figure is based on getting to 100%.

So right now we are talking about $2/gallon gas? Where do I sign up?

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[N1ck0]

Although collecting large amounts of easy to process cellulose materials will cost money too. You can't just go around picking up everyone's grass clippings and store them, or take a week transporting them. Nature also breaks down cellulose, and dissipates the energy they are extracting. So you would need to gather this material, ship it, process it and/or store it in ways that prevent decomposition....and all that costs money.

And most likely means things like switchgrass farms, or some other dedicated farming, so its concentrated in one place (easy for processing and transport). But then you have the problem of that farm land competing with our food growing farm land...which causes land prices to rise, causing increased food costs.

Gasoline from Kudzu?

[w3woody]

Can we kill two birds with one stone and extract gasoline from Kudzu?

Re:Gasoline from Kudzu?

[JSBiff]

I was thinking about that. I'm not from the South, but I have relatives down there I visit from time to time, and they've described to me what a blight Kudzu is. If it suddenly had some reasonable economic value, you might be able to get people to remove the stuff from your land for free - or even pay you to remove it from your land.

The only thing is, I'm not sure about the cellulose density of the plant. That is, my understanding is it's an extremely fast growing plant. I don't know much about it, but I would *guess* that probably a large percentage of the volume of kudzu is water. The question is, once the water is gone, is there enough cellulose left over to be worthwhile? Put another way, if the kudzu doesn't fetch a high enough price from the refiners, it just might not be worthwhile to harvest even if there is a lot of it, and even if the refiners *could* theoretically refine it.

law of demand says that $3 gas is not possible

[mozkill]

The laws of demand in a open marketplace say that $3 gas is not possible, especially if politicians create any taxes on the fuel. Take Diesel fuel for example. Back in the mid-80's it used to be around 1/2 the price of regular gas but demand , caused by passenger cars being manufactured with diesel capability, caused the demand to be high enough that the prices equalized and today Diesel is the same price as regular gas. The same thing will happen with any green fuel. The same thing will happen with Hydrogen cars, etc. Your cost per mile will eventually equalize when the market matures for your fuel.

Re:law of demand says that $3 gas is not possible

[Qzukk]

The laws of demand in a open marketplace say that $3 gas is not possible

I'm paying $3/gallon so you're going to need to explain what the hell you're on about.

Also, Diesel here has been more expensive than gasoline for years now.

Re:law of demand says that $3 gas is not possible

[belg4mit]

He's trying to explain that the in market of fungible goods, newcomers are price-takers,
and that this gasoline is unlikely to be sold for a price different from that of dead dinos.
Even if it comes up cheaper after taxes and shipping, being cheaper, demand will shift to
this substitute and the marginal cost of supply will increase as additional capacity is
needed to meet demand.

Cellulosic processing is the way to go.

[MtViewGuy]

I think using enzymes to break down the ENTIRE plant is the way to go if we're going to do biofuels. The reason is simple: by using the entire plant, it means all the agricultural waste from conventional farming can be turned into almost any fuel you can imagine using enzyme processing, avoiding the major issue of having to overgrow corn and sugar cane/beets just to make more ethanol.

Suddenly, all those weeds out there become a biomass base, and farmers will be more than happy to ship the plant waste from growing corn, wheat, rice, etc. to a cellulosic processing plant to turn into biofuels.

Re:Cellulosic processing is the way to go.

[Dunbal]

Suddenly, all those weeds out there become a biomass base, and farmers will be more than happy to ship the plant waste from growing corn, wheat, rice, etc. to a cellulosic processing plant to turn into biofuels.

      Provided the fuel used in shipping all this stuff is less than the fuel produced....

Re:Cellulosic processing is the way to go.

[belg4mit]

Yeah see, thing is, all that useless vegetable matter is kinda supposed to be compost...

Re:Cellulosic processing is the way to go.

[MtViewGuy]

What's interesting is that a number of plants that would normally be considered weeds--like kudzu--could be harvested and sent to cellulosic processing plants to be turned into biofuel. It'll be a nice incentive for people to cut down all that overgrown kudzu and make it a useful product.

I see these sources of plant matter for cellulosic processing:

1) Fast-growing plants like kudzu and switchgrass
2) Agricultural waste such as the remaining stalks from the harvesting of corn, wheat, rice, etc.
3) Wood chips and parts of a lumber tree that can't be processed into wood products

Re:Cellulosic processing is the way to go.

[Hillgiant]

...enzymes to break down the ENTIRE plant...

Well, enzymes only work on sugars.

Also I am a bit dubious about the claim that cellulosic ethanol is made from a waste product. Currently, most of the cellulosic 'waste' is plowed under and used to mitigate fertilizer use. For truly renewable energy, these nutrients need to be replaced. Either with organic material... or petroleum based artificial fertilizer. I do not know offhand if anyone has done an analysis on the entire life-cycle of cellulosic ethanol.

It's time to harvest the hemp

[Anonymous Coward]

Can anybody say hemp harvesting once and for all?

Direct conversion from cellulose using a new metho

[Falkentyne]

d of hydrocarbon refining... IS PEOPLE!

MOD PARENT UP

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn, I wish I had mod points. I really hope others mod this up.

Heavy People

[lymond01]

I'm paraphrasing an old elevator joke here, but let me say I don't want to be the fat friend on that road trip to the Great White North.

Soylant Green Gasoline....

[TrueDego]

Its made of PEOPLE!!!!!!

Good idea except for this little detail...

[Anonymous Coward]

"The fossil fuels burned in 1997 were created from organic matter containing 44 Ã-- 10^18 g C, which is >400 times the net primary productivity (NPP) of the planetâ(TM)s current biota."

http://globalecology.stanford.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.pdf

Yes that's right, we consume 400 years worth of ancient biofuel production per year currently.

The same author says we can do better in solar energy capture efficiency now, so we might only need to use 22% of Earth's biota for fuel going forward, plus the other 22% we use for food etc.

Seems like we're going to have to plow under all
those pink and grey suburbs and plant biofuel
hemp farms on them.

Out of almost anything?

[DieByWire]

If so, I want to know... how many gallons per Ballmer?

Re:Out of almost anything?

[bored_engineer]

If this estimate is anywhere near true and your diesel rig gets about 30 mpg and the good Mr. Ballmer is a hefty 225 pounds, then about 180 miles.

Vaporware!

[Anonymous Coward]

This is yet another example of the /. tendency to report as fact a "promising technology" by a company looking for venture capital to get it's product to market. Someday this process could yield $1/gallon ethanol out of plant mass... if only we could convert 100% of the mass to ethanol and we are only at 50%...

The name of the game in environmental energy technologies is like the .com boom a few years ago... come up with a great idea, get lots of venture capital, pay yourself and your buddies a lot of money, never get to market.

Re:CELLULOSE == FOOD

[Em Ellel]

[rant]

Cellulose is plant matter. You know. Grass clippings, corn stalks, etc. I see you really must like eating GRASS CLIPPINGS along with the COWS. Similar intelligence, perhaps?

I am not going to even mention the crazy salad eaters, but what do you think the COWS eat? In fact at least one process for getting energy out of cellulose is based on mimicking the way cows convert cellulose food into energy by genetically modifying the plant to contain the same enzymes in the cellulose as cows have in one of their stomachs.

Also, cellulose is a major source of nutrients in the ground that support most crops.

-Em

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[Planesdragon]

You can't just go around picking up everyone's grass clippings and store them, or take a week transporting them. Sure you can. You just need to get the cost of the conversion + transportation to lower than the cost to farm it locally.

But then you have the problem of that farm land competing with our food growing farm land...which causes land prices to rise, causing increased food costs. You have no idea how much ariable land is in the United Sates, do you?

If it was just a question of land, we could feed the entire plant. Just us. Forget India, Europe, China, Africa, or any other breadbasket.

(And tell your parents that their house really isn't worth a quarter of a million dollars, and they should just sell.)

Still at test-tube scale

[Animats]

Here's the home page of the University of Amherst prof who did this. There's a picture of him holding a test tube of synthetic fuel derived from biomass sugars.

I'd be more impressed if he was standing next to a 5000 gallon tank of the stuff. On a small scale, if you're not worried about cost, you can make just about any hydrocarbon from any other hydrocarbon. It's hard to measure operating costs until the process is scaled up. So I'm skeptical of the cost claims.

Oh come on.

[Pendersempai]

Any political benefits politicians could get from the oil business would absolutely pale in comparison to the benefit they could get from promising the electorate $1/gal gasoline. Campaign contributions work at the margins, but not against a headline issue like this.

Careful folks

[Tjp($)pjT]

Don't compare the pump price for gasoline to the $1 hypothetical price for a 100% efficient process (which so far does not exist). After all if we pay at $2.50 a gallon for gas (as a nominal figure) about $0.75 in taxes. And then about 40-50 cents a gallon for the distribution. And then there is recovery of costs also known as profit, of about 18 cents. It varies by state but they go all the way back to minor taxes per gallon at the blending stage to the final additional federal and state taxes at the pump. It is not just the final taxes that are there. You have to dig really deep to find all of them. I will admit I have not looked for a couple years at the whole set of them, but very few taxes are ever reduced or repealed, so I am pretty confident they can be ferreted out with a bit of work. The raw material in this case is one that requires more handling than a liquid does so refining costs are likely higher.

So make sure all the costs are considered when comparing them. Just like sunlight is free, and all those CFLs are mercury laden hazardous waste when spent.

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[Pendersempai]

And most likely means things like switchgrass farms, or some other dedicated farming, so its concentrated in one place (easy for processing and transport). But then you have the problem of that farm land competing with our food growing farm land...which causes land prices to rise, causing increased food costs. Right, well, compare that with the cost of stabilizing the Middle East and bargaining with OPEC. I'd happily pay an extra $0.10 per pound of corn if it meant that gas prices dropped by $2 per gallon. It's pretty clear that we'd be way better off by adopting this technology. The question is whether it works, not whether we should use it if it does.

Plants suck, very efficiently

[MarkusQ]

It also doesn't address the ongoing problem of releasing CO2 into the atmosphere at a rate that can't be reabsorbed naturally (so the concentration of CO2 keeps increasing without limit).

Plants are quite capable of sucking up CO2 much faster than we are releasing it (that's why the global CO2 levels drop when it's springtime in the Northern hemisphere, where most of the plants are; Google for the Hawaii CO2 graph and note the annual sawtooth). The problem is that even though the plants are better at sucking up CO2 than we are at spitting it out, the various bugs and beasties that live off plant matter are even better at pumping it right back out again. In the fall and winter, they put it all right back into the air again.

If we could stop leaves from rotting and grass from being eaten and so forth for just a few years, we'd have the problem solved. But no one knows how to do that without causing some even bigger problem.

--MarkusQ

Re:Plants suck, very efficiently

[zsau]

If that's true, wouldn't be a great idea just to collect all the fallen leaves and put them underground? Every autumn here in Victoria (state in south eastern Australia) the Department of Sustainability and the Environment, who are responsible for fires on Crown land, perform "backburning" or "controlled burns". Basically the idea is that the Australian bush will burn—our trees are full of oil precisely to make sure they burn every few years—so the DSE chooses when and how much it'll happen, and makes sure there's people around to put them out if they go places they're not meant to. Of course, the process is hugely controversial---they release a shitload of smoke and practically every year one fires get out of control and spread like, ahem, wildfire. This process is not new; it was performed just the same by the Aborigines before white people came, except with less technology.

If what you say is true, instead of backburning, they should go round picking up all the fallen matter and bury it surely. And once it's been perfected here (where removing it is vital) the techniques used should spread like, ahem, wildfire to the rest of the world. The fact that driving around picking up leaves and sticking them in the ground releases carbon into the atmosphere should be countered by the fact that it's not being released from the leaves.

Of course there's other reasons the Australian bush must burn—in particular, the native environment doesn't regenerate till it's been burnt. So burning will have to continue, but whatever...

Re:Plants suck, very efficiently

[MarkusQ]

If that's true, wouldn't be a great idea just to collect all the fallen leaves and put them underground? ... The fact that driving around picking up leaves and sticking them in the ground releases carbon into the atmosphere should be countered by the fact that it's not being released from the leaves.

Yes, although that's an awful lot of leaves to collect. Problem is, what do you use to collect them with? And haul them? And bury them? Unless the machines you use run on magic, you're going to pump out a lot of CO2 doing it. And you'll have to bury them pretty deep to keep them from decaying and outgassing the CO2. The calculations I've seen look like it wouldn't work.

Some of the alternatives I've heard:

• Make some GMO that produces an indigestible cellulose analogue.
• Fertilize the mid ocean to create continent sized algae blooms. When the plants die they'll sink to the bottom, taking the carbon with them.
• Get some little beasty to do the sequestering for you. I've yet to see an explanation of how this would work that doesn't involve a lot of hand waving.

Every autumn here in Victoria (state in south eastern Australia) the Department of Sustainability and the Environment, who are responsible for fires on Crown land, perform "backburning" or "controlled burns". Basically the idea is that the Australian bush will burn--our trees are full of oil precisely to make sure they burn every few years--so the DSE chooses when and how much it'll happen, and makes sure there's people around to put them out if they go places they're not meant to. Of course, the process is hugely controversial---they release a shitload of smoke and practically every year one fires get out of control and spread like, ahem, wildfire. This process is not new; it was performed just the same by the Aborigines before white people came, except with less technology.

Ah yes, the Austrailian bush fires. I remember them well. Quite impressive, especially if you're a dumb tourist out hiking in the middle of nowhere when you first encounter one. Fortunately, they aren't all as scary hot and fast moving as they are in the dreams you'll have in the following months. And I got some great vacation pictures out of it. So it's all good.

-- MarkusQ

Re: Remember that "Global Warming" thing?

[intnsred]

Oh boy! That $1 per gallon gasoline would do wonders to advance global warming. :-(

I dislike high gas prices as much as the next guy.

But considering that we're burning up the planet with fossil fuels and our internal combustion engine, fighting wars for oil in the age of Peak Oil, when is it going to dawn on us that our lifestyle is unsustainable and that we're going to have to change our ways?

(Hint: $1/gal gas won't do a damn thing to help us change no matter how much we like the cheap gas.)

Of course

[geekoid]

Milk will be 25 dollars a gallon, and bread will be 10 bucks. But hey, cheap gas.

Think again

[homer_ca]

US motor gasoline consumption is 388 million gallons per day. Ethanol only has 2/3 the energy of gasoline by volume, so you'll need 588 million gallons of ethanol per day to replace it. Even assuming we built enough reactors and the bacteria work fast enough, do you have any idea how much organic waste we have to rustle up to make 588 million gallons? Americans just drive a lot and buy a lot of gasoline. It can't go on forever.

Re:Think again

[cayenne8]

"Even assuming we built enough reactors and the bacteria work fast enough, do you have any idea how much organic waste we have to rustle up to make 588 million gallons?"

I do wonder how much organic waste we are just letting go in the garbage every year now, though? I mean, millions of yards get mowed weekly (or more depending on where you live)....not to mention golf courses, stadiums, parks...etc. Then as someone said, we have tons of paper and boxes that are garbage each day. How about recycling most all of that waste paper into fuel?

I'd say at the start...that amount of ethanol, combined with the domestic oil reserves we have....could get us off the world 'grid' pretty quickly. Eventually..we could get off the fossil fuel altogether, but, this would be a huge stop-gap answer.

I wonder how much organic waste we currently just throw in the trash now, which could go for this type of ethanol generation? We could quit using corn for ethanol (well, except for consumption) right away too.

Now, if we could just do away with the fscking corn subsidies, and lift the sugar tariffs we could also kick the HFCS problems we have, get food prices back down a bit, and have real Coke with real sugar again in the US.

Re:Think again

[CastrTroy]

Well, Ethanol, has a density of 0.789 g/mL. There are 3785 mL in a gallon. So 588,000,000 gallons is 2225580000000 mL. Which would weigh, 1,755,000,000 KG. That would mean that each person would have to produce 5 KG of biomass each day, assuming you could convert 100% of that biomass to ethanol (impossible). I think you have the right solution. We need to drive less. We need to live closer to work, and design cities in ways that make this possible. With all the technology we have, it's possible to have business meetings virtually over the internet, but still most business meetings are done live, in person, by people flying all over the country.

Re:Think again

[Courageous]

We need to live closer to work, and design cities in ways that make this possible.

Believe it or not, we got where we are by design. Back, well, ages ago, Rand published classified reports that highly encouraged spread out cities. Basically, urban sprawl was to handle nuclear strikes. The big secret was that typical nuclear weapons really don't take out whole cities, really, just dense down towns.

C//

Re:Think again

[Martin Blank]

I've read that switchgrass is about 75 MMBTU per acre per year. Ethanol is around 75,000 BTU per gallon, so one acre of switchgrass could produce about 1000 gallons of ethanol each year. Based on that, we'd need 588,000 acre-years per day, or about 215 million acres (336,000 square miles) devoted to switchgrass.

In 2007, there was something like 90 million acres of corn planted, so this is about 2.4 times the total corn acreage.

If you could figure out a way of pulling off conversion cost-effectively, it might work to some degree, though I'd hate to think what a few big grass fires could do to production. This also presumes that my estimates are correct; I suspect they may understate the issue somewhat.

Re:Think again

[Hal_Porter]

Americans just drive a lot and buy a lot of gasoline. It can't go on forever. It could if you invaded Brazil.

Re:Think again

[Xtravar]

We need to drive less. We need to live closer to work, and design cities in ways that make this possible. Things will change very quickly once gas reaches astronomical prices. We are only delaying the conception and implementation of innovative energy strategies by artificially keeping fuel prices low.

Re:Think again

[compro01]

2/3s the potential energy, but ethanol can come out even or even a little ahead in accessable energy. you get, what? 33% of the power out of gasoline in a typical engine and the rest is lost as heat. ethanol can get 50% or better using forced induction and higher compression, due to the far higher octane rating (116 (AKI) vs. 85-91 for normal gas).

an engine saab makes automaticly increases the turbo boost when it's using ethanol. gives a nice bump to torque and horsepower and matches fuel economy with the engine running on gas.

