[Al_The_Man]

....and the countries that rely on them!
Not sure if this has been posted before?
GM Hy-Wire "Car of the Future"
Al.

[TarHeelTom]

....and the countries that rely on them!
Not sure if this has been posted before?
GM Hy-Wire "Car of the Future"
Al.

This cars consumes hydrogen. One thing they don't point out is the the energy density of hydrogen is much less than that of gasoline. This car MIGHT travel 100 miles on a full tank.

Someone, probably the oil companies, is going to have to manufacture hydrogen in large quantities, pipe it, then truck it to local stations. The station will have to have a large paved area to accommodate cars, and pumps and meters and fueling hoses to add hydrogen to the cars. Gee, that sounds a lot like a modern filling station, doesn't it!

I suspect (but don't know) that there is no economy of scale in operating huge hydrogen "distilleries", so there will probably be a plant near every major city and most large towns, and quite possibly located near each nuclear power plant. The hydrogen plant is a good neighbor for a nuke plant, as the nuke plant really needs to run at 100% output 24/7/12. The hydrogen plant can utilize the excess electrical power whenever it is available.

I therefore predict that the oil companies will become energy companies serving the same customers they are now serving, but with a slightly different product.

By the way, the "no pedals" won't make it to the final product, as we will always need a way to brake when the last bit of electricity has been produced and the hydrogen tank is empty. But still a neat concept car.


Tom

[Ark1]

With all that thinking.

First off Hydrogen does not occur naturally anywhere on the planet.

Next Hydrogen and Oxgen bonds in water are very strong.

Meaning, it takes 4 times the energy that you get out of hydrogen to liberate it from water and that is where the whole thing falls apart.

Until the price of oil or gas equal the price of liberated hydrogen, the concept is going nowhere.

Maybe in time newer technologies will get past this, but currently, we aren't there.

Ark!

[TarHeelTom]

Until the price of oil or gas equal the price of liberated hydrogen, the concept is going nowhere.

Ark!

I read recently that China bought more new cars in 2010 than we did in the US. China is building "Interstate" highways at a tremendous rate. (These highways are almost an exact duplicate of our Interstate system.) China is therefore becoming very thirsty for gas and oil.

For this one reason alone, it appears that the price of oil will increase rapidly in the near future.

Your condition may come true a lot sooner than you think.

We need to continue working forward on many different alternative energy sources now, as it is really hard to predict with any certainty which of those sources will be the most economical and practical in the future. One never knows in advance what small breakthrough will tilt the balance drastically in the future.

Perhaps some high school or college student will discover that in the presence of a certain chemical compound hydrogen can be produced at only 10% of your stated figure.

Go back and watch the movie "Back to the Future" again. While that was Sci-Fi, things like that tend to come true. Breakthroughs happen often.

Not many years ago an overseas airliner had to carry 3 separate navigation systems, costing about $35,000 per system, for the cheapest system. These particular systems worked very very well, but had to be powered continuously, as lose power for a couple of seconds, and the system forgot where it was, and could NOT relocate itself. There were several different similar systems in use, and they all suffered from the lack of the ability to find themselves from scratch.

Then, all of a sudden, pilots started carrying their own portable GPS receivers in their flight cases. These things cost only about $300 each, and could find themselves in under two minutes after turning on the power.

One small change made all the difference in price. The early systems required a very accurate clock to be carried in the aircraft. Cesium (atomic) clocks were used, and they were expensive. The GPS system moved the atomic clock from the aircraft to the satellite, requiring only 24 clocks total, instead of three in each aircraft.

Now you can buy a good GPS receiver for $300 or less, but also get a GPS receiver in almost every cell phone, as well as in many cars, etc etc etc.

You can buy a small yellow box called a "Spot", which contains a GPS receiver and a cell phone transmitter. When asked to do so, the Spot transmits your position every 30 minutes and your backup team (wife, employer, or whoever) can watch your progress on the internet. The Spot costs only about $100, and will run several days on a battery.

