What fuel will cars run on in the Future?
June 7, 2009 in Alternative Fuel Vehicles
Did you know that you can save fuel and run your car on water
shagadag asked:
What fuel will cars run on in the Future? Will they run on Gas, Electricity, Any renewable source? Cloned Oil, Anything?
Did you know that you can save fuel and run your car on water
HA! Not gas!!!
We have hydrogen cars today, but they only have refilling stations in california atm. We don’t have much oil left. We need an alternate source.
Far far future? Probably cold fusion. They’ll run on combining hydrogen atoms together to form helium.
However, that is a *LONG* way off (certainly decades, possibly hundreds of years).
If we’re clever, we’ll be engineering towards electricity because it is the most flexible (you can have it “delivered” right to your garage), but other forms have better characteristics right now: Burnable things give more power per weight than batteries.
If I had to bet, I’d say that the plug-in hybrid is going to be “the next big thing” … but I wouldn’t bet much.
you are going to find a mix of cars on the road using various fuels. since biodiesel is easy enough to make, it will still be around, and since gasoline engines can run on ethanol with few modifications they will still be around also. in fact internal combustion engines will remain for a long time to come. we will see cars that have dual fuel capability, like E85 in one tank, and CNG or LPG in a second tank, and the car will also have an electric motor as well to power the car down the road. i think we will also see pure electric cars using a variety of battery technology, from hydrogen fuel cells, to lithium-ion batteries, to batteries that use microbes to produce electricity. we will likely even see solar panels that are painted on the car body to generate electricity. we may even see a return to steam powered cars as part of the mix. and of course the energy companies are working to create a gas to liquids technology, which means we could see natural gas converted to a liquid at room temperature so we would not need the heavy and expensive high pressure fuel tanks currently needed to contain CNG. and of course there is always liquefied coal we can use a a fuel for automobiles.
Mostly electricity. It’s simply the most efficient method because electric motors are so highly efficient. Hydrogen cars are basically just less efficient electric cars, because instead of storing the electricity in a battery and using it to power an electric motor, you’re using it to break atomic bonds to extract hydrogen, then run the hydrogen through a fuel cell, then use that to power an electric motor. It’s not nearly as efficient. Plus the infrastructure is already in place for electric cars (power grid), which is not true for hydrogen cars.
Biofuel from algae oil is also fairly promising. See the links below for further details.
Most likely hydrogen. Here’s why. We are on the doorstep of improving electrolysis to the point where hydrogen will be a viable energy source.
Also, fill your tank with hydrogen in two minutes and drive 300 miles in a nice luxury car or charge your battery pack for 8 hours and drive 150 miles in a little clown car. Not a hard choice.
Hydrogen is the way ahead, but although it is freely available in the atmosphere, my nearsest point of re- gassing is 15 miles away !
Gasoline and diesel will be the predominant motor fuels for many decades. Between oil sands, shale, ANWR and offshore there is a lot of oil to be extracted from the earth. All that’s needed is for the democrats to get out of the way. Biodiesel will be more common when scientists can come up with a less expensive way to grow algae. Hopefully ethanol will become unavailable soon because it is ruining 2 stroke engines in snowmobiles, outboards and chain saws.
hydrogen
ethanol
electricity
methane
or something we dont know that exists yet
Synthetic gasoline and synthetic diesel.
Sandia Labs CR5 experimental reactor already uses solar energy to produce CO from CO2 and H2 from H2O, then it synthesizes methanol and eventually gasoline or diesel from the CO and H2 via the Fischer Tropsch reaction which is what WWII Germany and modern day South Africa, the current US air force and Shell’s GTL plant uses to make synth fuel.
It’s not gasoline/diesel that’s bad but the fact that we’re making it from stored hydrocarbon reserves hence releasing CO2 that had been buried for millions of years and would take millions more for nature to remove from the atmosphere. As a means of storing and transporting energy, they’re still very good choices. Even Hydrogen can’t beat it as Hydrogen has a very low energy density by volume.
Probably solar energy burning us all up through the ever widening hole in the ozone layer! Or we could all be back on the old methane producers.(Horse and cart) Lol.
Lets face it, we will really need hover or flight as there will not be enough road space to cope with increased traffic.