Re:Think again

[compro01]

AFAIK, switchgrass will grow practically anywhere south of 55, is very drought resistant, and requires minimal soil nutrients, so put it on marginal land you can't grow anything else on rather than devoting your prime food growing land to making fuelstock.

Re:Think again

[Anonymous Coward]

The EPA says that in 2006 the US generated over 250 million tons of municipal solid waste (regular garbage). If each ton could be converted into 20 lbs (about 3 gallons) of ethanol, you would generate more than enough ethanol to replace gasoline for the whole country, and still have 99% of your trash to turn into other useful products.

dom

Re:Think again

[witherstaff]

One of the more surprising things I noticed in some traveling was that other countries still have corner dairy stores. You can actually walk a block to get a gallon of milk. I know my small midwest town used to be like that in the 60s with little grocery stores but now it'd be impossible to do that.

I'd be nice for cities to be progressive and rethink their zoning ordinances to allow mixed zoning. IIR the truman show was filmed in a planned smart city that does just that.

Re:Think again

[Ogive17]

I was in Brazil last September and the Coke there is soooo much better than it is here because of that. I try to avoid beverages with high fructose corn syrup.

Re:Think again

[CastrTroy]

This is quite common in Canada, at least in the older parts of the city. The newer suburbs seem to be set up a little differently, with more driving required, but I think that's a big mistake. I'm lucky in the fact that I live in an apartment building, and there are 2 stores within 5 minutes walking distance that sell basic groceries. The funny thing is that the corner store and the drug store both sell milk and bread cheaper or at the same price as most grocery stores. I don't drive, so it's nice to not have to carry milk home from the grocery store. It's actually more convenient and cheaper to pick up things at the drug store than it is to actually go to the grocery store.

Re:Think again

[CastrTroy]

$1.20 a litre here in Canada, and it's only april. The price usually goes up quite a bit in summer. I'm personally predicting $1.50 for the summer, just based on a gut feeling. I may not be right, but I could see the price easily getting that high. That's $5.68 a gallon. Granted, we have much higher taxes on gas than most places in the states, but I still think that will cause quite a few people to rethink how much they are driving.

Re:Think again

[dajak]

I wonder how much organic waste we currently just throw in the trash now, which could go for this type of ethanol generation?

Undoubtedly far too little, and collecting it takes a lot of fuel. In the small town were I live (in the Netherlands) we have been separating organic waste and paper, and some other stuff, ford decades now. Collecting the trash still costs money for the municipality, even though generates revenue from selling the waste, and the municipality still doesn't collect its own mowed grass because it would take more energy to collect it and take it to the nearest biomass power plant than it generates. Some existing biomass power plants are doing very well, but only because there is a lot of low hanging fruit around. For ethanol production the same thing applies.

The obvious thing to do with your waste is to heat your own house with it.

Re:Think again

[homer_ca]

I think you confused per *day* and per *year*.

Re:Think again

[mrchaotica]

Ethanol only has 2/3 the energy of gasoline by volume, so you'll need 588 million gallons of ethanol per day to replace it.

Gasoline only has 7/10 the energy of diesel fuel, so you'd only need 272 million gallons of diesel per day to replace it. Therefore, gasoline is just as stupid as ethanol... right?

But seriously, if we used a combination of ethanol and biodiesel we could probably manage it. (Also, more efficient vehicles and better public transportation wouldn't hurt.)

Re:Think again

[Martin Blank]

The BTUs for switchgrass that I mentioned are for prepared lands, so I don't know how marginal land will fare in terms of output. If the output drops by half, that's twice as much land needed to make up for it.

I also did a look-up that I should have done yesterday. Texas, the largest of the lower 48 states by land area, has an area of about 269,000 square miles; the calculated area in my post would require an equivalent to all of Texas and Oklahoma be planted with switchgrass to supply current needs. All of the contiguous land area of the United States totals 3,120,000 square miles. Using switchgrass for everything would require nearly 11% of the contiguous United States to be planted, and that's on top of the land already used for agriculture. This is not a trivial thing.

Re:Think again

[mrchaotica]

Believe it or not, we got where we are by design. Back, well, ages ago, Rand published classified reports that highly encouraged spread out cities.

You're right about the "by design" part, but not so right about the "nuclear strikes" part. Spread-out suburban planning was well underway before WWII, as a reaction against urban pollution (wanting to separate industrial areas from residential areas) and an infatuation with the automobile. I think they just didn't realize that cars would become such a problem.

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[N1ck0]

Sure you can. You just need to get the cost of the conversion + transportation to lower than the cost to farm it locally. Yes its possible but decomposition is a large factor. Collection and transport is also pretty difficult compared to farms. With individuals you'll have varying yields and level of quality. Where as farm raised material will be more consistent and efficient to gather. Also much collected yard waste is currently used for fertilizer and mulch production to help grow food and other plants; or recycled by the individual to help reduce the need to more fertilizers.

You have no idea how much ariable(sic) land is in the United Sates, do you? Approximately 18% of the US land is arable. Approx 31% of that is used to feed Americans. Then on top of that we have a growing fresh-water supply shortage (which makes land non-arable). And due to our over-growing of the land we do farm we loose approx 1 million acres a year. We also are increasing our need of our arable land for food by roughly 1% each year. Also a large portion of the other 59% of the arable land is being used for feed, export, industrial use, etc...switching more land from one use to another puts pressure on all those areas.

Of course if we removed all our homes and cities that occupy arable land and moved them into the deserts, then stopped spending so much water irrigating deserts we might have much more available.

But last time I looked at maps of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, etc there wasn't too much fertile land with access to water and transportation that wasn't occupied by people, farms, or forests (which are important to keep for other reasons).

dollars per kilojoule?

[davidwr]

What's that in farthings per horsepower-fortnight?

Re:dollars per kilojoule?

[lorenlal]

Approx 2520 farthings per gallon currently in dino fuel... HP*2wks I guess would be dependent on engine. Mine is 100 hp so 2520/100 = 25.20 f/hp-fortnights, or 1.8 f/hp-days.

Sounds efficient to me!

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[N1ck0]

and before you argue I typo'ed 69% to 59%

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[methuselah]

troll

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

Are you clueless? Did you read my post? Do you know what's going on in the world? I am not saying that plants that would be used for ethanol could eaten, I am saying that farmers are switching over their food crops to non-food (cellulose) crops because the government is giving them more money...

Yeeesh...

PLease get your number correct, 30-60 cents my ass

[geekoid]

A) the tax is a tiny amount of what you pay. 18.4 cents per gallon.

B) What are you going to cut in order to save your few pennies a gallon? Which highway programs don't we need?

nope

[goombah99]

50% efficiency does not imply $2/gallon.

They have to input pre-processing and heat. They don't say where break-even is. Maybe that's at 90% efficiency.

Re:nope

[jgoemat]

It kinda does imply $2/gallon, but it's the OUTPUTs that would keep that from being the case, not the inputs.

If you heat too fast, you make mainly vapors. The sweet spot, about 1000 degrees per second, transfers roughly half the celluloseâ(TM)s energy into hydrocarbons. âoeIf we can get 100 percent yield, we estimate the cost to be about a dollar per gallon,â Huber says. âoeRight now weâ(TM)re at 50 percent. Can we get 100 percent? I donâ(TM)t know. Hopefully weâ(TM)ll bump those numbers up.â

Think of the process like you put x materials in, perform the process, and you get 1 gallon of gasoline at 100% efficiency. At 50% efficiency you can just run the process twice as long and get twice as much output, but still only 1 gallon of gasoline. So given the information they have in the article, they could produce gasoline at $2 per gallon now.

The problem is with the outputs. If you output 100% gasoline, you just pour it into your car and go. If it is a mixture of only 50% gasoline, you have to refine it and remove impurities. That process might be prohibitively costly.

Re:nope

[_KiTA_]

The problem is with the outputs. If you output 100% gasoline, you just pour it into your car and go. If it is a mixture of only 50% gasoline, you have to refine it and remove impurities. That process might be prohibitively costly.
Why wouldn't they just do that stuff at the pump?

Re:nope

[jamstar7]

There's always methane digesters.

Re:nope

[Firethorn]

Why wouldn't they just do that stuff at the pump?

Probably take a titration stack; IE 'oil refinery'.

It'll probably need post processing no matter what just for quality control, lubrication, additives, and such.

At 50% efficiency, if we assume that the extra processing increases cost to $3/gallon, it'd still make sense, at least for local areas around the plant. Due to transportation costs, $3/gallon at the refinery isn't cost effective(yet). Get it to 75% efficient, $2/gallon cost, and it probably will be. Then there's the question of feedstock cost. Is the $1/gallon estimate including having to pay for feedstock, or is it the processing cost?

Missing CO2 in this picture.

[hacksoncode]

What seems to happen in reality, as opposed to theory, is that people clear-cut and burn forests in order to grow more food to make the ethanol (or feed people, equivalently).

This releases so much CO2 that, by some studies' measures, it would take >500 years for biofuels to become carbon neutral.

i couldn't have said it better myself

[circletimessquare]

same reason i was apopleptic about the idiocy of hydrogen power. which, as a fashionable topic for science morons, seems to have run its course thankfully

please, science idiots, learn:

if you expend lots of energy manufacturing your energy medium, you are being more wasteful than just choosing a more intelligent energy medium

hydrogen is great, of course, because it burns clean. but it is a b*tch to store and transport, and most importantly, although something clean is coming out of your exhaust, everything that went into getting hydrogen into your fuel tank created more pollution than if you were burning coal in your car

the solution to our energy crisis is nuclear and electric cars

japan and france: show us the way to a cleaner, cheaper energy future, without the security concerns: nuclear

its safer than it ever was (you can walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it will just gradually shut down: no active management needed), and horrible waste is only a product of the usa's hesitance to use breeder reactors (because they make bomb grade materials). but if you use breeder reactors, you have a tenth of the nuclear fuel waste which loses its radioactivity in a few centuries, rather in 10,000s of years, AND you get way more energy output. as uranium runs out, use thorium like india. and as we begin to run out of thorium in a few centuries, mankind better have been able to master fusion power by then, or we are doomed anyways

i think, to provide security to nuclear plants, you would need one one hundredth of the amount of security resources you need now to make sure oil still flows to our shores

or just keep counting the body bags coming from iraq because your mind still believes propaganda about nuclear power based on 1960s technology

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Artuir]

You bring up a lot of fantastic points. But being an absolute car fanatic, I'm sure going to miss the sound of a healthy American v8 if we do indeed go with a nuclear/electrical route. :(

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Belial6]

You are quick to call people stupid, but then turn around and get energy generation and energy storage. If you can make clean energy for batteries, you can make clean energy for hydrogen generation.

While I agree that electric cars the way to go, I am not convinced that batteries are the right way to store the energy. The are netoriously environmentally dirty both to make and dispose of, expensive, and and just don't last very long.

It certainly isn't stupid for someone to think that the problems with storing and transporting hydrogen can be solved easier than solving the huge problems with batteries. It is entirely possible that the real solution will be a hybrid solution.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[carlzum]

If we could transport the masses in something less damaging to the environment, car fanatics would be free enjoy their V8s, which on their own create negligible pollution. I doubt you'll miss the sounds of tens of thousands Ford Expedition V8s :)

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Mr. Slippery]

show us the way to a cleaner, cheaper energy future, without the security concerns: nuclear

Uh, no, at least not nuclear fission of uranium and plutonium.

its safer than it ever was (you can walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it will just gradually shut down: no active management needed)

No. There's already been one accident with radiation release at a pebble bed reactor, and adding a whole bunch of graphite - the stuff that caught fire at Chernobyl - to a reactor is not a good idea.

the usa's hesitance to use breeder reactors (because they make bomb grade materials). but if you use breeder reactors, you have a tenth of the nuclear fuel waste which loses its radioactivity in a few centuries, rather in 10,000s of years, AND you get way more energy output.

And you have plutonium factories all over the place. If you don't see the problem with that. Google the news for "Iran nuclear". >

And remember that that these plutonium factories would not be built to U.S. safety standards, no; many would be being built in China or other developing nations. If you don't see the problem with that. Google the news for "China contaminated".

And the waste problem remains unsolved.

as uranium runs out, use thorium like india.

Skip uranium entirely. Go to an "energy amplifier", where thorium is hit with a proton beam. It's subcritical - pull the plug and it shuts down. It's proliferation-resistant, and it can even be used to burn up plutonium. And it produces a lot less waste.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[AnotherUsername]

I sure am going to miss the blue sky if we don't.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[circletimessquare]

dude. everytime you convert to a new energy medium, you are wasting energy. every KIND of conversion of energy from one medium to another wastes a different AMOUNT of energy

now, you go, and you research, and you compare converting to hydrogen, and then back to desired work by burning, to the energy wasted in say, battery storage. and then get back to us as an informed person in the discussion

otherwise, you might look STUPID

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Upaut]

What your missing is that the hydrogen economy is actually a nuclear economy. It would be a seamless transition from whatever energy source is used to derive the hydrogen. Most hydrogen proponents know this, and simply promote hydrogen because there is a good chance that with proper research you could get a greater energy density packed into a fuel cell then a battery, and fuel cells refuel faster then many batteries recharge, enabling the 'pumps' to still be scattered across the landscape.

Remember, "Hydrogen" supporters are "Nuclear Energy" supporters, even if they do not know it yet...

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

Hey, with the StreetDeck system in my Aptera, I can play the sound of a V8 if I want to hear it ;)

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you want to move from one form of energy, which may run out soon, to another, which also may run out, but costs many hundreds of millions to implement, and in many cases, billions. Bravo!

World reserves of Uranium at this point, are enough to sustain for roughly 50 years. There may be other undiscovered deposits, but the majority of it currently lies in Australia (Thats next to New Zealand, it's much better, non nuclear, yet understated neighbour).

If more of the developed world started investing more in the development of these reactors, then the available uranium would obviously dwindle much faster. If it gets too low, Australia may end up freezing exports, as it has its own population to look after.

Don't look to Nuclear as the end of all energy problems, its really not.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Belial6]

Wow, you like to use that word, yet not only did you get mixed up between generation and storage in the previous post, but now you seem to think that the only energy expended for storage is in the conversion. You don't seem to understand that creating the storage system uses energy as well. It is highly unlikely that the creation of a hydrogen storage system is going to be nearly as dirty as in battery creation. It is also highly unlikely that batteries will achieve the longevity of a hydrogen storage system. Then there is disposal. It is likely that disposing of a hydrogen containment system will be entirely clean. That's if it can't be melted down and used as raw material for the next batch.

Now, I can't claim to know which storage method will win, or which is better when ALL of the numbers are hashed out, but calling people stupid for not agreeing with your overly simplistic analysis doesn't help your argument.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[MBGMorden]

Install speakers in fake exhaust pipes and under the hood as an option. The more juice you drive to the engine you can have the speakers make piston engine sounds (increasing volume as power is increased).

Completely electric, though completely useless except from an aesthetic standpoint (but then again, so are half the things they put in cars these days). It'll even come with the same reduced "gas" mileage that powerful piston cars do since the sounds will be sucking up energy that could have otherwise driven the engine :).

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[TheLink]

I figure a better way to store hydrogen would be with around a chain of carbon atoms ;). There's a lot of hydrogen you can store that way.

Either we burn the result, or we figure out how to build filters, fuel cells and catalysts that can handle the result in an environmentally friendly way.

A big benefit of having an electric subsystem is for the regenerative braking.

The benefit of sticking to hydrocarbons would be backward compatibility.

One of the problems is if we use rare catalysts - there might not be enough to go around to put in every vehicle (assuming a believable catalyst recycle rate when the vehicle is scrapped).

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Goalie_Ca]

Nuclear and electric cars? I still say that cars are a huge waste and that smart city planning and effective mass transportation can do way more than electric cars could ever do.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Eivind]

Electric cars are great -- with one exception: batteries utterly suck.

A battery has perhaps 1% of the energy-density of gasoline, and to add insult to injury, needs hours to recharge whereas gasoline can be refilled in a minute.

This is a problem. Dragging around 1000 lbs of batteries to get the same amount of energy you'd get from a gallon or two of gasoline is inefficient and limits space in the vehicle.

It also makes electric infeasible for the vehicles that are used a lot, where the benefits to the environment would be greatest.

Invent a battery that can do even 10% of what gasoline can, and that recharge quickly, and electric cars would take over nearly completely in 5-10 years.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[drinkypoo]

Hydrogen just has too many problems. Storage is difficult and expensive, there is the issue with embrittlement, and there is the extremely poor energy density. It looks like batteries with various "nanotech" (i.e. nanoscale-structure, in this case) materials are probably going to outstrip the energy density of hydrogen. When this happens there is pretty much no reason to use hydrogen any more. About the only purpose I can see for it is large-scale energy storage, where you don't have to carry the fuel around. You're right that it's not hopeless and that his argument was stupid, but I still think that Hydrogen is Not The Answer. Or even part of the answer, really. I think it's pork.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[drinkypoo]

And you have plutonium factories all over the place. If you don't see the problem with that. Google the news for "Iran nuclear". >

Actually, you're wrong. That's a POSSIBLE consequence, but not a necessary one. The reactors do not need to be of a type useful for making weapons-grade material in order to be useful for making useful nuclear reactor fuel.

And the waste problem remains unsolved.

The reprocessed waste has a half-life which at least seems manageable on a human time scale, and is not nearly as nasty in any case.

Skip uranium entirely. Go to an "energy amplifier", where thorium is hit with a proton beam. It's subcritical - pull the plug and it shuts down. It's proliferation-resistant, and it can even be used to burn up plutonium. And it produces a lot less waste.

