What do people see as the future transport fuel?

vorbis

As most people know, those crude oil resources are going to run out some day. What though do you think is most likely to replace them?

imo, its going to be biodiesel. Reasons at this point in time are overwhelming in comparison to other renewables such as hydrogen and ethanol.

1. It requires no modifications to existing diesel engines (at least those made in the last 10 years) That means the the entire existing infrastructure of petrol stations can be used to sell biodiesel.
2. Biodiesel is currently being produced from rapeseed oil and sunflower oil in Europe. These don't yield a high enough amount of oil to make economic sense in the long run. However, palm oil (grown in parts of Africa and Asia) and extracting oil from algae should prove viable as they provide a far greater oil yield.
3. In terms of emissions, widespread biodiesel usage would cut down on CO2 and Sulphur emissions. NOX pollution would be increased though. I think exhaust filters can help mitigate this.

The two main alternatives (that I know of) are ethanol and fuel cell cars. Ethanol is a bit of a non runner long term as it can't be used directly in unmodified engines. The big thing in my view will be the changeover to whatever replaces petrol and petro diesel.

Fuel cell cars sound great since all they emit is water. However, actually getting the hydrogen required would be a significant obstacle. Hydrogen apparently though has one main reason against it. It would require a complete change of infrastructure. Think about it, all the petrol stations and garages would have to change. This would cost billions upon billions.

What are peoples' thoughts?

po0k

Spherical cold fusion reactor under the bonnet.

air

Electric could have potential if a long lasting storage medium can be found.
Current top of the range lithium polymer designs have a power to weight ratio very close to that of IC engines but the lifetime is short.
If these problems could be solved & the electricity generated cleanly, then it would be a great solution.

vorbis

SyxPak wrote:

Spherical cold fusion reactor under the bonnet.

A major car accident would wipe out half a city! :eek:

Regarding electric, it would be a great solution, the problemas you mention is the battery capacity one. There just doesn't seem to be any sign of a solution to this in the short to mid term.

air

Perhaps some type of "online" refueling for electric vehicles?
Probably as likely as sharks with frickin laser beams on their heads

Mucco

I don't think ethanol is produced very efficiently - it needs distillation, so you only get 1.1 energy units out for every 1.0 put in. There are new catalysts being developed to convert the sugar directly to a usable fuel, but large scale production is probably a way off.
With fuel cells, there are alternative fuels to hydrogen - methanol has been used. This still releases CO2, but so do H2 production methods. I think hydrocarbons have been used too.
As you say, in the short term, biodiesel looks good.

M

Green Driver

One of the fuels which could, partly but not entirely, replace fossil fuels is vegetable oil. Apparently the experts say that a very large acreage would be needed to provide enough vegetable oil for all our fuel needs. Therefore vegetable oil is only part of the solution to the climate change problem which is being caused by green house gases.

I have been using rapeseed oil in a 2004 diesel Skoda Octavia since April 2006 and I am pleased with the performance. I bought the Skoda second hand and I spent about €2,000 euro, including VAT, getting it adapted to run on pure vegetable oil.

I got the car in February 2006 and used diesel in it for 2 months. After I switched to using rapeseed oil, there was no reduction in performance. The car does about 40 miles to the gallon.

The car was adapted by Allen Holman (DAS Garage,Gorey, Co Wexford), http://www.ecocar.ie/, and Peter O'Neill (Kilpedder, Co Wicklow) http://www.ecomotion.ie/.

I buy rapeseed oil fuel for my car from Eilish Oils, http://www.eilishoils.com/
They sell the rapeseed oil in 1,000 litre plastic containers which you can put in your garden and get refilled by them as necessary. I call into a place in Dun Laoighaire owned by one of the directors of Eilish Oils and get my car filled there at 84 cent a litre.

The rapeseed oil sold by them is exempt from excise duty, but they pay VAT on it.

It is physically (but it may be illegal if you do not pay VAT) possible to use rapeseed oil of the right quality bought in a shop as fuel in a diesel car which is able to run on rapeseed oil. I do not know if other vegetable oils, such as sunflower, or olive, oil, could be used as fuel.