Technology is moving fast. You can't depend on the status quo remaining the status quo forever.

Tom

[Ark1]

We can liberate hydrogen for less than the price of oil, still not going to happen.

At the current demand of consumption the Alberta Oil sands has a 300 year supply of oil. I don't think I will see hydrogen powered cars in my life time and I am 55.

Ark1.

[fizzissist]

The future of energy is not what you think it is

"Are we living at the beginning of the Age of Fossil Fuels, not its final decades? The very thought goes against everything that politicians and the educated public have been taught to believe in the past generation. According to the conventional wisdom, the U.S. and other industrial nations must undertake a rapid and expensive transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy for three reasons: The imminent depletion of fossil fuels, national security and the danger of global warming.

What if the conventional wisdom about the energy future of America and the world has been completely wrong?...."

..."In 2010 a Cornell University ecology professor and anti-fracking activist named Robert Howarth published a paper making the sensational claim that natural gas is a greater threat to the climate than coal. Howarth admitted, "A lot of the data we use are really low quality..."
Everything you've heard about fossil fuels may be wrong - War Room - Salon.com

[Mark Housel]

With all that thinking.

First off Hydrogen does not occur naturally anywhere on the planet.

Next Hydrogen and Oxgen bonds in water are very strong.

Meaning, it takes 4 times the energy that you get out of hydrogen to liberate it from water and that is where the whole thing falls apart.

Until the price of oil or gas equal the price of liberated hydrogen, the concept is going nowhere.

Maybe in time newer technologies will get past this, but currently, we aren't there.

Ark!

THIS ^^^^^^^^^

[Eurisko]

Guys, it's been fun. I respect all those who shared their opinions, and also learned a bit. Now I'm going back to work on the longest router build in history.

If only I could afford to make this a "green" project. I have 20 Megawatts of solar power available. (( 5 acres / 1 sq. meter ) * 1000 watts )

Should need only a fraction of that

[Ark1]

The sun has to shine to produce Electricity and if it doesn't what do we do, go home, take a nap and wait? We are not there yet.

Ark1.

[zoransimeonov]

I would not worry about the oil companies. The have developed strategies that go 50 years ahead. They scanned the earth for minerals and oil deposits ages ago and already have invested in the future energy resources like solar and wind and god knows what else. Take BP for example. They are major player in producing Solar panels.

[skippy]

"Their products will necessarily be less expensive, they'll have more customers, and whatever it was you were making for a living won't get sold. The best part is that YOU will be forced to by from them."
Well said Fizz! We're about to find out if you are right which I believe you are. Carbon Tax was passed through parliament today here in Australia.

[asuratman]

We still far a way to use renewable energy as long as some countries producing a lot of oil, coal and gas in big capacity. If we want to have more renewable energy, we shut down some productions, not all or sudden but little by little. Like in here Indonesia, we have a lot of geothermal, but now oil and gas still cheaper. So government still using more oil gas and coal. To drill geothermal well, it is far more expensive than drilling oil and gas. So here people still using oil and gas. And also for transportation oil and gas is far more efficient and practical to use rather than geothermal that we have to convert it first into electricity then charging the car.

You can imagine that some countries will be no exist anymore if oil and gas is no more produced or less produce since any other energy is to difficult to be transported or converted and no renewable energy available.

Small country like in pacific or atlantic or even Singapore or Fiji, they will be no more existense if no oil. and gas produced. Some countries will live with charcoal, no boat or aeroplane to come. Tooo expensive. Or like fully built country where no more wood to burn like singapore, with alot of elevator, you can not go up to your room when you getting old.

So if not from now people not decreasing on using oil and gas, it is far to have renewable energy like hydrogen. Its still too expensive.

[Kigiru]

We still far a way to use renewable energy as long as some countries producing a lot of oil, coal and gas in big capacity. If we want to have more renewable energy, we shut down some productions, not all or sudden but little by little. Like in here Indonesia, we have a lot of geothermal, but now oil and gas still cheaper. So government still using more oil gas and coal. To drill geothermal well, it is far more expensive than drilling oil and gas. So here people still using oil and gas. And also for transportation oil and gas is far more efficient and practical to use rather than geothermal that we have to convert it first into electricity then charging the car.