Per your source, This design is entirely plausible with currently available technology, but requires more study before it can be declared both practical and economical.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

In virtually any energy transfer system that gets used a significant amount, initial costs are dwarfed by lifetime consumption. What the other poster is trying to explain to you is that the operation consumption of any hydrogen-based propulsion system is about three times higher than an equivalent battery-electric system due to all of the losses. And these aren't just "Oh, we'll figure away around it" losses; most of them are "laws of physics" losses. You can't get around Gibbs free energy, for example.

To go from electricity to hydrogen, you have to have small inverter losses, significant losses in electrolysis, compression (sometimes multiple time), small hydrogen lost through leaking (it leaks through virtually anything; not to mention, it destroys ozone), major fuel cell losses (or worse, hydrogen ICE losses), and finally small electric motor losses. In an EV, you have small transmission losses, small inverter losses, almost nonexistent storage losses (in both li-ion and its variants and in Zebra-style batteries), and small electric motor losses.

Unless you can change the laws of physics, it's going to remain this way. Here's one analysis of many on the subject for you. Check out the graphs. They don't focus heavily on electric cars, but where they do cover them, you can see the difference.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

Electric cars are great -- with one exception: batteries utterly suck.

Not any more, really. There's certainly room for improvement, but they're way beyond how you portray them.

A battery has perhaps 1% of the energy-density of gasoline

Response here.

and to add insult to injury, needs hours to recharge

Not with lithium phosphate, spinel, or titanate batteries, which are what is going into this next generation of EVs. They can be recharged in minutes. Most next-gen EVs have a fast charge port rated for between 5 and 20 minute charges, depending on the vehicle.

Dragging around 1000 lbs of batteries to get the same amount of energy you'd get from a gallon or two of gasoline

The Aptera Typ-1e, to pick one, "drags around" 300 pounds of batteries. This replaces about 400 pounds of internal combustion engine. Yes, there's also an electric motor, but those are much smaller and lighter than ICEs. Yes, the range is less, but honestly, if you're not getting out of your car to stretch every two hours, you're not following normal driving safety recommendations anyways. And next-gen battery techs, which I could easily list over a dozen for you that are currently in various stages of working their way to commercialization, promise several times the energy density (one such battery has already made it into the Subaru G4e prototype -- a 2x density lithium vanadium oxide battery). There's room for a density doubling at the cathode via layering of materials with various reactivity, and nearly a 10xing at the anode via either silicon or tin nanoparticles or nanowires. And the number of approaches being taken is really impressive. And this is just lithium ion -- also consider ultracaps like the EESU, lithium sulphur, sodium ion, etc.

Invent a battery that can do even 10% of what gasoline can, and that recharge quickly, and electric cars would take over nearly completely in 5-10 years.

Glad to hear that electric cars will be taking over nearly completely in 5-10 years, then. :)

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[nickname29]

you can walk away from a pebble bed reactor and it will just gradually shut down: no active management needed

Although nuclear power is a good idea, I don't think pebble bed reactors are a good idea. There are a few reasons for this: no containment building... Sounds like a good idea when you have people flying into things...

Also, graphite is used in PBMR's. This graphite is heated. Graphite has the tendency to burn when hot (in the presence of air).

The average PBMR reactor is also small (165kW).
There are also no operational PBMR's - their development is off a long way...

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post was very insightful and interesting, until the last retarded paragraph.

I'm with you on nuclear energy though.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[chill]

Add a good subwoofer and some speakers to the electric car and jack in an iPod with the appropriate engine sound.

I remember seeing this mod on a couple of electric cars. They were just too quiet for most people who grew up with big engines.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Joey Vegetables]

I tend to agree, although I do think as an intermediate step, sufficiently cheap electricity, nuclear or otherwise, also can be used to gasify some of our huge and otherwise very ecologically unfriendly reserves of coal, so that existing ICE and fuel-cell vehicles can continue to run in a cost-effective manner during the transition period.

One thing to keep in mind is that China, Japan, and France already have significant nuclear infrastructure. If we do not begin now to catch up, we will be left behind, and our greatest potential competitive advantages, namely, agriculture, manufacturing and technology, will be lost, possibly forever.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Eivind]

Oh really ? You don't feel a -TINY- bit dishonest here ?

I state "perhaps 1% of the energy-density", you quote a site that says: The best mass-market rechargeable batteries today have an energy density of ~160Wh/kg. Next generation cells are expected to have energy densities of a few hundred Wh/kg. Gasoline has an energy density of ~12,000 Wh/kg In case your math-skills are down, 160/12.000 is pretty much in the 1% ballpark I mentioned.

I was talking about actual existing batteries by the way, not fantasy-ones. There are no cars available powered by fantasy-batteries. When there are, these things may change.

Furthermore, the article compares hypothethical FUTURE battery-cars with poor examples of TODAYS internal-combustion engines. For example, it quotes tank-to-wheel efficiencies at 20%, which is not even state of the art TODAY.

A perfectly normal modern diesel does 30%. More radical designs (still ones on the market TODAY) like hybrid diesels can do 45%. And there is no reason to assume that batteries will shortly more than double in performance whereas internal combustion based vehicles will make no progress whatsoever.

It is even -more- wrong in areas where heating is desireable, like 2/3rds of the year where I drive: Some of the "loss" in tank-wheels efficiency is used in heating the interior of the vehicle, defrosting windows etc.

So, in short, the article claims "equal" performance (86Kwh delivered from 350Kg of machinery), whereas the reality, if you buy best-of-breed from internal-combustion and batteries TODAY is more like, the battery-powered thingie will have 1:6th the range of the IC-one, and it'll spend twice the mass-budget to do that. Which isn't so bad. Where it gets ugly is when you add in that the IC can be completely retanked in a minute, whereas TODAYS electric vehicles need multiple hours to even do a 75% recharge. (the last few percents take even longer)

But yeah. My 2001 (not even current) Toyota does 750km, and refill in a minute. If an electric vehicle could do atleast 160km (100 miles) and recharge similarily quickly, it'd have a chance. If it could do 250km, recharge in a minute, the IC-cars would be dead.

You're right that people should take breaks when driving anyway, but the thing is, with 100 miles range, it means the thing is empty in a -single- hour of driving (okay, make that 1.5 for those of you not in germany), and with gas-stations being spread thin in some areas, there's a small margin. Signs with "last gas-station for 50miles" aren't rare where I live, so it WOULD be very impractical to need to stop at precisely timed intervals, and very often.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Muad'Dave]

It depends on how you utilize your resources. Uranium isn't the only fissile or fertile fuel around, and we're currently only extracting 1-2% of the available energy in our current once-thru reactors. See this Q&A for more information on IFR technology.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Anonymous Coward]

GE's apparently got a way to generate hydrogen at the site of distribution (i.e. no transport/less storage issues) that doesn't require some pie-in-the-sky scientific breakthroughs.
 
  I'll admit, pebble beds are nifty (Toshiba's model for Alaska seemed pretty cool), but in Hydrogen vs nuclear; 'no waste' beats 'less waste' like scissors beats paper.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[operagost]

I am not going to miss pointless hyperbole once we outlaw it.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[mrchaotica]

hydrogen is great, of course, because it burns clean. but it is a b*tch to store and transport, and most importantly, although something clean is coming out of your exhaust, everything that went into getting hydrogen into your fuel tank created more pollution than if you were burning coal in your car

The "hydrogen economy" presupposes producing the hydrogen by electrolyzing water using electricity generated from clean sources (solar, wind, etc.). The problem is that idiots like Bush ran with it without realizing that.

the solution to our energy crisis is nuclear and electric cars

I really don't see electric becoming practical because of the lack of decent batteries. Personally, I think the solution is far more down-to-earth: keep running the cars on gasoline or diesel, but make the gasoline or diesel from either (CO2 + H2O + clean electricity) or plants.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[operagost]

How do you replace the lack of performance?

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[mrchaotica]

Now, that makes sense (in fact, I've been saying the same thing myself). The nice thing is that, with current catalytic converters (and things like particulate filters and urea injection for diesels), the only really problematic pollutant is CO2. And if the fuel comes from anywhere other than deep underground then it's part of the short-term carbon cycle, and stops being a problem!

One of the problems is if we use rare catalysts - there might not be enough to go around to put in every vehicle (assuming a believable catalyst recycle rate when the vehicle is scrapped).

I wouldn't be too worried about that; I predict one of the fastest-growing industries in the next hundred years will be landfill mining.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[mrchaotica]

It looks like batteries with various "nanotech" (i.e. nanoscale-structure, in this case) materials are probably going to outstrip the energy density of hydrogen.

And liquid hydrocarbons will outstrip the energy density of that! I think the solution is in figuring out how to synthesize those liquid hydrocarbons, rather than trying to replace them.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[mrchaotica]

with proper research you could get a greater energy density packed into a fuel cell then a battery

Yeah, right... if this is what you mean when you say fuel cell!

An electric economy makes sense, but neither hydrogen nor batteries are the answer for how to get that electricity to the car.

Besides, as for "seamless transitions," a really seamless one would be to switch from gasoline and diesel made from oil, to gasoline and diesel made from biomass or synthetic sources. Heck, I've already done it: my 10-year-old VW New Beetle runs on reformulated veggie oil collected from restaurants, and all I have to do is fill up at a normal pump, just like any other diesel vehicle.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[MachineShedFred]

Never mind that because of the nuclear boogeyman, there has been virtually no uranium deposit exploration since the 1970s. That 50 year estimated supply is based upon 40 year old research. I think we could go find some new resources to extend it using some of the new technologies developed since then.

Oh, and all that waste sitting in casks that could easily be reprocessed and reloaded into reactors... that might extend the timeline a bit too. Now only if there wasn't some pesky Executive Order still on the books from the late 70s getting in the way (http://www.atomicinsights.com/oct95/Pu_oct95.html)...

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

In case your math-skills are down, 160/12.000 is pretty much in the 1% ballpark I mentioned.

In case your logic and reading skills are down, it explains how this whole argument is a fallacy, since not only can only roughly a fifth of the energy in the gasoline be converted to torque, but that batteries aren't competing with gasoline; they're competing with the weight and bulk of the ICE.

I was talking about actual existing batteries by the way, not fantasy-ones. There are no cars available powered by fantasy-batteries. When there are, these things may change.

Apparently you've never heard of the G4e. Yes, it's a prototype, but it uses next-gen lithium vanadium oxide batteries. They don't specify the exact energy density, only that it's "double" normal li-ion. The website I linked references a paper that shows that, at least in the lab, lithium vanadium oxide batteries can have obscene energy densities (although not as good as silicon nanowire, silicon nanoparticle, or tin nanoparticle batteries).

Furthermore, the article compares hypothethical FUTURE battery-cars with poor examples of TODAYS internal-combustion engines. For example, it quotes tank-to-wheel efficiencies at 20%, which is not even state of the art TODAY.

Oh really?

So, in short, the article claims "equal" performance (86Kwh delivered from 350Kg of machinery), whereas the reality, if you buy best-of-breed from internal-combustion and batteries TODAY is more like, the battery-powered thingie will have 1:6th the range of the IC-one, and it'll spend twice the mass-budget to do that.

1) The standard for most low-cost next-gen BEVs -- the MiEV, the Aptera, the VentureOne, etc -- is around 120 miles. The standard for the high-end ones (Tesla, LightningCar, tzero, etc) is 200-300 miles. That's nothing at all like "1/6th the range".

2) In case you missed it, it shows equivalent range per unit mass when you get batteries up to 340Wh/kg. That's 2.2 times the energy density of LiCoO2/graphite and 3.4 times that of LiP. So, the best you can argue is ~45% of the range per unit weight for LiCoO2/graphite and 30% of the range per unit weight for LiP.

3) As the page referenced earlier, there are over a dozen new chemistries that all promise to deliver energy density in the 340Wh/kg range working their way through to commercialization, and one (lithium vanadium oxide) has already made its way into a prototype.

Where it gets ugly is when you add in that the IC can be completely retanked in a minute, whereas TODAYS electric vehicles need multiple hours to even do a 75% recharge.

If you had read the rest of the page, you'd know that this, too, is false with modern EV batteries. Most modern EVs have fast charge ports that can take a full charge in the range of 5 to 20 minutes if you have a source that can deliver current fast enough. Modern EV batteries are capable of extremely fast charging.

and refill in a minute

Time the time that you spend at a gas station. Include the time wasted by getting off the highway and having to get back on. Overall, you'll find that it's about a ten minute delay, more if you have to get a snack or use the restroom. Fast EV charging would hardly add on to the length of a trip. But it'd be a tiny fraction of the cost, since power is so cheap (almost all of the cost of charging would be overhead).

with 100 miles range

120 or so is currently the standard for the low-end EVs -- see the MiEV, the Aptera, the VentureOne, etc. On state highways, it means two hours. On interstates, it means an hour and a half, give or take depending on how you drive.

Signs with "last gas-station for 50miles" aren't rare where I live

Well, kudos to you. If you run out of gas, you have to push your car dozens of miles (or hike to a gas station). If I run out of electricity, I push my car to the nearest farmhouse and ask them

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Nos.]

Hydrogen can be as clean to obtain as anything. Don't think of it as a fuel, think of it as a battery. Yes, storage can be interesting, but there's a lot of headway being made there as well. Imagine if we built nuclear reactors and used some of the energy from them to produce hydrogen, which could then be used to power our vehicles. We get clean energy (well, relatively, there is some radioactive waste), and we don't have all the assorted issues with electric vehicles.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[spitzak]

How do you replace the lack of performance? Are you kidding? That electric is going to leave that V8 in the dust. You might want to read up on what an electric motor can do.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Shotgun]

I still say people that say "cars are a huge waste and that smart city planning and effective mass transportation can do way more than electric cars could ever do" need to pull their heads out of their asses and look at a population density map occasionally.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Anonymous Coward]

Go to an "energy amplifier", where thorium is hit with a proton beam. It's subcritical - pull the plug and it shuts down. It's proliferation-resistant, and it can even be used to burn up plutonium. And it produces a lot less waste.

You talk about this design like it actually existed anywhere but on paper. You think fusion is perpetually 20 years away, this shit will always be 100.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Belial6]

I'm not convinced on the regenerative braking. I haven't seen the numbers, but without detailed info, it give the impression of being more gimmick than environmental.

To me the biggest benefit of having electric cars is that electricity is a very good 'lowest common denominator' for our energy use. There is no reason that an electric car cannot run on gasoline that has been burned, or hydrogen running though a fuel cell, or solar cells on the roof charging super capacitors. Some or all of these may not be practical, but it whatever the future energy system is, having the vehicle run off of electricity, would allow that change to happen with far less reengeneering of the vehicle. Vehicles could even be made to switch power sources, just as the light bulb in my office runs off of coal some days, wind on others, and hydro on others. Well, really, its probably a little bit of all of them all of the time, but the point remains.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

I'm not convinced on the regenerative braking. I haven't seen the numbers, but without detailed info, it give the impression of being more gimmick than environmental.

Actually, you're right... for normal, present-day hybrids. They capture energy too fast to charge the NiMH packs, and the packs are only 50-70% efficient. Overall, it's something like 20% recovered. However, next-gen systems with li-ion and ultracapactors should get the overwhelming majority of the kinetic energy converted back. Obviously, you don't get your rolling and aerodynamic losses back -- only what you retained when you started braking. Also, "slamming on the brakes" and the final couple seconds of normal braking invokes disc brakes as well, and you get no energy out of them.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[BlackSnake112]

Hydrogen can be transported safely in sold form. Not straight sold hydrogen but a solid hydrite. Aluminium actually releases hydrogen when placed in water. But aluminium gets a protective coating which stops this process very fast in water. Take an aluminium and gallium alloy, place it in water and hydrogen gas is released. The gallium stops aluminium from getting the protective (aluminium oxide) coating. This works nicely for those in warm climates. Not so much for those where water outside freezes. ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallium )

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

Don't think of it as a fuel, think of it as a battery.

Exactly -- think of it as a battery. A very, very lossy battery. Compared to the 99.9% efficiency of a lithium-ion battery.

Take a look at the losses of each step of the process involved in running a vehicle on hydrogen. It'll be enlightening.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[ShakaUVM]

I'm halfway convinced the mindless reaction against nuclear power is secretly funded by the oil companies. Nuclear reactors are safer, cheaper, and *produce less radiation than coal power plants*. In fact, they produce no radiation, but you wouldn't know that from all the hysteria over the sites.

Some rich guys got together in my city to build a nuclear reactor (woot!) but California shot them down -- it's illegal to build nuclear reactors in California. And then the same people bitch that we have rolling blackouts.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Eivind]

Okay. So I was rude. I apologize. It's just I've had one-too-many head-in-sky people that fail to cleanly separate dreaming from reality. My base claim is that when people overwhelmingly DONT buy EVs today, it is because those actually available TODAY are grossly inferior to comparable IC-vehicles, and NOT because people have much resistance to the concept as such.

I know that -I- would've bougth an EV this january -- if one was actually available that would cover my needs. None exist that I know off.

I'd be very happy if this changed in the next few years, but sadly I think you are overoptimistic. And you're -still- firmly stuck in the future rather than talking what is actually available NOW.

The Aptera is "estimated" octobre 2008. I don't believe that for a second. Oh sure, they may have a prototype or a small pre-test run done by then. But I'd be willing to bet that by januar 1st 2009, less than 1000 Apteras will exist. Which means for practical ACTUAL people wanting to buy ACTUAL cars (not look at pictures of ones available "real soon now") it is not AVAILABLE.

VentureOne doesn't even have a prototype for the ones they CLAIM to PLAN to start selling in 2009. They do have a "Carver" which they say illustrates the principles they will use in the production-vehicles. In any case, these are NOT AVAILABLE today.

MiEV has -announced- that they "will" begin selling electric Colts in Japan in 2010.

These are all future -MAYBES- not cars available to normal car-buyers TODAY.