Apparently, vegetable oil sold as food is zero rated for VAT, so if you use it as fuel, which is subject to VAT, you might be breaking the law. I am going to make enquiries to see if it is possible to arrange to pay the VAT on oil bought as food and then use it as fuel.

SeanW

If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on either straight vegetable oil, or biodiesel, which is simply a processed version of the former, compatible with existing diesel engines.

It has a bunch of pluses. It's clean, efficient, and depending on the source (used veg oil or virgin feedstock) can either make use of a waste stream or boost farm incomes.

RedPlanet

I'm not confident it's really up to we "consumers".
I think the transport fuel of the future is going to be something decided upon by the automobile industry and their friends in big oil.
Whatever fuel they determine gives them the best profit margin, then we'll all switch to it.
I don't think they're going electric, watch "Who Killed the Electric Car" for example.

It might be Ethanol, there was an article in Wired magazine (Oct issue) that had this huge ethanol farm in USA that seemed to be looking optimisitc.

Capt'n Midnight

Ethanol will run in a petrol engine with minor modificiations, next year you can buy a Ford that will use petrol/ethanol mix (0-80% ethanol), you save 50% on VRT and about 10c a litre. So it's cheaper than petrol.

But IMHO diesel hybrids are the way to go

gonk wrote:

This is on the way from Peugeot, won't be in production until 2010 though. Claimed fuel consumption 82mpg - that's as good as my 175cc bike!

http://www.businessweek.com/autos/content/mar2006/bw20060328_100063.htm

If anyone finds a way to store or generate eletricity then internal combustion engine will be obsolete. The main advantages of the internal combustion engine are the low weight of the energy store and the speed at which it can be replenished and it's low cost. With them you are stuck on the Carnot cycle so can't easily go above 50% efficiency because of the laws of thermodynamics. With Fuel cells you are starting at around 80%.

Hydrogen is a non starter because of the difficulty in storage / energy density and generation of it. Could easily replace natural gas for domestic use.

Perhaps the increased use of stirling engines and insulation so the engine is still hot when you restart it. The stirling just needs heat so any combustable substance can be used without having to worry about carberator / injection or quality of the fuel.

silverharp

The biodiesels may be options but the market clearing price if you take away agricultural subsidies and cheap oil used to make biodiesel, could be 3-5 euro ltr. The answer maybe tele working and less driving.

SeanW

Could be, but remember:
1: Oil prices will go up, taking with it the price of petrofuels to the consumer
2: Diesel is more efficient than petrol
3: The agriculture subsidies aren't going anywhere any time soon. So we may as well make the best use of them.

Sarsfield

I've got some questions.

How much land would need to be given over to biofuel production to satisfy Irelands transport requirements? Would a reduction in food production be required?

How much energy goes into farming biofuels? What's the net gain in energy terms? It would be a bit useless if it took more biodiesel to farm an acre than an acre of land could produce!

I'm inclined to think hydrogen has a better future. In renewables terms it has the great advantage that it is effectively a store of energy. The great problem with wind/wave/tidal is that it can't be guaranteed to produce when it's needed most, and then overproduces when demand is low. Electricity can't be stored (OK, there's pumped storage but it's limited). Surplus electricity can be used to produce hydrogen via the hydrolysis of water. This has the dual advantage of providing transport fuel and making windpower etc. much more viable.

SeanW

In answer to your questions:

1-1: No clue
1-2: Yes and No. A reduction in food production might be required but that would be no great loss because, like most 1st world countries, there is a surplus of agricultural capacity which is only being kept afloat by a wide variety of protectionist/subsidy schemes. Some of which are very destructive to the 3rd world, without the 1st world surplus and the attendant subsidies to make them look tenable we'd all be better off.

2: A good analysis of biodiesel can be found on Wikipedia. It has everything including a quote from Rudolph Diesel who examined these very issues almost 100 years ago and expected everything from agricultural equipment to ocean liners to be run on vegetable oil.

You've got a point about hydrogen it may help make windfarms more reliable. But I don't think it's going anywhere as a transport fuel because its highly unsafe (compressed hydrogen is explosive and would need to be concentrated at super high pressures to give any kind of decent range)

So for a motorist hydrogen would be a step backwards in terms of safety, biodiesel has a flash point much higher than any of the petroleum fuels and is therefore safer in practice on the road.