You can imagine that some countries will be no exist anymore if oil and gas is no more produced or less produce since any other energy is to difficult to be transported or converted and no renewable energy available.

Small country like in pacific or atlantic or even Singapore or Fiji, they will be no more existense if no oil. and gas produced. Some countries will live with charcoal, no boat or aeroplane to come. Tooo expensive. Or like fully built country where no more wood to burn like singapore, with alot of elevator, you can not go up to your room when you getting old.

So if not from now people not decreasing on using oil and gas, it is far to have renewable energy like hydrogen. Its still too expensive.

They may or may not seem to fail, dunno if they'd bother, fellas are really too rich to need to throw the people any bread and games anymore, or rather the Chinese will work for half the bread and no games Either way, we've still got a more or less unlimited supply of oil; the whole show about biodiesel being inefficient is only partially true; as you may know it works perfectly well with certain crops; sugarcane, palm, even corn and some of our other standard workhorse crops b/c ofc one way or another we're using them for the energy given to them by the combustibles tied up in their structure. Obviously oil's a lot easier if its already decomposed, but its also a lot cheaper on the other end when you don't have to ship it around the world, use any complicated or expensive equipment to produce it (I've never studied super low cost bioharvest systems; I think ususally for mass from low-yield plants they do something along the lines of putting a bunch of it in a silo sized pot above a flame/bonfire (with or without water or some other compound? Perhaps without if you composted it first? This could save some evaporation, tho I suppose straining out the toughest fibers that won't break down cheaply might require something more dilute to not clog your filtering system?) and basically reduce it or make a tea. Its been a bit since I learned about this process (I think science channel then some internet searching? Probably a few years back) so I don't remember the details, but the main thing is on the large scale they did it with old, simple equipment, nothing that a bunch of the guys up here couldn't produce in their sleep, or put together from scavenged junkyard picks and a few custom fittings. If I started listing all the possible heat sources that could lower the price... heh.

Oh dhur. Gasifier. ANd I was just reading about them the other day, I just forgot that I'd seen the less fancy version on television already that made a diesel-consumable fuel rather than pure methanol, leaving in a lot more of complex carbons; even if you made it sloppier than heck tho you could ionize the fuel to offset the drawbacks, saw a cheap ionizer made of a standard filter and a bunch of metal trimmings the other day that looked pretty workable on the instructables site, some old hippy living out in the phillipines. Either way how much you refine it is up to you, but the long and short is that with the right plant, OR (not, from what I understand which admittedly isn't a lot, and, but or) in a system where neither of the products are subsidized by the government, most any biomass even with the simple systems (not counting perhaps using the waste heat from gasifying garbage for instance).

But yeah, the proper plant for everywhere other than the tropics is hemp, and it's a real pain in the arse to get a license to grow it even where its legal (the 'industrial' hemp, though of course this is a much less oily and therefor much less worthy candidate for climes such as the us, I can only imagine that not having to produce all the oils it produces to run off insects (make medicine, get kids stoned, or make the densest bulk of the oil) would mean less nutrients consumed, and since the plants can grow in rather cold climes I suppose if you hit the right growing season when it was a bit too chilly for heavy bug problems but not for the scragglier plant to grow (I think I read about some sub-arctic one too that is still good and oily but just extremely low thc, more or less naturally evolved for the supposed requirements of an 'industrial' hemp, not capable of getting anyone stoned on anything the gov'ts not taxing without them getting emphysema from the garbage bag full of the stuff it would take to even give them a headache, not sure what explanation there is for a strain being bred that sacrifices a lot of the positive industrial uses of the plant (the seeds compare favorably with soy for healthy food, bit lower on protein but its supposedly perfect for flour/bread, and ofc the good ole days when your favorite beat up old work shirt was also your grandfather's favorite beat up old workshirt when he was your age, and his fathers and so on, were thanks to the amazing aging and tensile properties of the plant's fiber; the info on the arctic plant looked pretty legit, and on its use as a source of fuel, but while I don't remember a particular bias I'd imagine the articles I read bashing the bred industrial strains were written by smokers who were ticked off about having to look over their shoulders all the time, so it might not actually be as terrible or they might not have decreased the potency by decreasing the amt of oils only like these people seemed to indicate) other than to keep it from being used.