Same goes for RV-parks with recharge-options. I agree with you those would be superior to gas-stations IF THEY EXISTED. Today they empathically does NOT actually exist. For that matter, gas-stations are ALSO not currently equipped to actually recharge electric vehicles, certainly not rapidly.

When you say "modern EV batteries" you mean such that PERHAPS will BECOME available to the normal consumers in the next few years. Not such as are ACTUALLY installed in ACTUAL available EVs, no ?

Oh, and it's a lot easier AVOIDING running out of gas when I've got 700km range than it is to avoid running out of electricity when I've got 100km range, you know ? Also, the one time I -did- run out of gas this far in my life, I simply bought a gallon from the a passing car. They all have it you know, and it's REALLY not rocket-science to hand-pump a gallon from one car to another.
Yes, this assumes you've got the equipment, which most don't because they never run out of gas anyway. The "equipment" costs all of $2 though and takes no space at all.

I also wonder how many miles I get out of a 100mile vehicle if 10 of those miles consist of climbing 4000 feet. My guess is, a lot less. Having to stop after 2 hours of driving, and recharging for 10 minutes, is one thing. Having to stop after half an hour of climbing and recharge for 10 minutes is another. (4-times average consumption actually sounds low to me, these are hairpins which mean in addition to the climb you've got constant speed-alterations accelerating out of every curve)

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

Okay. So I was rude. I apologize. It's just I've had one-too-many head-in-sky people that fail to cleanly separate dreaming from reality.

No problem; we all get like that some time.

My base claim is that when people overwhelmingly DONT buy EVs today, it is because those actually available TODAY are grossly inferior to comparable IC-vehicles, and NOT because people have much resistance to the concept as such.

I'll agree with you; today, the selection today is pretty bad -- mostly lead-acid powered NEVs. But there's a whole slew of quite reasonable EVs coming out in the next couple years, a number of them from major manufacturers and a number from startups.

The Aptera is "estimated" octobre 2008. I don't believe that for a second. Oh sure, they may have a prototype or a small pre-test run done by then. But I'd be willing to bet that by januar 1st 2009, less than 1000 Apteras will exist.

I'd be willing to bet that on January 1st, less than a hundred exist. Perhaps less than 20. Their target is to produce and sell 2500 by the end of '09, but even that can be misleading, as production always runs slower in the beginning.

VentureOne doesn't even have a prototype for the ones they CLAIM to PLAN to start selling in 2009. They do have a "Carver" which they say illustrates the principles they will use in the production-vehicles. In any case, these are NOT AVAILABLE today.

True. Of the ones I mentioned, the VentureOne is the least developed.

MiEV has -announced- that they "will" begin selling electric Colts in Japan in 2010.

First off, MiEV is not a company; it's a family of vehicles made by Mitsubishi. Most notably, the i MiEV, which a lot of people simply refer to as the MiEV because it's the only one with definite sales plans. The MiEV's release date has been moved forward by Mitsubishi; it was initially scheduled for an '10 release, but due to popular demand, they moved it up to '08. They already have low volume production going. Now, that's for Japan, and they're starting out with fleet leases only. They do, however, plan to market the car internationally, and it was shown in the New York Auto Show this year, so it looks like they plan to bring it to the US. Until then, the only way to get one will be to custom import it from Japan.

Same goes for RV-parks with recharge-options. I agree with you those would be superior to gas-stations IF THEY EXISTED. Today they empathically does NOT actually exist.

RV parks with 50 amp outlets most certainly do exist. I guess you've never used an RV. There are two standard RV outlets -- the older 30A/120V, and the newer 50A/120V split phase (two 120V circuits -- effectively 240V when combined). The 50A outlets are pretty similar to what comes into your home, while the 30A ones are basically a double amperage wall outlet. Both are all over the country. They emphatically DO exist. And that's 12kW, which for an Aptera is about a 55 minute charge (50A * 117V * 2 circuits = 11700W; 10kW pack * 1000W/kw / 0.93 charging efficiency / 11700W = 0.91 hours = 55 minutes. Of course, it slows down at the very end, but the odds of having a *completely dead* battery are quite low.).

The only obstacle is that, since this is an usual request for an RV park at this point in time, you'd either need to call ahead and see if they'll cut you some slack and let you pay a reduced fee for one hour of lot usage, or pay the full overnight fee (typically ~$25 or so). If EVs and PHEVs become more common (and GM alone is planning to make 10k Volts per year, just ignoring all of the other models coming out), they'll almost certainly come up with rates for EV charging use; it'd be throwing away money not to. The big RV park chains could probably be persuaded to do that without much effort.

By the way -- if this isn't your cup of tea, and you'd rather wait until there's better national infrastructure, there are two additional options. One is a PHEV, like the Volt or the

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

Oh, missed something. Re, the Aptera:

Oh sure, they may have a prototype or a small pre-test run done by then.

The Mk0 prototype has been done since March of 2007, and the Mk1 pre-production prototype since September of 2007. That's what you see tooling around in all of the YouTube videos. Check out the Popular Mechanics one; it's one of the more thorough vids. The guided tour is another good one. And they don't just take it for quick runs around the block. Over on the forum, people have been watching it pretty closely, and the car sure has been getting around. There are lots of places the Aptera has been photographed on the far side of LA, for example, almost a hundred miles away from Carlsbad (where their old place is; not sure where the new factory is).

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

Just noticed:

A perfectly normal modern diesel does 30%. More radical designs (still ones on the market TODAY) like hybrid diesels can do 45%.

If you had read the page I linked, you would have realized that the efficiency of the engine is not the tank to wheel efficiency. Gasoline drivetrains have a lot of internal losses. Diesel engines are more efficient than gasoline engines, no doubt about that, but they still suffer from the same sort of internal losses. Also, diesels are heavier, so the extra weight is the equivalent of adding in more batteries.

Ref for your 45% number? Even the monster low-speed diesels used to run series hybrid drives on huge ships only approach 50%.

If you compare cars that come in both diesel and gasoline versions, the diesels generally get about 40% more range. But 15% of that range boost is directly attributable to the higher energy content of diesel fuel. It's not really as huge of a difference as a lot of people like to pretend it is. I really doubt a diesel comparison would ultimately favor ICEs that much more, if at all.

Lastly, we're comparing to what people in the US are used to: *normal gasoline cars*. Sure, if you wanted to bias the comparison in favor of gasoline, you could easily blow batteries away. You could use as small of an ICE as possible, one that can barely get you over a hill, and put a huge gas tank. there's no way batteries could win. But that comparison would be worthless.

And there is no reason to assume that batteries will shortly more than double in performance whereas internal combustion based vehicles will make no progress whatsoever.

Show me links to articles where even in the lab there are ICE techs approaching anything close to the dozen+ radical battery improvement techs currently in the lab; I'd be interested. The best I've ever run into is one tech that would make gasoline engines approach diesel engines in efficiency by burning it in a compression-ignition cycle, like diesel engines burn diesel. Of course, that still makes the engine heavier, like a diesel. Some techs now working toward commercialization to allow for high power in a world of rising CAFE standards, like cylinder deactivation, improve gasoline engine mileage while retaining power by deactivating cylinders when the torque isn't needed. But fuel economy-wise, that's just equivalent to just putting in a weaker engine to start with.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

Boy, I've heard some ridiculous oil industry conspiracy theories, but this takes the cake:

I'm halfway convinced the mindless reaction against nuclear power is secretly funded by the oil companies. Nuclear reactors are safer, cheaper, and *produce less radiation than coal power plants*.

The oil industry *doesn't earn a dime from coal power*. Furthermore, only a very small fraction of oil is used to generate electricity. Cheap nuclear power would actually be *boon* to the oil industry, because it could potentially generate cheap hydrogen (for cracking) and cheap steam (for recovery of heavy oil deposits) without raising their CO2 emissions. With increasing use of very heavy oil deposits (including non-traditional sources, like bitumen and kerogen), and increasing calls for cap and trade, that's all the more important for them.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[ShakaUVM]

>>The oil industry *doesn't earn a dime from coal power*.

No, but the oil industry is threatened by the coal industry. If nuclear replaced coal, then the price of coal would plumment, making oil liquefication extremely cheap.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Rei]

A) Making a *feedstock* incredibly cheap. And they're supposed to dislike cheap feedstocks why? US oil companies, which are increasingly being shut out of other countries' domestic oil supplies, would hate to have their own sources why?

B) Coal is *already* cheap. Powder River basin coal costs $5-$15 per *short ton*. That's a thirtieth the price of oil per joule. The main cost of coal liquefaction is capital costs, not the marginal costs.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Nos.]

Hydrogen could be generated at the powerstation and transported or pumped to more local distribution points. That gives it a head start on batteries right there, since to charge the batteries, you've dealing with a ~7% loss just getting the electricity from the facility to your home.

I'm not sure how the numbers work out in the end, but there are some other advantages to hydrogen over electric vehicles. Neither solution is perfect, but don't dismiss hydrogen so quickly.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[Eivind]

I'll agree with you; today, the selection today is pretty bad -- mostly lead-acid powered NEVs. But there's a whole slew of quite reasonable EVs coming out in the next couple years, a number of them from major manufacturers and a number from startups.

I suspected as much: we basically agree on todays situation. You're more hopeful than I am about the near-future, but this is a point where I'd LOVE to be wrong. I'm kinda pessimistic, I consider it likely that by 2015, EVs will still be grossly inferior to ICs. Perhaps hybrid ICs like the Prius, but nevertheless vehicles that ultimately store the majority of their energy as burnable fluids (or perhaps also gas).

RV parks with 50 amp outlets most certainly do exist. I guess you've never used an RV.

You guess wrong. But it appears this is an area where North America differ hugely from Scandinavia. RV-parks would be impractical for recharging here, because most are at scenic, calm places, which tend to mean AWAY from major troughfares. Oftentimes just a few miles of the mainroad, but nevertheless impractical for a short stop.

We do however have tons and tons of "Rasteplass", http://www.vevring.no/images/Rasteplass.jpg http://4murmansk.files.wordpress.com/2007/07/rasteplass11.jpg and similar. Facilities vary, but they generally all have atleast ample parking, tables and benches (for having a meal) and toilets. Many also have a kiosk or restaurant selling food and various other stuff of use to travelers or a place to play for children. Equipping these with rechargers would be feasible and practical. People -already- stop at these to have a break.

RV-outlets are typically 240V (like all our outlets) 10A or 16A here. So you can get only 2-3 KW, which mean that they'd need to be upgraded anyway, at 3KW you need 4 hours to charge 12Kwh... Just out of curiosity, what precisely do American RVs manage to use over 10KW for ? Are they electrically heated and used in the winther or something ? That's more power than I use for my entire -house-

I've never even heard of stranded people siphoning gas from a passing motorist. Who happened to carry the tube around with them? Or even stranger, a full gas can in their trunk?

Hardly anyone does -- because it's exceedingly rare to run out of gas. It's easy and cheap though. The best equipment is simply a 6-feet hose with a rubber-bladder on the middle with valves that force the fluid to go only one way. You put one end in each tank and repeatedly squeeze the bladder.

This sucks for large amounts, but a gallon is easily done in a minute or two. No big deal. I happen to have one because I use it for other purposes, but if running out of gas was a major problem, everyone would have them. They're only like $3 afterall, and take nearly no space at all. (6 feet of 0.5 inch tube, with a bladder on the middle)

4000 feet is 1219.2 meters. U=mgH. Fully loaded Aptera (including passengers and such), about 900kg. 900*9.81*1219.2 = 10.76MJ = just under 3 kilowatt hours. Call it 3kW even after motor losses.

EVs aren't magically 100% efficient though. Yes they're -much- better than ICs. But still, you can't charge a battery with 1KW and expect to get 1KW back out. Some is lost as heat. Same goes for motor and drivetrain (even if the latter can be much simplified) Same goes for generators. A generator fed 1KW worth of input does not infact produce 1KW worth of output. The losses add up. You do get -some- of the energy back. But not to the point where you can assume you essentially get it -all- back.

Hairpins mean regenerative braking, then accelerating.

Yes. So it means repeatedly converting 85% of the kinetic energy into chemical energy stored in the battery, and then converting 90% or so of THAT energy back into kinetic energy. Roundtrip losses around 25% or so. A 1000kg vehicle slowing down from 20m/s to 5m/s

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[drinkypoo]

And liquid hydrocarbons will outstrip the energy density of that! I think the solution is in figuring out how to synthesize those liquid hydrocarbons, rather than trying to replace them.

I don't really see the point. Even the USDOE says that we can make cost-effective biodiesel from algae long before now (when diesel hit US$3/gal in the states.) Plants make their own solar panels. Biodiesel can be used basically everywhere.

Batteries, however, are probably going to continue to be useful for a long time.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[mrchaotica]

Well, when I said "synthesize" I was including biological processes such as algae. I mainly used that word as a hedge against the people who complain about biodiesel because they fear it would displace food production.

Re:i couldn't have said it better myself

[LionMage]

The incident you cite was an experimental pebble bed reactor, and the fault was that one of the spherical fuel pebbles got stuck in the pipe used to feed the fuel into the reactor. The release of radiation from this incident was due to operator error (when the operator attempted to dislodge the stuck pebble). Just because you've provided one counter-example of the safety of pebble bed reactors doesn't mean that pebble bed reactors are in general a bad idea! And, it still remains that pebble bed reactors are far safer than most other commercial nuclear designs.

The claims that you can "walk away from" any particular design and have it shut itself down safely are just industry hype, but it doesn't follow that pebble bed reactors a bad idea.

CLUELESS POST

[InvisblePinkUnicorn]

I can't believe such clueless posts get modded informative/insightful. IT'S VERY SIMPLE: food crop farmers are now being offered more money for non-food (cellulose) crops, because of government subsidation (ie, manipulation of the economy). So, because they need to make a living, they are switching over their food crops to cellulose crops. So less food is produced.

Nowhere did I say cellulose = food or that cellulose crops could be used for food.

Complete idiot.

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[geekoid]

really, and what happens to cornstalks now? why they get put back into the soil so the can help grow next years crop.

You would need a yard many square miles to get enough energy to run 1 car.

You need farmland to grow plants for this, which means less food grown.

There is NOT enough cellulose matter, not even close.

Converting all are land to bio-fuels would meat about 10% of are fuel needs.

Learn to think.
Idiot.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[UnanimousCoward]

How are your emissions?

I've been putting used motor oil, hydraulic fluid, transmission fluid, gasoline, solvents, and misc. oils in my truck's tank for years now.

Destroy This Technology!

[rocketPack]

Burning hydrocarbons is not the future! It's the past, present, and the whole reason we're in this mess!

What would happen to fuel consumption if gas dropped to $1/gallon? Everyone would consume more, and all the years worth of effort to get people to buy economical cars, avoid wasting fuel, and to think more green would be wasted.

We DO NOT NEED CHEAPER GASOLINE! We need to get rid of it entirely. Zero emissions is the ONLY way forward, and as long as gasoline is economically viable people will continue to burn it and destroy the environment.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[hardburn]

Hydrocarbons are fine if you're creating them from carbon that was already in the atmosphere and just burning them again. Nature's own carbon sinks (oceanic algae, mostly) will catch up and then we're back where we started.

We've got an awful lot of technology and infrastructure that already works with hydrocarbons, and there's no sense throwing it away if we don't have to. Producing gas on Fischer-Tropsch out of biomass is only evil if you're the type of environmentalist that is mostly concerned with bringing down corporations rather than coming up with real solutions.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[Nonillion]

I call BULLSHIT on this. It wouldn't matter if gas was $.01 or $10.00 @ gallon, I still have to drive to work, shop and do several other chores. I don't drive any more or less then when I was able to buy gas for $.89 @ gallon. The only difference is that it just costs me much more to do said chores.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[aXis100]

I dont see your problem. Burning enthanol from cellulose sources is a closed cycle - even if it's 10c a gallon, consumption is matched exactly by plant material production, which is a sustainable and carbon neutral activity.

There's also pleny of arguments to say that using renewable hydrocarbons as a transportable fuel has many benefits compared to toxic battery chemistry too.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[qweqwe321]

I call BULLSHIT on this. It wouldn't matter if gas was $.01 or $10.00 @ gallon, I still have to drive to work, shop and do several other chores. I don't drive any more or less then when I was able to buy gas for $.89 @ gallon. The only difference is that it just costs me much more to do said chores. No surprise there. A half-century of enormous highway subsidies has made America more dependent on the automobile than anyone else. It's critically important to break that dependency by improving mass transit and densifying our cities so we aren't dependent on the Middle East's whims.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[Duradin]

"Densifying"? What we need is to provoke Iran into wiping out a bunch of our major cities. We don't need the urban cancer spreading further than it already is.

It's those damned city folk that are trying to get four wheel drive vehicles banned in my state except for ag uses. The vast majority of the state suffers from this thing called "winter" and has to deal with "snow". Something the city slickers are only aware of as something big orange trucks pick up and haul away.

Long before the paved highways were put in the population was overall rather sparsely populated. Cities weren't the norm.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[rantingkitten]

Perhaps, but that's rather beside the point, and such a massive undertaking I can't even wrap my head around it. Combine this with the uncomfortable notion of telling people where they can and can't live and you see it isn't as simple as just redesigning our cities, though I do agree that urban sprawl is a hideous problem and something should be done. But that's something of a seperate issue.

Unlike many other things, gasoline is not generally an elastic good. Meaning that demand for it will always remain more or less unrelated to cost, because for the majority of people it isn't something they can easily choose to do without. Sure, you could cut down on pointless weekend drives, I suppose, but by and large, people still need to get to work, go to the store, visit your friends. For these things, most people need cars, and they can't just go "Well, gas is too expensive, so I will decrease my demand for it by not going to work."

So that's all the original poster was saying, really. Gasoline price -- at least to the general car-driving public -- is only barely affected by supply and demand.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[rocketPack]

It wouldn't matter if gas was $.01 or $10.00 @ gallon, I still have to drive to work, shop and do several other chores.