Sarsfield

Another question if I may.

Is there any alternative to aviation fuel on the horizon? I can't see biodiesel replacing Jet A1. And I value my cheapo flights on Ryanair (I know it's not ecofriendly but I rationalise it by economising on energy use in every other way!)

Lennoxschips

less use of motorised transport should be seen as an option. basically the earth is running out the resources needed to run our extremely inefficient lifestyles. a massive rethink is needed, but that is extremely unpopular view. people prefer to think the solution is as simple as filling their tanks up with something else.

unfortunately ireland is screwed in this respect after the low-density, unregulated, developer's free-for-all that the government have led this country down. when the cost of transport goes up, the cost of the current irish lifestyle will rocket much more substantially than in other countries

average mileage (or kilometreage) per car

EU: 13,000 km
USA: 19,000 km
Ireland: 24,000 km

i think there's a systematic lifestyle problem there that needs to be addressed

as for biofuels, i recommend the new scientist article of september 26th. (subscription needed)
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/earth/mg19125701.200-fuels-gold-big-risks-of-the-biofuel-revolution.html

a choice quote:

According to a study published in June by the Worldwatch Institute, for Brazil to produce 10 per cent of its entire fuel consumption requires just 3 per cent of its agricultural land, so it's not surprising other places want to emulate Brazil's approach. The problem is that in most other countries, the numbers don't add up.

The same Worldwatch study estimated that to meet that 10 per cent target, the US would require 30 per cent of its agricultural land, and Europe a staggering 72 per cent.

Yes, you read that right, running cars on only 10% biofuel would require 72% of Europe's farmland. So biofuels are obviously not a long-term solution. Or even short term. Indeed, we would be asking the third world to produce our biofuels on their land if we ever wanted to meet a 20%, 30% or 100% target.

Sarsfield

Lennoxschips wrote:

average mileage (or kilometreage) per car

EU: 13,000 km
USA: 19,000 km
Ireland: 24,000 km

Where did you get those numbers? Didn't ESRI (or was it SEI) recently revise downwards it's estimate of the mileage Irish drivers are doing? I think they found it's actually much closer to our continental cousins average.

Indeed, we would be asking the third world to produce our biofuels on their land if we ever wanted to meet a 20%, 30% or 100% target.

And might not that be a good thing? Sustainable energy for the developed world and a sustainable business for the developing one. But not like oil which is concentrated and where there is no choice in where we can buy it from. So the corruption on a grand scale that has followed oil discovery in the developing world may not occur in the case of what is essentially agricultural crops.

That and huge solar farms in North Africa connected to the European grid (electricity, not transport fuel).

And thanks for answering my question on how much land is required for biofuels!

Capt'n Midnight

Sarsfield wrote:

Another question if I may.

Is there any alternative to aviation fuel on the horizon? I can't see biodiesel replacing Jet A1. And I value my cheapo flights on Ryanair (I know it's not ecofriendly but I rationalise it by economising on energy use in every other way!)

BioDiesel could replace it, if you could get enough of it.
Bransen is spending about a bilion on research into this issue.
Hydrogen which isn't so suitable for cars, might work for aircraft. The main problems of storage and distribution are lessened since the planes will only be at airports. (all you need is electricity and water - if you can't sort out a hydrogen pipe) The USAF spend a lot of money on looking at H2 as a fuel but then again they had to ensure distribution during wartime so they dropped the idea. Fuel tankerage on planes would have to be a lot bigger ( 10 times ! ) but the fuel weighs less.

I can see average fuel consumption on Irish cars going up in the short term as more people buy houses in the suburbs and commuting times get longer, even if distances don't increase.