But yeah, once the oil companies either can't get their subsidies pushed up enough to keep making the same profits or just plain run out (there's still the shale, and we've hardly touched NG) I imagine they'll have the drug prohibition laws modified so that they can grow the most oil-rich and industrially useful strains of this, they'll set up great gigantic plants to process it, and do the same old same old. I don't see why they can't get the law passed, near as I can tell from looking up the history it was mostly the petro interests that had the stuff banned in the first place. They didn't ever talk about it when I was in school, but from what I understand it was basically what petro is now before petro came around. People were entrenched in using the crop and while the fossil fuels could produce the same stuff cheaper at the time (for, ofc, a limited time) people are always slow to change, and I imagine the petro companies wanted to get things locked down while they were ahead of the curve. Either way, it was their boys who did most of the work, who crafted the reports and news articles that got teh AMA to sign on (thats actually a funny one if the story is true, funny in the 'god i wish we could still be Americans without being called terrorists' sort of way; supposedly the AMA made their testimony at the trial not knowing that the dirty Mexican drug that caused immigrant workers to steal and loot and blacks to rape white women (ain't we a wunderful, lovely species?) that went by the slang term Marijuana was in fact the cannabis oils they had been proscribing to patients forever for mild aches and pains that didn't warrant the dangers of opiates heh. If it really happened that way you really do have to laugh, just the balls of it, and it isn't like we can complain when it was people just like us who jumped on the bandwagon, us in a world where information flow was restricted, some mangled sense of honor still clinging on amongst the populace, and politicians saving their lies (and the effort of talking across the country) for the real big whammies because of it), and of course they were the ones who profited the most (yeah it gave them somewhere to throw Anslinger and his gestapo where they wouldn't be embarassing to the nation, hunting users of an obscure drug that almost noone used recreationally because alcohol was cheaper and more potent and opium as well if they were in for the smoke, but they could'a just pushed them off the bridge as well, Anslinger had political friends but he was still just a dog on a chain to scare the questioners) so there's not a lot of chance it wasn't them.

So yeah, it works out rather nicely if you've got an oil company job, at least if you're irreplaceable to them, b/c you never know they might fake going under just for convenience (could just brazenly violate all the new sanctions to up their revenues on whats left of the easily accessible fossil fuels and then escape any resulting legal trouble in this way for instance, but I can't imagine they wouldn't hire any useful folks back at their new outlet). Sucks if you have any interest in ever getting free of them, ofc, because it ain't gonna happen. Another aspect of the concept 'too big to fail,' or perhaps a more honest examination of it; they're not too big because theyd drag down the whole economy with them, or at least that concept is antithetical to the whole idea that started this country, the freedom that allowed them to go out and build their neo-monarchy, the belief that society will advance quicker when each person is free to generate his own wealth rather than giving it to his master or lord or what have you, but then the lords don't tend to see it that way, neither do the masters (always got another one of those rage-choked giggles over that, that we call the people we work for and give almost all the wealth we generate (just the value of what we output, subtracting the cost of the machines which would be rather affordable if they were the main cost of such ventures and not the regulations and dum-dum safety measures we gave the giants, or at least that the greedy and blind and the lawyers they hired gave them, punish 'em with kindness I guess, but yeah to make a long story short it comes from the the fact that Americans didn't want to call their masters masters so they called them a variation of the dutch word for it (also have heard that this originated from the latin word for slave master, not so sure about that tho)), so we're probably sol on that one. Mebbe the kelp thing will play out tho, who knows? If so I suspect Kelp Jelly will probably find its way onto the controlled substances list one way or another tho heh (wedge)