...and zero emissions vehicles are unsuitable for these purposes becauseeeeee........? How come people in Europe can manage with gas that's two to three times more expensive than ours? You're just moaning. Accept that change is on the horizon - dinosaurs who think that they need gasoline to preserve their pristine suburban lifestyle are on their way out just like the RIAA!

It's all about FORCING people to change. Make sure you read my entire post. People wont switch from gasoline as long as its economically viable. +4 insightful? Should be +4 doesn't read between the lines.

Re:Destroy This Technology!

[rocketPack]

It's not just about carbon! There are other problems with these reactions that produce pollutants besides CO2, which might not otherwise exist - like NOx (which are very harmful free radicals). The carbon may be the same, but you're still changing the composition of the elements in the atmosphere. I'd rather have 1billion tons of N2 than a billion tons of NOx.

I agree battery chemistry is not perfected, but the potential to develop better batteries and even battery-free technology exists. Burning hydrocarbons is inherently wasteful, inefficient and harmful. How? It's all about secondary pollution.

Secondary pollution is a major problem. Have you thought about what it takes to produce bio fuels? Food! Food has to be grown in crops, which usually involve diversion of water, pollution from fertilizers, and consumption of fuels to plant, maintain, harvest, and distribute crops. All of this causes secondary pollution, as well as additional fuel consumption. That adds up to inefficient and harmful. While the primary burning of hydrocarbons may appear acceptable for the time being, few people take the time to think past the obvious.

Hyberole and empty "hope" vs. physical reality

[FredThompson]

"In sight"? Hardly. The only way to make gasoline is to distill hydrocarbons. As usual, the hyperbole of the title obscures the actual article. $2/gallon combustible organic fuel which is very inefficient compared to gasoline is the real situation. "Hope" of reaching $1/gallon and 100% efficiency is just empty hope

As long as it's ethanol, it's going to be monstrously expensive to transport. Ethanol is, essentially, a food product which rots.

If this process can help make with turning coal and other high-carbon materials into actual gasoline, it might be interesting.

However, do not underestimate the physical space and cost to build new fuel processing factories. No matter what, the world's energy needs will increase.

The goals should be to focus on the most effective methods of converting physical substance into harnessed energy, not the fantasy of "clean" energy. Think of all the people who bought or promote electric vehicles claiming they are "clean". That idea is beyond stupid. The energy has to be created somewhere then distributed. All distribution systems have loss. They might be "cleaner" at the point of use but they are not gross clean.

The cleanest energy would be something like wind or water power. They're not efficient and they can't power wheeled vehicles sufficiently. That leaves the concept of combustion in some form. Little pebble reactors in vehicles? Forget it. That leaves the process of a controlled burn. What is the best substance to burn considering infrastructure, portability and energy return aspects? Hydrocarbon. That's all there is to it.

Having said that, for static location energy needs like an electric grid, there could be some advantage to biomass conversion or forms of incineration when they are also used as a way to reduce the expense of handling trash. They'll never be as efficient as burning hydrocarbons because it takes energy to turn them into hydrocarbons. Oil and coal are the closest forms to carbon which are viable fuel sources for combustion.

Re:Hyberole and empty "hope" vs. physical reality

[Keybounce]

The goals should be to focus on the most effective methods of converting physical substance into harnessed energy, not the fantasy of "clean" energy. Think of all the people who bought or promote electric vehicles claiming they are "clean". That idea is beyond stupid. The energy has to be created somewhere then distributed. All distribution systems have loss. They might be "cleaner" at the point of use but they are not gross clean.

The cleanest energy would be something like wind or water power. They're not efficient and they can't power wheeled vehicles sufficiently. That leaves the concept of combustion in some form. Little pebble reactors in vehicles? Forget it. That leaves the process of a controlled burn. What is the best substance to burn considering infrastructure, portability and energy return aspects? Hydrocarbon. That's all there is to it. Alright, so your reasonable post says that you either burn hydrocarbon in your car, or produce energy elsewhere, transport it to the car, and store it there. Battery powered versus combustion powered. (Side note: I hate the term "Electric vehicle". Most are really Battery assisted gas powered vehicles; some are battery powered, recharged by electic plug.)

The question to ask is: What's better for the environment -- lots and lots of small scale combustion engines that have no choice but to burn hydrocarbons, or a battery that takes energy from the electric grid in whatever form the electric grid wants to use -- wind, water, solar, etc.

Yes, there's transmission loss. But it doesn't have to be hydrocarbon burn. And if it is, it can be a large scale operation, that operates at better efficiencies / less waste.

Years and years ago, instead of batteries, sci fi books talked about putting a flywheel into cars to store energy when you hit the brakes. Today we've got batteries that do it. For hybrids, that's all that has changed, and for true electrics, the old engine is gone.

I don't want an electric because it's "clean". I want one because it's "cleaner" and "cheaper".

Re:Hyberole and empty "hope" vs. physical reality

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as it's ethanol, it's going to be monstrously expensive to transport. Ethanol is, essentially, a food product which rots.

Don't be stupid, I've had ethanol sitting in plastic bottles for 30 years without measurable decline. Pure ethanol is a very effective sterilant - that's why they use it before injections.

Re:Hyberole and empty "hope" vs. physical reality

[FredThompson]

Stupid Slashdot ate my post. It lets you type then log in at which point your composition is lost. Grrrr....

Combustion is creating expansive gas (pneumatic power) which is then turned into locomation.

Electrical power cannot provide an equivalent torque.

Electrical loss over copper and aluminum is very significant.

You can't just "plug in" to "the grid" to get power. The electricity must be created, transported and sold. There is no infrastructure to support this.

Electrical power cannot provide sufficient torque for vehicles. It's fine for golf carts on fairly level terrain but it won't move trucks over mountains.

Torque CAN be created with electricity but it's very, very inefficient. Explosively-created expansive gas is far more efficient.

Electricity cannot be transported and consumed as a fuel. The transport mechanisms are not consumed.

Harnessing residual energy in vehicles is an admirable idea as long as there is a net gain. The weight and size of the harnessing systems must be transported which leads to lower fuel efficiency, no matter what the fuel.

Methinks you vastly underestimate the infrastructure required to supply electricity for mobile vehicles, the ability of the carbon-based Earth to handle Western-type emissions (India and China? That's another issue.), the transmission loss of electricity, the transportation challenges of electricity and the ROI.

Bottom line, the most efficient harnessing of energy is using it as close to the creation point as possible. For vehicles, that means combustion to create pneumatic energy. There's really no other alternative.

It won't change much here

[holywarrior21c]

Here in Seoul, Korea, gas price is over $7 a gallon now. and part of that price is tax. tax is about $3 per gallon. and it has risen as the gas price rose to depress gas consumption which did not work. no matter how cheap the gas is i don't care. industry will keep on ripping us out for profit and government will keep taxing whatever goes into the engine. I am sure gas price won't change much even if one can produce it like bottle water. think about it. what an excellent way to tax. what an comodity to squeeze profit out of everyone.

Terra Petra - burying your stable carbon biomass

[filmotheklown]

This is being done/worked on. It's called Terra Petra "Black Earth" and is being developed for use in biomass gasification.

Basically you gassify carbonaceous materials such as wood or other biomass. Instead of allows all the biomass to be consumed in the process, you pull a portion of the charcoal out of the gasification stream and then disc it into the earth. Charcoal, being a fairly stable version of high density carbon will remain in this state for a very long time and in a sense becomes fertilizer for the soil (over time). Charcol is a more stable form of carbon than just raw biomass which will otherwise decay into CO2 as it rots

In fact, in the amazon, this has been going on for 1000s of years and is a way to make otherwise not so great tropical soils fertile.

Gasification combined with Terra Petra has the possibility of not only being carbon neutral, but carbon negative. If you gassify existing biomass (in particular the waste wood and garden clipping stream of most municipal wastes) you start out carbon neutral. The carbon in the waste stream is already destined to either be incinerated or 'mulched' which releases the carbon as CO2 either way.

If during the process of gassifying this biomass stream, you extract a portion of the charcoal that is created, you can then sequester it in the soil. Thus becoming carbon negative to the extent you pull from your gassifier. The trade off is that you have less carbon to convert to CO for use as a producer gas.

Re:"out of anything that grows" ... Don't worry..

[Anonymous Coward]

Just for kicks Let us say the process DOES work as advertised, and they get very close to "100%" efficiency...

First, is that $1.00/gallon cost to end user or cost of production?

People are now being conditioned to accept $4.00/gallon fuel.

Do you REALLYreally think that all or even most of the more or less $3.00 difference will be passed through to the end user? Even if the producers of this fuel are complete altruists, there are plenty of taxing "authorities" who will be salivating like Pavlov (after he was bitten by one of his famous Dogs (which proved to be Rabid... )) over the opportunity to cash in on the delta between cost of production and what the market will bear.

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[N1ck0]

Brazil and Argentina have a lot of good farm land...I wonder if we might go looking for WMDs there now.

Incinerator

[CustomDesigned]

Here in Fairfax, VA we have an incinerator. It burns the trash to make electricity, and separates out glass and metals for resale, and traps and separates gases in the exhaust for resale. All the separation is run by its own electricity - and it sells the excess of that also. It is a highly successful installation. They are digging up landfills for more trash to feed it.

The only drawback is that the landfills are being refilled with ash, and eventually will run out of room again.

Re:Incinerator

[lorenlal]

How bad is the ash? Could it be used (say in fertilizer or household items)?
Or am I a moron for asking?

Re:Incinerator

[CustomDesigned]

Google for "lorton va incinerator", and there are number of articles (most of which require you to pay a scientific journal). They told us that the temperature was high enough to break down nasty stuff like dioxins. That is apparently true, and the exhaust scrubbers are pretty good - but there is lots of ash for researchers to find new nasties in.

priorities

[circletimessquare]

i'm sure the french aristocracy missed their cake too

recognize the obscene costs in human blood and CO2 that stupid noise represents, and it will disgust you, not fire up romantic notions

the american romance with the automobile is self-destruction, nothing more. congratulations on your stupid hobby destroying our country and our world

frankly, fuck you your v8

Re:priorities

[Down8]

I assume zero blood and CO2 will be spent in the use of Nuclear reactors? Oh, wait!

Everything has it's price. Pay or die.*

-bZj

*Death may be the price.

Re: Remember that "Global Warming" thing?

[mforbes]

That $1 per gallon gasoline actually will have no impact on global warming. The carbon in it came from CO2 in the atmosphere to begin with, so returning it to its source is a neutral activity. My question is, if it can be produced that cheaply, can we then further the process with a tax on the final product, and produce solid carbon blocks for sequestration-- thus making the entire deal beneficial to the environment?

Think outside the box

[Buzz_Litebeer]

If this stuff can convert any material, then they should convert weeds. Have the government let them clean out the green vine stuff that stifles forests and stuff in the south, and if they want they can mow my grass for free too, I won't even make them pay me.

Re:Think outside the box

[Big_Breaker]

You are thinking of Kudzu and yes it grows like crazy. I think by weight it is not particularly "woody", IE not that much celluose but lots of water. Most plans for biomass production involve switch grass, poplar, willow or bamboo for dry kg/acre but kudzu is being investigated.

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe he was referring to the subsidizing of corn ethanol since my understanding is that we're just starting to get to efficient cellulosic. He didn't specify corn, but neither did he claim cellulose was food

Burying plants?

[alispguru]

what if we were to grow plants, cut them down, and stick them underground in some salt mines or something?

This is essence what happens to most of the paper that enters most American homes (newsprint, magazines, junk mail) - it gets put out in the trash, and ends up in a landfill, where it gets buried and takes decades to centuries to break down.

So, don't recycle that paper! Put it in a landfill and sequester that carbon!

Re:Burying plants?

[nbritton]

No! Burn the waste paper to power a sterling generator, then you can use this energy, which came directly from the sun, to recycle aluminum and plastics.

Another tip is to couple a wind mill, or turbine, to an air compressor and storage tank. The compressed air can be used to power air tools directly or converted into electricity via a compressed gas turbine generator set.

Re:Burying plants?

[Phat_Tony]

That's great, except that to the extent that it is gradually broken down by bacteria, in a dump, it's done anaerobically, which releases methane gas instead of just carbon dioxide. And methane is 20 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. Dumps emit a whole lot of methane, which more than offsets any carbon sequestration going on there.

World hunger?

[corifornia2]

Fuck world hunger, I want my fuel.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Jeff DeMaagd]

You make a diesel sound like a panacea. It's not. There are clear benefits, but ignoring the negatives doesn't do us any good.

Even the best diesels emit particulates, which aggravates breathing problems. Then you're putting in all sorts of crap that's not really intended to be burned in a diesel engine and might contain additive compounds that might have toxic combustion byproducts, who knows what sort of pollution you're putting out.

Econ 101

[jmorris42]

> So in theory we could be seeing this with $2 or $3 a gallon gas fairly soon...

No. Even assuming that at 50% efficiency they can produce a gallon of fuel for $2 we still need to figure in a profit for the manufacturer, transportation and a profit for the retailer. Now add in taxes at each level, regulations, polution controls, etc. Might squeek in at $4 by the time it hits the pump. Of course in five years there might be a market for a $4/gallon alternative fuel.

If you want to understand the overhead involved look at gas. When oil was selling for $15-25/barrel gas was retailing between $1 and $1.50/gallon. Oil is now selling for >$110/barrel and gas is averaging $3.50/gallon. Kinda gives you an idea how much of the gas you are pumping goes to the terrorists in the middle east and how much is being eaten up in refining, taxes, profit and misc overhead.

Re:Econ 101

[jelle]

Um, so a barrel of crude, unrefined oil, including delivery to Cushing, Oklahoma, is about $110 for 42 gallons. That $110/42=~$2.62 per gallon, and also still needs to be refined, really resulting in less than ~20 gallons of gasoline. Of course there are markets for the remaining ~22 gallons of 'stuff', but that $2/gallon raw cost for this 'cellulosic crude' doesn't look so bad at all at today's oil prices.

So either this stuff is already economically feasible, or current crude oil prices are unsustainable...

Re:Econ 101

[nospam007]

...Of course in five years there might be a market for a $4/gallon alternative fuel....

There seems to be a market this very day, see the photo.
http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/22/gas.prices/index.html

With gas prices at nearly $4/gallon...

[p.amadeus]

Why wait for $1/gallon fuel at 100% efficiency? I'll take $2/gallon fuel at the current 50% efficiency!

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[KKlaus]

But it is still a crop, and therefore competes with foods for the attention of farmers. Since farmers choose what to grow, and can grow non food goods (cotton anyone?) profitable grass growing moves farming away from stuff like wheat, corn, etc and raises their respective prices. So you still have the same problem that you have with corn --> fuel. Stay away from growing stuff for fuel, because land usage usage wise it does a ton of stuff you don't want to do.

Peak Oil coming, yes / no ? What do you think ?

[Anonymous Coward]

will this invention avoid peak oil ?
www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net

or are we headed for a major energy crisis which will last for decades ?
what's the slashdotter opinion on the subject ?

Happy Motoring self-delusion

[Simonetta]

I've been reading a lot of James Howard Kunstler and the Peak-Oil writers lately. They claim that after the half-way point of the consumption of the world's petroleum, the cost of obtaining and distributing the rest will not be worth the benefits from using petroleum-based transportation. In other words, keeping the airlines, the interstate highway system, and the diesel truck based distribution system going is going to be unsystainable within ten years. And biodiesel is no solution because it takes more oil to grow the 'bio' than is returned by using the diesel. The recent 300% increase in the price of rice and food staples in the undeveloped world is a direct result of the biodiesel sham game played by the developed countries.

    So these people claim $1 a gallon gas when their system is running at 100% and it's about 50% efficient now. So is this a linear relationship and they are capable of producing $2 a gallon gas now? Or is their cost presently $10+ a gallon.

    One of the indirect consequences of $120 a barrel oil is the freezing of the financial system. Which means that there isn't going to be capital funding available for the development and conversion of present oil refineries to produce current levels of gasoline and/or other bio auto fuel regardless of whether the process works (and works efficiently). The massive funds needed for the conversion are not going to be available. The trillions of dollars have already been spent on things like the SUV network, the expansion of the subprime suburbs, and the permanent endless war. And the debt from the US federal budget deficits from previous years.

    The money needed for fuel system conversion isn't there to spend anymore. So, we need to face a certain reality and get used to the concept that the 20th century is over and so is the era of Happy Motoring (and most likely, the era of globalization).

  It could get as bad as the 19th century with 64-bit microprocessors. Having advanced electronic, computer, and communication technology is not the same thing as having energy! They aren't related other than the development of advanced electronics and communications was only possible in the era of super-cheap oil. There's a lot of oil still out there, but the energy needed to get it out of shale, or out of a hole that is 100 miles offshore and under a mile of water in hurricane alley is nearly the amount of energy that the oil can provide. So there is no net energy gain that can systain current American lifestyles and future global development. Sad news. Perpare yourself for it. And there are going to be no Mars or Moon colonies, either, despite the grandiose promises of presidents.

    We're going to be doing well if we can keep the electricity running and the food growing.

Re:Happy Motoring self-delusion

[BlackSnake112]

Once the energy is spent getting to the oil 100 miles off shore, the cost of getting the oil to the mainland will not be much higher then the costs it takes for the oil that is 10 miles off shore. Bigger/longer pipes to pipe it in (sorry for the pun). Or A big tanker that is going a short run (when compared to the trip from the middle east). It also isn't 100 miles off shore. More like 10-30. 100 miles off shore in hurricane ally would be off the continental shelf. The ocean basin doesn't contain much oil. No plants died there to make it.