Lennoxschips

This is the source: Banister and Berechman, 2000, Transport Investment and Economic Development, page 109. London: UCL Press.

these are stats from 2000, so you'd expect mileage in ireland to have gone up since then

Lennoxschips

whoever is interested in green development in ireland should read the government paper "Sustainable Development: A strategy for Ireland." http://www.antaisce.org/environment/docs/Sustainable_Development_Strategy.pdf

this was brought out under the FG/Labour government in 1997. they identified most of the problems we've seen in the past years and had a strategy for the future. it called for increased use of high density development in cities and for urban sprawl to be called to a halt, among many other things. kind of makes you frustrated that bertie and co have been in power for the past decade

silverharp

My belief is that commuter towns around Dublin will be hit badly in the next decade or so as the price of commuting becomes unustainable. On the flip side there is alot of slack in the system and one could see mileage drop by 25%-50% without affecting real quality of life

Sarsfield

Lennoxschips wrote:

This is the source: Banister and Berechman, 2000, Transport Investment and Economic Development, page 109. London: UCL Press.

these are stats from 2000, so you'd expect mileage in ireland to have gone up since then

According to SEI, average mileage per car in Ireland in 2005 was 16,892kms. It also states mileage IS falling dramatically! However because there are more cars, but each doing less mileage total car-miles increased by 13% in 2001-2005. I don't know how total car-miles per head of population compares with the rest of Europe (we did start with very low car ownership). That would be a fairer comparison.

The pdf is linked on the page below. Summary on page 2.

http://www.sei.ie/index.asp?locID=1048&docID=934

Capt'n Midnight

The specific fuel consumption for new petrol cars on the road in Ireland in 2005 was 7.2 litres/100km (40 miles per gallon, mpg). This represents an increase of 1.6% (decrease in fuel efficiency) on the average
consumption in 2000 and indicates that, overall, the weighted average of newly purchased petrol cars is becoming less fuel efficient.
...
In Ireland the number of private cars per permanently occupied dwelling was 1.2 in 2004, representing a 50% increase on 1990. In 1998 the number of private cars exceeded the number of permanently occupied dwellings for the first time.

djmc

we might all have to swap our cars and 4x4s for hybrid scooters with a sidecar for the kids:)
we could charge up at old petrol stations or swap our batteries for charged ones like cordless drills, big wind turbine in old pump stations and small ones stuck on our mopeds
necessity is the mother of all inventions

Lennoxschips

Sarsfield wrote:

According to SEI, average mileage per car in Ireland in 2005 was 16,892kms. It also states mileage IS falling dramatically! However because there are more cars, but each doing less mileage total car-miles increased by 13% in 2001-2005. I don't know how total car-miles per head of population compares with the rest of Europe (we did start with very low car ownership). That would be a fairer comparison.

The pdf is linked on the page below. Summary on page 2.

http://www.sei.ie/index.asp?locID=1048&docID=934

****e, and i used the 24,000 figure in a paper i wrote last week

kilometres driven per capita is the stat you want then

lostexpectation

oil just less of it.

Clare gunner

For jet fuel there is very little in workable alternatives at the moment.Apart from making aircraft more fuel efficent,which has come on in leaps and bounds as well.
Trouble is with the alt fuels is that for the amount of effort put into produce them it works out that the energy to create them is the same or more.Some law of thermodynamics states that a product that takes more or even amount to produce an alt result isnt worth the effort. Also you dont get at the moment with alt fuels as much "Bang for your Buck" A litre of petrol will get you further than a litre of ethanol.also we need to develop a much more efficent carberettor for engines.Despite a centuary of mods to the engine,we still are using a basic venturi carb,that wouldnt look different than one on a model T Ford.For those who are engine non savvy,the carb is where the fuel and air meet to mix and vaporise before they are sucked into the engine to fire and produce power to go[Very simplified explanation].The carb is the heart of the engine,and it is not efficent.Theortically one litre of petrol properly atomised could lift a normal car three miles straight up in the sky when ignited.This is how a fuel/air bomb works as well,which is the most powerful non nuke weapon on the planet.
Develop a super carb that actually works[been plenty of scams and flops and patents on this as well]and make yourself a multimillionare over night and sort out world fuel crisises.
Or IMO what will happen is co op efforts to produce in set aside land bio fuel refineries for bio diesel.The bio diesel plants can already be bought fully operational,designed for small scale production from 150 l per 24 hours to units mounted on a 40ft artic bed that can produce 2000l per 24hrs.
But ultimately,there is enough oil for another 300 years in Saudai alone,not to mind what is untapped in Russia
it is just politics,ecnomics and scaremongering that keeps the prices high.We will still be using it,but hopefully in much more hyper efficent engines than we have now