Recycling needs cheap oil

[Simonetta]

Here in Portland Oregon we have manditory garbage recycling. Everybody has to seperate their plastic from the glass from the newspaper and so forth. It's a sham because it requires three times as many garbage trucks to collect the seperate catagories. There's three times as much diesel consumption to run these garbage trucks and three times as much noise pollution in the early-morning hours when they are collecting. The energy saved by the Mickey Mouse recycling schemes is less than the extra energy expended to truck out the seperated garbage to the distant landfills. So what's presented as advanced Green lifestyle is just more brown horseshit designed to make the latte-Volvo bohemenian boozhwah crowd feel good. Sad but true.

Re:Recycling needs cheap oil

[Brickwall]

Well, maybe there's something in the Oregon air that just makes people stupid. Here in Toronto, we have mandatory recycling as well, but only ONE truck is needed to pick up the papers, plastic, and glass - it just has three different compartments. The trashmen put paper in one, plastic in another, and glass in a third. What's so hard about that?

Re:Recycling needs cheap oil

[necro81]

It has actually amazed me that, with the price of diesel being what it is today (and probably will be in the future), that there hasn't been a big push for hybrid garbage trucks. I watch the trucks come by, pick up my trash, rev up the engine, move 50 feet down the road to my neighbor, pick up their trash, etc., etc. With each iteration, they convert diesel (inefficiently) into kinetic energy, then turn it into heat when braking. So much energy wasted just moving things in small increments. Between each increment is a brief period of just sitting still while the trash is collected - during which the truck is idling. It is the very worst of city stop-and-go driving; it just begs for efficiency improvements. If you could incorporate and electric motor into the powertrain, you could do regenerative braking and assisted acceleration.

I know you'd need a really big electric motor and a really big storage bank (batteries, supercapacitors, whatever), and all that adds to the cost of the truck. On the other hand, it could double the fuel economy (not too hard - we're talking about the worst city driving, not highway mileage). That would be tens of dollars saved per day per truck - thousands or tens of thousands of dollars per year.

[When I got done writing this, I searched around to see if such a vehicle exists. As it turns out, this comment is well timed. Volvo will be producing hybrid heavy trucks (including garbage trucks) starting in 2009.]

Re:Recycling needs cheap oil

[MachineShedFred]

Have you ever watched the waste disposal guys? They have one truck for trash, and one for recycling. Yes, I live in Portland - inner southeast. I used to live out in incorporated Washington County, where it's even better. You don't even have to separate it - you chuck ALL your recycling into one big ass bin, and they haul it away.

Re:Recycling needs cheap oil

[Damvan]

What the hell do you right wingers have against Volvos? Everytime one of you feels the need to insult a liberal, "Volvo-driving" almost always comes up. And for the life of me, I don't understand why. I can understand a Prius, but a Volvo? It is just a nice, European sedan, no different than a BMW or Audi, so why pick on it?

Most Volvos I see have "McCain" stickers on them anyway.

- Tired of Volvo haters...drive a S60.

Re:Recycling needs cheap oil

[Skjellifetti]

Efficiency can be taken to extremes. Driving around rural Norway years ago, I saw a garbage truck that was also a rural passenger bus service. The trashmen put the paper in one compartment, plastic in another, glass in a third, and the passengers in a fourth...

Re:Recycling needs cheap oil

[BlackSnake112]

A few of the the trash trucks by me drive very slowly, but do not stop. They also have 4 guys walking/running picking up the trash cans. Most people have the big trash can from the trash company. Some have that can plus a few regular 30 gallon size cans. Watching the whole process is amusing and makes sense at the same time.

Mobil process

[Anonymous Coward]

Cellulose can be gasified; forming syngas (hydrogen + carbon monoxide). A copper catalyst will convert syngas to methanol, and a ZSM-5 catalyst will convert the methanol to gasoline (Mobil process). It sounds like this guy has combined these two steps into one; converting syngas directly into gasoline.

The Mobil process produces highly aromatic gasoline; with a lot of carcinogenic benzene in it. If this new process does the same, it's not much use.

Oh, and South Africa has been turning coal into synthetic diesel fuel for many years now (Fischer-Tropsch process). Cellulose could be used instead of coal -- why isn't the US doing this?

What they don't tell us...

[Anonymous Freak]

They do tell us that the $1.00/gal is based on 100% efficiency, and that right now we're only at 50% efficiency.

What they don't tell us is that at 50% efficiency, it will cost $10.00 per gallon, and even at 98% efficiency, it will be $5.00 a gallon. It's that last 2% that's a killer.

(Yes, this post is a joke.)

carpooling is better, you don't need anything new

[TexasGuitar]

Ok you want gas at $1.75? How about under $1? Try carpooling. RideSearch just released their calculators. http://www.free-press-release.com/news/200804/1208904138.html/

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

Cellulose is what food eats...

Yield != efficiency

[goombah99]

title says it all

Re:Yield != efficiency

[electrictroy]

Here's a quick way to reduce consumer consumption by one-third:

- Get everyone to drive 88 mpg VW Lupo 3L's. There's enough room to carry a family of 3, plus groceries or soccer equipment. (Or a 70mpg Honda Insight; perfect commuter vehicle.)

But no, instead people keep driving their 20mpg Ford Living Rooms.

Re:Yield != efficiency

[Ogive17]

An easier way to reduce consumption is to just carpool.

Re:Yield != efficiency

[jhanderson]

My old sub-20 mpg vehicle is paid for. It isn't cost effective for me to buy a vehicle that gets 70/80 mpg yet. The higher gas prices go, the more cost effective it would be, but even then it would probably be more cost effective to buy (pay cash for) an older model Civic (or similar) that gets 30/40.

All that to say that I won't drive a VW Lupo or a Honda Insight because they are absolutely atrocious.

Re:Yield != efficiency

[Anonymous Coward]

20 mpg?? I wish. For my 64 Impala, maybe with a strong tail wind while hydroplaning.

Re:Yield != efficiency

[djones101]

Ok, you go find us some manufacturers that are STILL making these cars. Lupo was canceled in 2005, Insight in 2006. The 3L version of the Lupo had 78 mpg, not 88, and ran on diesel, which is far more expensive than even premium. The eventual replacement, the Fox, is not available in the US. The Insight was a 2-seater that did get 70 mpg, but was replaced by the 4-seater Civic, which only gets 40 mpg.

If you insist on giving recommendations, at least go with cars that are still in production and available to a wide audience. Toyota Prius would be a good start, but certainly not the only option.

Re:Yield != efficiency

[operagost]

For one, the Insight only gets 66 MPG at best... for another, the insight only carries TWO people. Finally, the Lupo is a diesel vehicle. Diesel is already over $4/gallon in the USA, and if everyone drives Lupos it will skyrocket due to demands and the hard limits on diesel production due to cracking methods used at North American refineries. If diesel demand were to change, refineries could change also but there would be a very painful period lasting years (definition of painful: fuel would be so expensive that people would quit their jobs and go on welfare because the cost for commuting exceeded their income).

Re:Yield != efficiency

[manifoldronin]

- Get everyone to drive 88 mpg VW Lupo 3L's. There's enough room to carry a family of 3, plus groceries or soccer equipment. (Or a 70mpg Honda Insight; perfect commuter vehicle.) Oh yeah? Why don't you show us how you would put your 3-year old into her baby seat mounted on the back seat of a VW Lupo 3L, a two-door vehicle? And _then_ try and put in all 6-8 paper bags of groceries? Or the large packages from Costco?

If you don't have to deal with at least 6 large paper bags of groceries every week, either you don't have a family of 3, or you don't cook yourself. In the later case please think about how much environmental damage you are causing by eating at restaurants.

Some of us drive Ford Living Room for a reason - and it's certainly not "I have more money than I know what to do with so I'm gonna just burn it on gas."

Re:Yield != efficiency

[Lord Apathy]

Better idea. Just raise the speed limit to 90 mph. Once your average driver starts doing that the survivability of your average accident drops to about zero. After about a month the bodies will stack up like cord wood, the roads will be more free because less people are driving. Thus the consumption of gasoline drops so the environment is cleaner too. With so many less cars on the road the wildlife will benefit, fewer dead critters beside the road. Plus.. the surplus population gets decreased and it will be the good kind of decrease. People stupid enough to drive 90 fucking mph in the first place and those dumb enough to get on the road with them.

Yes, I'm joking..... I think...

Re:Yield != efficiency

[2names]

Thank you for your post. My spouse and I have 3 kids which makes a small car out of the question. When we all must travel together, I take my Suburban. I try to use E85 as often as possible for many reasons. However, the car I drive back and forth to work is a 1997 Geo Metro in which I get 44 miles per gallon. I gave $300 for the car and spent another ~$500 getting it road ready. The fuel savings each 2 month period (I have a lengthy commute - don't ask...) exceeds the price I paid for the car and the insurance required by "State Law" (I swear to God).

In short, I am doing my part to decrease the amount of fuel I consume, but each person can only do so much. If a solar/wind/other renewable - and affordable - solution was available to me I would use it.

Re:Yield != efficiency

[electrictroy]

>>>"The 3L version of the Lupo had 78 mpg, not 88"

Incorrect. 78 is the combined mpg; but I was quoting the Highway mpg of 88, because that is what most people use for comparison (70mpg insight on the highway; 51mpg Civic on the highway; 36 mpg Ford Escape Hybrid on the highway).

Re:Yield != efficiency

[electrictroy]

>>>"Some of us drive Ford Living Room for a reason"

Yay for you. But you could have bought a nice hatchback Prius or Jetta TDI that did the same job with approximately Twice as many MPG.

(IMHO people driving cars below 30 mpg should be required to pay a pollution tax, to cover the extra costs of cleaning the crap out of the air, so I can BREATHE instead of suffer asthma attacks.)

Re:Yield != efficiency

[electrictroy]

Or do both (carpool with three or four of your buds, AND drive an 88mpg car).

Re:Yield != efficiency

[manifoldronin]

Yay for you. But you could have bought a nice hatchback Prius or Jetta TDI that did the same job with approximately Twice as many MPG.

The same job? I don't think so. First of all, the backseats are exactly two seats wide, not 2.5-2.7 in the larger vehicles. It's less safe to mount a car seat on one of the back seats than in the middle, because if the car is t-boned, on that side there is less room to absorb the impact. Secondly, again, please try and fit 6 paper bags of groceries, or the large packs from Costco, or the often oddly shaped parts (poles, pipes, etc.) from Home Depot, into the back of a Prius, then come back and tell me honestly that it does "the same job".

(IMHO people driving cars below 30 mpg should be required to pay a pollution tax, to cover the extra costs of cleaning the crap out of the air, so I can BREATHE instead of suffer asthma attacks.)

Believe it or not, I actually agree with you. Some people choose to drive bigger vehicles, and they do cause more pollution, so it's not unreasonable to ask them (including myself) to pay extra for that - provided the amount of taxes isn't unreasonable to the point of practically forbidding it.

On the other hand, though, I'm vehemently against anybody trying to impose any sort of "universal vehicle standard" on me, from either a legal or a moral high ground. Do you ever choose to do anything in your life that other people don't do, and costs something in the environment or whatever other community resources? How would you like to just stop doing it?

Re:Yield != efficiency

[default luser]

(IMHO people driving cars below 30 mpg should be required to pay a pollution tax, to cover the extra costs of cleaning the crap out of the air, so I can BREATHE instead of suffer asthma attacks.)

They do, they're called gas taxes. Drivers pay tax on exactly how much gas they use (and thus, how much they pollute). If you have a more efficient car, you pay less gas tax.

While the taxes do not go directly to cleaning up pollution, they do go toward paying for transportation. This would otherwise come out of the general fund (i.e. everyone paying equally) if they didn't impose gas taxes. Thus, indirectly, these drivers do pay for their pollution, even if pollution cleanup come out of the general fund.

And that's not even getting into tax deductions/credits for hybrids/electrics, which indirectly increase the tax burden for the owners of less efficient vehicles. That money has to come from somewhere, so they increase income/sales taxes to cover the credits, and pass on the "savings" to those who have more efficient vehicles.

Face it, there's already a whole infarstructure to extract additional taxes from owners of inefficient vehicles.

Re:Yield != efficiency

[Ogive17]

While that would be ideal.. I don't think there are any cars available right now that could accomplish that.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[krazytekn0]

Actually most of those things have less emission waste than diesel... He is probably prematurely gunking up his engine. but as far as gaseous waste he's most likely not doing any worse than running straight diesel. I had a diesel volkswagen that would go 40 miles on a gallon of canola... it smelled like french fries.

also of note is the simple fact that diesel engines are so much more efficient than gasoline engines. For comparable power, a diesel engine will push a small car at least twice as far as a gasoline engine. In trucks the difference is not so pronounced because of their larger aerodynamic drag... Not until you get into heavy hauling situations where you're once again fighting the sheer weight of the vehicle much more than the air resistance. Also, diesels have fewer moving parts and typically will run at least 5-10 times as many miles as gasoline engines in similar applications. I've seen a 1991 Dodge D350 with 700,000 miles on it, and it still gets over 20 miles to the gallon.

Recycling SAVES Oil

[Somegeek]

1) The whole point of recycling is to keep from having to drive stuff way out to a landfill. It gets, you know, recycled instead. I believe that Portland has over %50 less waste going into their 'distant landfills' since they have started recycling.

2) If the garbage was not being separated then the one garbage truck would fill up faster and have to make more trips back and forth between the 'distant landfill' and the pickup route.

Think about it. The total amount of garbage didn't magically triple overnight. They didn't suddenly have to purchase and run three times the number of garbage trucks; the existing trucks are just used for different tasks now. I bet the total fuel consumption won't be all that different.

3) Where Portland wastes diesel fuel in the garbage industry is that they have multiple companies serving the same routes which is less efficient than it could be. This would be true whether they are recycling or not.

4) You are seriously underestimating the energy saved by recycling. The energy saved by recycling aluminum cans alone will probably cover all the fuel costs for the whole garbage truck fleet. A can manufacturing industry website states that for every 40 aluminum cans recycled the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline is saved.

http://www.cancentral.com/recFAQ.cfm

Please find something more constructive to bitch about.

Re:Recycling SAVES Oil

[TheLink]

Some countries just collect all the garbage and ship it to China, which then sorts and recycles the trash. And sends it back ;).

Re:Recycling SAVES Oil

[drinkypoo]

The whole point of recycling is to keep from having to drive stuff way out to a landfill. It gets, you know, recycled instead. I believe that Portland has over %50 less waste going into their 'distant landfills' since they have started recycling.

Lots of what you think you're recycling still gets landfilled, it just gets trucked off to a barge and gets shipped to another country before it happens. The energy cost for your coke bottle which has been landfilled in Australia is enormous.

If the garbage was not being separated then the one garbage truck would fill up faster and have to make more trips back and forth between the 'distant landfill' and the pickup route.

More different kinds of trucks means more trips with trucks with less in them, plain and simple.

Think about it. The total amount of garbage didn't magically triple overnight. They didn't suddenly have to purchase and run three times the number of garbage trucks; the existing trucks are just used for different tasks now. I bet the total fuel consumption won't be all that different.

No, you think about it. Formerly one truck followed a given route. Now, three trucks follow the same route.

Where Portland wastes diesel fuel in the garbage industry is that they have multiple companies serving the same routes which is less efficient than it could be. This would be true whether they are recycling or not.

Actually, I have one trash company (in Lake Country, CA) and they run a trash truck, a recycling truck, and a yard waste truck down my road every week.

ou are seriously underestimating the energy saved by recycling. The energy saved by recycling aluminum cans alone will probably cover all the fuel costs for the whole garbage truck fleet. A can manufacturing industry website states that for every 40 aluminum cans recycled the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline is saved.

Yes, and Darth Vader of the Imperial Empire said that under Imperial rule, I could save 20% on my car insurance!

There's basically only a small handful of substances worth recycling; steel, aluminum, and those plastic grocery bags are pretty much at the top of the list. Every other kind of plastic is usually unprofitable to recycle. It takes more energy to recycle glass than to dig up new sand and make new glass, we should recycle glass by breaking it up and dumping it into the middle of the ocean so that we can increase the amount of beach glass produced and jumpstart an arts & crafts industry based on it - at least, it would make more sense than melting it and making glass out of it again. (We had a successful recycling program for glass bottles up until we outlawed refill bottles for "public safety" reasons.)

"A can manufacturing industry website". For fuck's sake. Next thing, you'll be believing that no one has ever been tortured at Gitmo, or that Ford has improved reliability.

Re:Recycling SAVES Oil

[dw604]

IF we keep burning metals won't we run into the same problem as we id with oil? I think bio matter is the way to go.. but then we'll dry up the earth. Oh, bother.

Re:Recycling SAVES Oil

[MachineShedFred]

I think it's more a problem with the original poster not knowing wtf he's talking about.

1. All waste from the Portland Metro area is collected by private contractors, and delivered to Metro (the regional governmental authority). Metro then aggregates it all together, and has a contractor haul it out to Eastern Oregon for landfill deposit.

2. Metro, the Port of Portland, and the Portland Development Commission has been very big into diverting this waste to as many recycling outfits as possible, including trying to attract biomass business to take care of it right here in the area ( http://www.portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=118670251320280000 ) because they don't like hauling all that shit 200 miles east on I-84.

3. Change doesn't happen overnight. Facilities and infrastructure have to be built. Already, the environmental quality here in Portland is night and day different than what it was on the first Earth Day in 1970. You can actually touch the Willamette River without developing an instant tumor. You can see Mt. Hood when it's not raining. Once they are done with the "big pipe" project, the sewer overflow issue will be taken care of. Even as I write this, the city is changing the recycling plan to use rollaway mixed-recycling bins to make things easier, and larger capacity.

Yeah, I think that actually knowing wtf you're talking about is a good place to start.

Re:Recycling SAVES Oil

[junglee_iitk]

Forget about recycling. Most of the trash that is separated is incinerated. No incineration plant can be "just dumped with" whatever garbage you have, since incineration leads to a lot of harmful wastes and slag which is mostly hazardous.

If you send it landfill, it becomes a much bigger problem if you have not separated, with landfill gas and all. All in all, GP was quite wrong.

But I must say, recycling is way over hyped. Our separation technologies are just not good enough to successfully create anything useful. There are pilot plants all over the world (at least developed part of it) and they are not self-sustainable. Especially in USA, landfill is and has been a preferred choice because of availability of vast lands. Compared to Europe, you will meet stronger limits, and incineration becomes the most important way to deal with waste.

The only facet of recycling which is feasible is processing bio waste - not because it is profitable or sustainable, but because bio waste doesn't have good energy value for incineration, and is a PITA for landfill.

Re:Recycling SAVES Oil

[Skjellifetti]

You can see Mt. Hood when it's not raining.

In other words, you still can't see Mt. Hood.

Biking also

[bamwham]

My bike gets 20 miles to the Burrito.

I'm just amazed that gasoline isn't going for 10$ /ga. as it seems people would be willing to pay that (not without a little bit of bitchin').

So if I could make "green" gasoline for any amount less than the current cost of gasoline I'd be selling at a penny less than real gasoline. Or maybe I could get away with adding a 10 percent "saving the planet without making any real changes" charge.

your government is screwing you

[shyberfoptik]

if you can make fuel for $3/gal

It costs less than $3 to make a gallon of gas. You're letting your government tax it up to six and a half? Rebel, now.

saltwater burns

[mngsk]

I can't say this is absolutely true, but looks very promising. Why should we bother about ethanol or any hydrocarbon fuel when we could just use that saltwater?

Re: Remember that "Global Warming" thing?

[SHaFT7]

we will never realize our lifestyle is unsustainable, we're too greedy and selfish, plain and simple. We want what we want now, and damn anyone who gets in our way.

Green Gasoline from living things?

[AmericanGladiator]

It's People!!!!

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

CELLULOSE IS NOT FOOD! So what? If you're using land to grow switchgrass for cellulosic ethanol, you're not using it to grow food. Farmland is fungible.

Leave the food! Chop down the trees!

[LinuxLuver]

I think that ANY sort of "bio-fuel" is merely going to highlight how overly numerous we all are. People have been warning about the dangers of biofuels to food supplies and / or forest for years. The people not hearing these warnings either weren't paying attention yet or they didn't want to know the risks. The former is honest, the latter isn't. "Cellulose" ethanal? From what? Trees? Good-bye forests. Sugar Cane? Good-bye food (again). There really is only one answer: use less fuel in the short term and have fewer people living on Earth in the longer term.

Re:Leave the food! Chop down the trees!

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

The problem that al gore and his fellow nutcases are "missing" is that even if it's not food crops, they still require farmland.

1 full tank of ethanol (55 liters) is enough to feed a human being FOR A YEAR.

So again, not using food crops will *again* make the food problem *worse*, not better. This "solution", while a nice feat of the researchers, is another disaster.

Re:Leave the food! Chop down the trees!

[LinuxLuver]

I agree completely. Biofuels aren't the answer to anything except inquiries into how to make food as expensive as oil and forests into watelands. Gore is sincere and appropriate in being concerned about global warming. Biofuels was just one of the many "solutions" put forward. It had the backing of corporate anxious to make corn for SUVs in stead of cows....and make a LOT more money. But the real answer is lower fuel consumption per capita now and fewer people later.

Re:Leave the food! Chop down the trees!

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Gore is neither sincere nor appropriate unfortunately.

Does he still have his own private jet and 5 cars ? I haven't read anywhere that he dropped them and the press would jump all over itself reporting any such events so al gore is just another "you have to do what I say" politician speaking out of his comfy private jet ordering 5 mercedesses to collect him 10 minutes later. That sort of person should be shunned. I don't like Bush (at all), but I prefer him 100x over Gore.

I'm sorry but making sure people stay alive TAKES PRECEDENCE over anything else. And yes making people stay alive today takes precedence over tomorrow. We should do what we can today, and plan for tomorrow.

And "fewer people later" is the most danguerous of policies that I have ever heard. It sounds like something a nazi would say. Programs like that are bound to not just fail, but to fail with genocides resulting from them. Sorry but any policy in that direction is just not discussable. At all.

And non-existant technologies are out of discussion until they are proven. They can get a research budget, even a big research budget, no problem. But that's all. Solar, wind, ... are out of any short term energy supply plans (that means, btw, 10 years timeframe, and not 10 months)

That leaves our energy supply with exactly 2 options : nuclear (perhaps with a demo thorium plant constructed) and coal. That's it. All other technologies can get a research budget, maybe even a test plant, but nothing more. They can certainly not be phased in in the next 10 years, so let's quit discussing them for at least a year.

Re:Leave the food! Chop down the trees!

[SuiteSisterMary]

If you can do it from 'any plant,' there are tons of fast growing weeds that would help immensely. Kudzu comes to mind.

Re:Leave the food! Chop down the trees!

[LinuxLuver]

I don't expect Gore to mount a global campaign on a bicycle wearing Hush Puppies. If he needs a jet and 5 cars to be effective, I have no issues with that. As for population, I wondered if the reaction to suggesting people have fewer children in the future would be equated to Nazis and genicode and unfortunately, you won that prize. People in wealthy countries are ALREADY having fewer children. If it were not for immigration, populations would already be falling. There is no need to do anything but let nature takes its course. We are already moving to "correct" our own over population. The 30 years of research on this globally show that once people are lifted from abject poverty, they - by choice - limit their productivity and populations bombs stop ticking. No nazis. No genocide. Just happy people with the resources to ensure they two kids they have will survive so they don't have to have 6 to ensure two survive.

Re:Leave the food! Chop down the trees!

[LinuxLuver]

Then any benefit from sequestration is lost and you're just burning carbon. Vast areas would have to be given over to weeds and then industrially harvested. The fuel used to harvest it may equal the energy the area harvested produces. ow many litres of fuel would you need to harvest enough plants to generate just that amount, never mind a surplus? All that could be said for it is that it is renewable. Perhaps pointlessly so if it doesn't produce enough to generate a surplus.

I have no evidence to back this up.

[The Living Fractal]

This sounds like complete bullshit.

Sorry, had to say it.

Yes, I work in the energy industry.

One factor not generally considered ...

[PPH]

...is the cost/complexity of the fuel production process.

Currently, in addition to the problems of a finite resource and CO2 emissions, the petrochemical fuel cycle is a very capital-intensive one. In order to encourage rapid deployment of a new fuel cycle, keeping the costs of production down, by keeping the process simple, will be an important factor.

The cellulosic process has advantages in that it is a bacterial process, followed by simple distillation. The raw materials cost little to aquire. The increased cost of shipping them is less of a factor if smaller processing plants can be set up cheaply near the sources.

The primary advantage of inexpensive processes is that, given market disruptions, it will be relatively simple for new facilities to enter the market. The current petroleum fuel infrastructure is expensive and prone to capacity shortages and manipulation due to the fewer, large suppliers.

The availability of $1/gallon fuel will be as much due to an increase in competition in the supply chain as it will be due to some nifty technology.

Health Costs

[Anonymous Coward]

How much do you think that it would cost to put metered power points into petrol stations so that people could charge their electric cars? What about the health costs directly related to particulate emisions?

It's time you Americans grew up, stopped driving V8s and accepted that burning fuels is not good for the environment or for us.

Anything that grows?

[RamblerRandy]

I couldn't resist.

The posting says that the fuel could be made from "anything that grows". Could that be inorganic crystals too?

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[UnanimousCoward]

LOL. My question was serious, but I now see the humor--color me dense...

Re:Terra Petra - burying your stable carbon biomas

[joib]

It's "Terra Preta", btw.

Fuel is still cheap in the US...

[Sunsetbeach]

This morning i've paid 1.47 Euro per liter.

Thats $9.5 per gallon.

Re:Fuel is still cheap in the US...

[danzona]

Google says that €1.47 = $8.83. But that is still more than double what we pay in the US (I think).

$2 gasoline/diesel

[Fizzl]

I would be perfectly happy for $2 or even â2 for gasoline per gallon. I'm paying more right now for decomposed tyrannosaur-type diesel right now.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Regul8or]

Waste oil heaters are approved by the EPA for burning any of the stuff I put in my fuel tank. Waste oil heaters don't have any special thing that makes them cleaner than running the waste oil through my engine. Also, my engine's combustion chamber fires at far higher temperatures than a waste oil heaters does. I have no doubt my vehicle has higher emissions than a comparable vehicle running straight #2 diesel. However, most waste oil gets burned as fuel anyhow. So, I've done nothing to change what would already be put into the air. I've just utilized it myself and saved thousands of dollars in fuel costs.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Regul8or]

I've been doing this for about 90k miles and I haven't had a single fuel system related component fail. Fuel mileage has been rock steady since I started mixing waste oils in my fuel tank. I do have tougher cold starts when it gets down to less than 15*F.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Regul8or]

I've always passed. Of course, I'll plan to drive to the testing facility with a fuel tank full of as much clean diesel as possible.

Not ethanol but the toxic aromatics we love so

[sappari]

Here's data from the actual research paper: http://www.wiley-vch.de/contents/jc_2476/2008/z800018_s.pdf It shows only a 30% max conversion from cellulose to aromatic compounds. The other 20% is in the form of coke, which would need further processing. Page 2 is a breakdown of aromatic compounds in that 30% mix. Basically, all they need to do is refine the coke (assuming it's fluid coke) and add the aromatics and it's gasoline. The refinement process would be pretty similar to crude refinement processes. Remember that crude only accounts for roughly 50% of the cost of gas. After the cost of cellulose feed, refining, marketing and taxes, I'm sure we'll be paying way more than $1/gal. There's probably a patent on the pyrolysis setup too. However, it can compete directly with crude oil sources which should reduce prices. Just don't expect to see prices from the "good ol' days".

So long and thanks for the CO2

[Chatsubo]

So, turning any biomass into fuel is real good news for those dwindling rainforests, right? We're going from JUST burning food, to burning pretty much everything. Excellent news.

but...

[Anonymous Coward]

We've also already got the infrastructure in place to switch all vehicles over to electricity.

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[tomatensaft]

Sure, cellulose decomposes, but it takes weeks for this process to even begin being noticeable (in normal atmospheric conditions, that is). It doesn't need so many resources to prevent its decomposition.

10% ethanol reduced MPG by 10%

[one_who_uses_unix]

I have found that my Toyota Corolla suffers nearly 10% loss in MPG when I use ethanol (from pumps labeled "may contain 10% ethanol"). My wife's Toyota Highlander appears to suffer a loss in fuel economy too, however I have not been able to track her mileage as closely.

I drive 132 miles each way to work (once a week) over easy 2-lane highways so it gives me a good chance to evaluate fuel economy in a mostly static environment. What fascinates me about this is that theory is great - in theory, but it is difficult to argue with real world measurements.

Has anyone else tracked their own fuel economy using ethanol and non-ethanol based fuels?

Current price?

[rew]

What's the current price of Gasoline (in dollars per gallon) in the US (or canada)?

$1/Gallon "Green Gasoline" In Sight

[sailingmofo]

It it is running at 50% today I will take some $2 gas now.

efficiency

[Goldsmith]

There is a problem which many people have not looked at, which is the efficiency of converting solar energy into chemical energy in plants. They are not optimized to store chemical energy, they are optimized to reproduce. The efficiency of photosynthesis is around 5%. So a 100% (impossible) conversion of cellulose, starch, sugar and protein into fuel or electricity is equivalent to a 5% efficient solar cell system. Can such a low efficiency process be economical? We will see.

It's unfortunate that we have all jumped on this biofuel path, because generating fuel using photovoltaic-type materials directly from CO2 may be a much more effective and economical use of research time, money and space.

Re:efficiency

[Dr_Barnowl]

Of course, the upside to using plants rather than solar cells, is that plants build themselves, and also make more plant factories, called "seeds" as they do it.

Re:efficiency

[Goldsmith]

Would I make ethanol from plants in my yard (if I had a yard)? Absolutely! But, those rows upon rows of perfect corn or whatever used in commercial farms don't just happen. Those mega-farms in the midwest use irrigation, fertilizers and congressional subsidies to make that magic happen.

That plants build and repair themselves is utterly amazing, but it's the energy used in those very abilities which makes them poor energy storage devices. If we wanted to collect ALL the plants in the country every year and convert them into fuel, we could get rid of oil... or we could try something else.

Re:Terra Petra - burying your stable carbon biomas

[Anonymous Coward]

Terra Petra?? Not Tera Patrick?

Damn....

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Big_Breaker]

Higher temperature in your diesel engine but MUCH lower burn time. Waste oil burners have a long flame tube to allow complete combustion. That is not the case in your diesel engine which is certainly producting toxic exhaust fumes. You seem to be well educated on engines, diesel and the like. Please read up on what you could be sending out your tailpipe.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Hillgiant]

Just out of curiosity, have you noticed which wasteoils affect the cold start? Or are they all added as a mixture? I am curious how much impact they have on cold flow of Biodiesel blends.

Gasified Coal

[BraksDad]

What are the negatives with gasified coal?

I recal reading somewhere that it would cost upwards of $80/barrel to produce the stuff so it was not economically feasible... that was when oil was below $60/barrel.

Seems to me that we have crossed the threashold of feasibility.

At Least the Trains Will Run On Time

[bratwiz]

It might be interesting to point out that for years the British (in Egypt) and the Egyptians used Mummies as fuel for their steam locomotives-- of course we have Mark Twain to thank for that tale-- undoubtedly one of those "facts" he so cleverly twisted at his leisure... but hey, all in the name of biomass and good fun I say!

I can live with less than...

[rnturn]

... 100% efficiency. If 1$/gal requires 100% efficiency, would 50% get us 2$/gal? That sounds damned good compared to what we pay for a gallon in the Chicago area. Start production NOW! Improve efficiency later!

Curious

[podunk9119]

I'm just curious how E85 is ALWAYS exactly $.30 cheaper than unleaded regular. Does that strike anyone else as odd?

The problem with burning "anything"

[Thelasko]

Sure, you can use just about anything for fuel. The problem is, different fuels have different physical properties. Specifically, they have different combustion properties.

An example is ethanol. Ethanol is an excellent fuel despite the fact it has a lower specific energy (J/kg) than gasoline. Ethanol is more resistant to auto-detonation than gasoline, which makes it resistant to what mechanics call "knock". This resistance to knock enables engines burning ethanol to operate at higher compression ratios. High compression ratio engines are more efficient and therefore offset ethanol's relatively low specific energy. However, high compression engines lose the ability to burn regular gasoline. This is not an acceptable tradeoff to most consumers and therefore so called "Fexfuel" vehicles get very poor mileage on a tank of E85.

Biodiesel has many more problems. Where E85 is made from only corn, biodiesel is made from a variety of raw materials. Therefore, the properties of the biodiesel vary wildly from one tank to the next, making efficient combustion nearly impossible. The type of biodiesel used could result in increased oxides of nitrogen emissions (NOx), rapid lubrication oil degradation (more frequent oil changes), or engine damage.

The bottom line is, for a fuel to be practical, it has to have consistent physical properties.

What about global warming

[Touvan]

This is the wrong solution to our current energy problem. We need to switch off of fuels that dump green house gasses into the atmosphere, not create cheaper ways to make more. Those technologies are also further along as has been pointed out by other comments in this thread.

REAL cost

[Anonymous Coward]

Because the only reason it's that cheap is via government grants they've been handing out like water for "alternative fuels". I would guess that at 2$ a gallon, it's more like 5$ a gallon if you figure in all the money the government subsidized them with (read YOUR TAX DOLLARS).

somehow I don't think so

[pak9rabid]

I can't help but think that the current big players in the fuel industry would try anything to prevent this sort of thing from happening. They like their record profits and I would imagine intend on keeping it that way, until their lobbying powers wear off and government eventually starts more heavily regulating this corrupt ass industry. I hope I'm wrong on this, however..

OT: Asterisks in swear words

[IpalindromeI]

This is completely off-topic for the current thread, but I've always wondered why people do this. Why did you substitute an asterisk for the "i" in "bitch"? There's no swearing filter at Slashdot. It's clear that you wanted to use a swear word, as opposed to using a less "offensive" word (perhaps "pain" in this case, for example). And since none of "batch", "botch", or "butch" will fit semantically, no one is going to mistake which word you meant, so you aren't saving anyone any offense they would have had at just using the correct spelling.

Re:OT: Asterisks in swear words

[Duradin]

It is probably due to the belief that those pure sweet innocent little children are just too stupid to figure out the missing letter that would create a swear word.

If you bubble wrap everything and hose it down with disinfectants little Johnny and Jane will always be innocent little kids. Until they hit 18 and instantly go from "cute" (personally I find little kids rather disturbing creatures, beyond some of the minor Lovecraftian horrors) kids to mature adults, without any transition time in between.

Sort of like CSI nudity, as long as you leave out or obscure the important bit(s), it is not porn. Because kids won't be able to figure out what bit was shown in shadowed profile. I'd link the Nukee's comic about males and their mosaic imaging ability but I don't have access to that at the moment.

its not the cost

[Lord Apathy]

It's not the 3.50 a gallon that drives me bonkers. I can handle gas being expensive. It just means I have to plan my trips better and be more efficient. It's the fucking instability that drives me ape shit. Stepping outside to see gas has jumped from 3.25 to 3.40 a gallon over night does it for me.

Even if all this beaker monkey's process did was keep the gas prices stable I would be happy.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Regul8or]

Gear oils in sufficient quantities will make cold starts take longer since they're a 90-140 weight oil. Too much regular motor oil will do the same. Trans and hydraulic fluid don't seem to affect cold start much and I'm sure it's because they're thinner oils. I do just mix them all into a barrel and pump it out when I need it. Any information on performance was gathered during my initial implementation when I was testing out separate waste oils to be used as fuels. I quickly learned my diesel will burn anything. I could probably run off rat shit if I could find a way to get it past the injectors.

One disagreement:

[Firethorn]

One additional point, you aren't taking in the disposal costs of the HIGHLY TOXIC batteries. Yes, some can be recycled, but many cannot. What do we do about those? ICE vehicles are 99% recyclable. Hybrids and Electrics are not, due to the batteries.

While I agree with most of your post, I have to chime up here. There are three battery types commonly used in EVs. All are essentially 100% recyclable.

Lead Acid - there are places that will pay you for your car battery. Very, Very recyclable
NiMH - recyclable. Due to small size of many cells, many people don't bother though. Wouldn't be the case for a EV battery.
LiIon - recycable.

Re:One disagreement:

[electrictroy]

NiMH batteries aren't dangerous for the environment. You can toss them in the landfill along with the rest of the car, and no harm will happen.

Re:One disagreement:

[Firethorn]

Who the heck tosses a car into a landfill? All that steel is highly recyclable.

Re: Remember that "Global Warming" thing?

[CrimsonAvenger]

My question is, if it can be produced that cheaply, can we then further the process with a tax on the final product,

HINT: the more you tax it, the less people will use it. Which is why there are tax-subsidies on alternate energy source - because without the negative taxes, people wouldn't use the stuff.

I'll agree

[Firethorn]

I'll agree that yes, you should regularly check that stuff, and I'd call the wipers a maintenance item, as I'm really picky about my wipers and replace them often as a result.

Still, wipers are in common with all vehicles. Brakes should be lifetime on an EV with regenerative braking due to reduced usage of the brake pads. Bulbs? I've had one go out in 5 years.

Interestingly enough, you might still have radiator fluid to worry about, and therefore a coolant pump. Some of the EV systems I've been reading about use water cooling for the control circuits and motor.

Major expense wise, though, Tires should be the biggest item on a EV. Figure $400 every couple years, depending on driving. You eliminate oil changes - figure $30@3 months, $120/year. Belts, spark plugs, etc... Might have some parts needing greasing with the tire change.

FAIL.

[MachineShedFred]

Just because you want it to be so, doesn't make it so.

For example, please cite some sources about these magical batteries that don't lose capacitance for 10 years. Also, please tell me the manufacturer of these amazing electrical motors that last forever, and never need maintenance - I need to purchase their stock.

Also, pay no attention to the massive amounts of coal power in use throughout the US. In fact, the one region that does get a large chunk of power from hydroelectric (the Northwest US) actually gets more power from natural gas and coal (according to the Oregon DOE, 48.9% coal / gas versus 44.1% hydro - http://www.oregonecology.com/2007/09/oregon-power-generation.html ). Oh, and here in Oregon we have lots of people that want to remove the hydroelectric projects due to the damage it's doing to the salmon and eel runs in the Columbia river, and the cultural impact it has on the native american tribes of the area.

However, if you look at the US as a whole, 68.9% of power generated in the year 2006 was from coal or natural gas. Hydroelectric and the mysterious "other renewables" which I can only imagine means geothermal, wind, and solar combined is 9.5% percent.

68.9% > 9.5%

Due to these complete inaccuracies, fallacies, and being flat out wrong, I submit to the masses that your post is a prime example of pulling numbers out of your ass, hoping to make a convincing argument.

Re:FAIL.

[clonan]

Actually, MOST decent electrical motors don't need much maint. for many years. They are typically selfcontained and do not use a fluid. So pick the stock you like...there are dozens.

I never said the batteries wouldn't lose cappacity. However EVERYTHING is less efficient after 200,000 miles. The current battery profile is often not much different than ICE in efficiency loses.

And you are right, pay no attention to the coal burned. Coal fired power plants are about twice as efficient as car ICE and with modern plants, significantly cleaner. Simply upping the use of coal to compensate for turning ALL vehicles into electrics will cut the CO2 emmisions caused by transportation in half!

Please re-read my post...or even ACTUALLY read it for the first time. I never suggested the Electric vehicles are a miricale zero-emmision system. I never said they would run perfectly for all of time with no efficiency loses.

Re:FAIL.

[electrictroy]

re: Coal.

I never said an EV would be cleaner. Only that it would be an alternative to gasoline/diesel/ethanol that is in short supply.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Regul8or]

Unless I'm emitting black or white smoke out of my exhaust, the combustion events have completely exhausted any available fuel to burn. Diesels are an unthrottled engine, meaning they're always breathing in as much air as possible. Meaning, only normal small amounts of unburned fuel escape and a surplus of oxygen escape the exhaust. All combustion engines produce toxic exhaust fumes. Show me why I should think that running my truck on 33% waste oils is going to pollute dramatically more than running it on straight #2 diesel. I've heard fear mongering statements like yours before. The only ones that say you shouldn't do it are the ones that don't have a diesel engine to try it on or really believe that waste oils are magically recycled into lollipops. Waste oil hurts the environment no matter what. I'm just using it to my own ends to save thousands in fuel costs. I haven't put anything in the environment that wasn't already going there to begin with.

BTW, I do have access to an emissions testing machine AND an endless supply of waste oils. Emissions testing before and after I implemented my use of waste oil as a fuel had ZERO effect on the emissions my truck was already spewing out on #2 diesel, which is mainly NOx on a diesel engine. My 2001 vehicle was not equipped with a DPF or catalytic converter from the factory. The exhaust goes straight out of the engine and doesn't go through any after-treatment system. I find the emissions ppm numbers especially satisfying because had I been equipped with any kind of after-treatment system, any extra emissions might've been masked by after-treatment.

Little disagreement

[Firethorn]

Recycling of anything other than electronics and batteries is a bunch of horseshit at this point

I'd substitute 'metals' for electronics. Most electronic recycling isn't very profitable. Various metal items can be recycled efficiently enough that there are yards that will pay *you* to bring them in.

Aluminum can be recycled quite economically, as can copper and steel. Gold and Silver. Even Lead.

Plastic bottles? Not so much. Glass? Depends on landfill costs and how close a lenient glass factory is.

All of this stuff

[Anonymous Coward]

First of all, we get to repeal the 16th amendment. This is so, one, we have fair taxation, and two, to keep the Government from making taxes laws that mess with our economy.

For a oil based energy system, diesel is the way to go. A barrel of oil is about 70% diesel coming out of the ground. With out the laws that make diesel so expensive, it is the lest expensive fuel to produce.

Each technology has it side affects. Electrical makes ozone. This is very deadly and destructive. Hydrogen is an combustion process, that the tail pipe emission will be similar to what we have today, rather than CO2 + NOx + HC + SOx, we will have H2O + NOx + SOx, which is acid rain.

I am all for using other energy technologies. Carbon based technology is obsolete. It is time we utilize, nuclear, solar, wind, wave, biomass, and other techs. Let the market decide. We the People are smart enough to decide what we want with our lives. Let us choose for our selfs. We don't need a Government to make the decisions.

Enjoy,

The Anonymous Coward :-)

Isn't just Volvo

[Firethorn]

It isn't just Volvo working on it. There's also a hyrdolic system that promises to be even more efficient than electric versions.

Cost just needs to come down a bit...

15% of feed used for livestock doesn't hurt food

[Iowan41]

This is the excess that the farm States spend hundreds of millions trying to market around the world. Converting that into fuel with a 67% energy gain in the process (contrary to what you may have read from interests opposed to ethanol) does not hurt the world food supply in the least. It takes what would go to waste and makes good use of it. Biodiesel is an even better bet, and that primarily uses soybeans that likewise go into animal feed, not the soybeans used for tofu production (which males shouldn't eat, anyway). Do both and you maintain the crop rotation cycle which eliminates the need for pesticides and cuts the need for petroleum-based fertilizer, significantly.

and the mash left over is -better- feed than the

[Iowan41]

original field corn stock. What a deal, eh?

Simple enough...

[Firethorn]

Money. You're essentially going from 1 battery system for your car to two. One in the car for driving, one in the garage to store the energy for a fast charge.

For the garage I'd actually look into flywheel energy systems. They tend to beat chemical solutions in larger amounts, especially when you don't particularly care about mass.

What about grass clippings?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just want to know if grass clipping qualify as 'anything that grows'... I would be so rediculously rich if that were the case. Can you imagine instead of paying someone to be lazy and mow your lawn for you they would probobly end up paying you for the honor.

This would represent a truely great innovation that would forever change the very fabric of society.

Re:I have a diesel engine, I run on almost anythin

[Big_Breaker]

Here's what you'd want to be on the lookout for:

http://www.environmentyukon.gov.yk.ca/monitoringenvironment/EnvironmentActandRegulations/usedoilburn.php

Those emissions testors are looking for specific chemicals in fuels that would not normally contain, for example, arsenic. I'm going to drop it here. Congratulations on the fuel savings and I doubt you are doing a whole lot of damage, if any, individually.

Joost

[quadrofolio]

I never read anything on /. about the far better solution of using compressed air. There are now 2 companies already making these engines. One in France and one in Australia. Run as clean as you can produce electricity (so pretty clean) and you can fill up your tank within minutes. All this focus on internal combustion engines and never thinking out of the box...

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[Anonymous Coward]

True; if Farmer Ed decides to plant switchgrass on the back 40 rather than soybeans or heirloom tomatos, then cellulose still isn't food, rather it's a food-related opportunity cost, which is still rather unaffordable.

Butanol is much better than Ethanol as motor fuel

[Nick Driver]

Once again, Butanol is a much better alcohol to use as a motor fuel.

It can even be made from biomass just about as easily as ethanol.

Anti-diesel pricing model

[BForrester]

Anyone notice how the gas companies have pushed the price of diesel above the price of gasoline? Anyone want to take a bet that the increases to diesel fuel prices continue to outpace increases to gasoline prices with the "threat" of clean Diesel vehicles?

Forget the compost pile

[Anonymous Coward]

I can make fuel out of all that grass I've been mowing?

The fuel the SkyCar has been waiting for!

[jpellino]

The were going to run on "green" fuel, right?

Re:CELLULOSE != FOOD

[N1ck0]

It depends on what material you use. And assuming you want to also use some of the simpler sugars to add to the energy output.

Collect a couple of semi's worth of green grass clippings, then stick them in a pile or in a rail/truck cargo container for 2-3 days, and you do have a large amount of energy getting released there. Of course if you dried it cleaned & sterilized it that would be much better. But that takes time & money.

For complete breakdown you might be talking 3-6 months, but the more it breaks down the less energy you can extract later.

biodiversity goes ka-boom

[AdamThor]

Man, ethanol is a red fucking herring. It's a terrible idea. How much farmland will the US need to go ethanol? How much will the world need? That's IN ADDITION to the amount already in use to make our food. The environment can't support that much farming. It won't work. Ethanol is basically the same as solar, but less efficient. It will take too much land.

BAD IDEA

[Orig_Club_Soda]

Ethanol blends pollute more than fossil fuels. This isn't green, its brown. Ethanol was never an environment saving solution, it is a supply and demand solution.

This the problem with all this "green hysteria" every solution implemented is WORSE than fossil fuels alone. (Just check out California's record for screwing things up by trying to make things better.)

We can support electric.

[shmlco]

"You can talk all about supposed efficiency gains of running electric vs ICE, but until there is a solid power-grid in place,(and possibly even after that) Electric is LESS practical than ICE."

Sorry to burst your self-imposed bubble, but you might find the following to be of interest....

"Since utilities have built enough power plants to provide electricity when people are operating their air conditioners at full blast, they have excess generating capacity during off-peak hours. As a result, according to an upcoming report from the Pacific Northwestern National Laboratory (PNNL), a Department of Energy lab, there is enough excess generating capacity during the night and morning to allow more than 80 percent of today's vehicles to make the average daily commute solely using this electricity. If plug-in-hybrid or all-electric-car owners charge their vehicles at these times, the power needed for about 180 million cars could be provided simply by running these plants at full capacity."

http://www.evpowersystems.com/PHEVs%20Save%20Grid.htm

Re:We can support electric.

[sumdumass]

Great, now all we need is to have PHEV's that can last all day long and only need charged during off peak hours and make sure no one is running around during that time.

Of course then we have to consider that the utilities companies will be burning more fuel to keep generation capacity up which places more demand on the fuel sources which will cause costs to go up and therefore utility bills to go up. I guess it is a win win like ethanol right?

Trash Hoarding!

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, Mr Mayor, but I'm composting my back yard for ethanol. You want my leaves and my trash you gotta pay.

So does that mean

[Larryish]

that kudzu will be worth money? I know a lot of Alabama farmers who would gladly contribute their kudzu crops.

Biofuel...

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuelyent green is people.

yes

[adpowers]

I'll take the bet. You know, because it couldn't have anything to do with the fact that gas and diesel come from different parts of the barrel and that diesel has to compete with home heating for its part during the winter.

Re:yes

[BForrester]

I had no idea that "home heating", as you call it, was a new development.

Re:yes

[adpowers]

I missed the oil from my statement. But nevermind, I think you are right, the prices are being controlled by the seven Jews in Europe in a partnership with the Illuminati and Dick Cheney's energy pals.

Towing=lamest excuse yet

[mrraven]

Because most people "tow" something gigantic every day, lamest excuse not to get an efficient car yet. Hint the only thing 99% of SUV drivers are "towing" is their wounded egos from their tiny penises and their stultifying cubicle job. Hint # 2 a real work truck doesn't have leather seats, wood trim, etc like a yuppie SUV does. Hint # 3 I do landscaping out of a Honda Civic hatchback, when I'm not at work it can hold 4 people, 99% of people who say they "need" an SUV for their family, or whatever are whiny cry babies, OK end of rant.

Ever heard of a roof rack

[mrraven]

A sub compact with a roof rack equals moving family + groceries, the next question you want answered?
Your problem is you don't want to be seen in a sub compact not it's actual capabilities.

Re:Ever heard of a roof rack

[Anonymous Coward]

A sub compact with a roof rack equals moving family + groceries, the next question you want answered?

You must be trolling? My family of 4 (w/ 2 bulky car seats) plus the 70 lb. dog barely fits in our SUV. You must not have a family? Do you have any idea how much crap that goes along with kids? The dog rides in the back smashed up against all our luggage, 3 fishing rods, and sometimes a cooler, and/or a tricycle, Pack & Play, a big Tonka bulldozer, etc. etc. There's a bike rack on the back. And we pack up like that about 3 times a month to go visit my parents an hour away. It takes hours to get ready, diapers, feedings, "where's your left shoe", etc. A roof rack would be hysterical. What if you need something? A roof rack on a sub compact would be abuse, cruelty to animals, and hysterical, if it were even possible. That's why, despite the huge savings in gas, we NEVER take the little 4 door Camry when we're staying overnight, or have the dog, or the bikes, etc. It's nowhere near big enough.

We'll probably trade the Camry in for a subcompact. But we're stuck with the SUV. Anything that we could replace it with gets equal or worse mileage.

Re:Ever heard of a roof rack

[mrraven]

Maybe you need to take less crap and find a dog sitter.

http://www.smallisbeautiful.org/buddhist_economics/english.html

Re:Ever heard of a roof rack

[sumdumass]

Wow. Now it is live your life like we say. It amazes me that there is always an answer for everything that amounts to "you do something different to appease me".

I thought the point of being free was so that I didn't have to bend over backwards to please someone else.

Re:Ever heard of a roof rack

[mrraven]

The people in Iraq who are being murdered in mass to gas your SUV probably feel rather differently about freedom than you do you self centered piece of shit.

Re:Ever heard of a roof rack

[sumdumass]

How do you argue with an idiot. Let's see, you don't. So I will simply say that we don't Get Iraqi oil, that goes to Europe and Asia when the lines aren't blown up and Iraq can Export oil. Also, Iraq's Oil production is still monitored and regulated by the UN just like it was before the war. Of course the UN has relaxed sanctions somewhat but they are still being controlled.

Second, I don't drive an SUV. I drive a very large 4 wheel drive truck and I work that truck pretty hard most of the time.

Finally, Innocent Iraqi citizens aren't being blown up at my hand nor my government's hands. And the situation isn't over oil, it is over a government that allows the people, the same innocent citizens that you are claiming is getting blown up, to have a voice in their government which surprisingly isn't saying the same things as the insurgents are saying they want. That is why insurgents and Al Qeada Cells are blowing them up. Your attempts to blame that on "oil" is little more then a cover to suppress the voice of the majority of Iraqis in order to appease the minority who resort to this violence that causes the deaths you are talking about. You are either incredibly stupid or don't know your ass from a hole in the ground which makes you incredibly stupid I guess.

So why don't you attempt to find a gain of truth in what your trolling over. It makes your argument worth entertaining a little and makes you look a lot less like a douche. Perhaps if you actually got mad at something that existed outside your imagination, you could do some good in the world. But creating fictitious situations so you have a right to be pissed and troll users does nothing but show how ignorant you are. For some less informed people, they might think you have some grain of truth in your statement and feel bad. Of course I am smart enough to know that the only grain of truth in your statement is that Iraqis are being murdered. Everything else you mention is a lie created inside your own little mind with no evidence whatsoever at all backing it up. So take your delusional opinions and fuck off.

Inexpense fuel isn't the answer

[nwks]

Cheap fuel isn't the solution. The gluttonous human species will burn up these resources as well. Not that I saying we shouldn't search for a low cost fuel. But it's pointless until people take steps to reduce their commute and other driving and energy use.

US gasoline is sure cheap!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's about $5.50/gallon here in Brisbane, Australia at the moment.

I'd be pretty darn happy to see it at half that...

$1 never again

[minyard]

Gas has been over US$3 for a while, and the demand has not subsided. Even if they can produce this product significantly cheaper, they might sell it only at a slight discount to the current offerings.

Respect nature

[kentsin]

Well may be

If more solar battery, more win mile, more land for energy,

means more people in hungry

What will you do?

You pay high oil price for charity?

What if what we done to lower the earth tempature bring

all species removed from earth?

Will you

respect mother nature? Or just do things un-fully-understand? semi-blindly?

Just because you want your voice heard? Just have desire to order people?