[Coxsteve]

Run out of Oil didn't we do that back in 1971,Seriously what a crock of scamming BS,Anyone aware of just how huge the Oil and Mineral wealth plays are that are currently going on in Mongolia.
See back in pre WW2 Days the Russians discovered huge reserves of Oil in Mongolia at easy to acess drilling depths,They left it untouched because they had easy acess to Oil in The Caucasas regions and that Oil was the prime aspect behind Hitlers Eastern Front Offensive that stalled at Staningrad,They were after the Oil as Germany had to use mainly synthetic Oils and Fuels for much of WW2,Yes they were the pioneers of modern synthetic Oils.

Anyhow Mongolia did not gain it's freedom from the Communist Yoke until 2000 and it has taken a number of years since then to set up a stock exchange and International banking presence in Ulann Bator the Capital,For without those aspects there is no MultiNational Oil or Mining Companies operating in any Country.
Mongolia has reputedly from contacts on the Ground Oil reserves greater then the whole Middle East and abundant Coal,Uranium,Iron Ore,Copper,Tin and Gold.
We of course haven't taken into account much of South America,Africa and lots of other places and did I mention all the Capped unused Oil wells in Australia let alone the whole centre of the Continent was one vast sea in ancient times and therefore should hold abundant Oil if actaully searched for.

Running Out pf Oil, yeah right pull the other leg just another excuse for price increases or some form of Political Action.
Be that a push by the UN for World Government where we of the Western Nations are outnumbered by the Third World and hence outvoted in the General assembly,Hence the UN IPCC push for Climate Change and take money from "Bad" Western Nations,Nigeria are not the only Scammers out there.
There is also China and the Group of 77 who are not our Buddies either

[Antonn]

ya it seems like oil will be replaced soon by some other resources that can work as a replacement for the oil and oil companies are working with total dedication to save their future by finding some good replacement for the oil.

[fizzissist]

Hi Today i want to ask something which is that Is it true that oil companies buy or ever have bought the patents of inventions that would increase gas mileage significantly, such as some type of a new carburator. If so does anyone have credible proof????

from a practical standpoint... even if Evil Big Oil did buy the patent for a "200mpg" carburetor... the patent would have expired years ago when they first were announced, and someone would have figured out an alternative.
But the reality is that you need a certain amount of fuel, atomized to whatever degree, at some volume of air and compression to deliver any given amount of combustion energy.

I'd be hard pressed to believe that between Honda, Toyota, GM, or whomever there wouldn't be a race to get a 200mpg car on the market ASAP? We still have competitive markets for cars the world over, and with gas prices at $10/gal is some regions.....

A bigger question is why, and I know this first hand, can you NOT buy a motorbike here in the U.S. of the kind that is ridden all over southeast asia....
Hondas that are 125cc, electric start, automatic trans, get over 55mpg, reliable, can easily haul 3 people (I know, I rode on one with 2 other guys!!), and do up to 55mph.... for $1250US??????? Don't tell me it's smog, or airbags. It ain't.

[RIN]

from a practical standpoint... even if Evil Big Oil did buy the patent for a "200mpg" carburetor... the patent would have expired years ago when they first were announced, and someone would have figured out an alternative.
But the reality is that you need a certain amount of fuel, atomized to whatever degree, at some volume of air and compression to deliver any given amount of combustion energy.

I'd be hard pressed to believe that between Honda, Toyota, GM, or whomever there wouldn't be a race to get a 200mpg car on the market ASAP? We still have competitive markets for cars the world over, and with gas prices at $10/gal is some regions.....

A bigger question is why, and I know this first hand, can you NOT buy a motorbike here in the U.S. of the kind that is ridden all over southeast asia....
Hondas that are 125cc, electric start, automatic trans, get over 55mpg, reliable, can easily haul 3 people (I know, I rode on one with 2 other guys!!), and do up to 55mph.... for $1250US??????? Don't tell me it's smog, or airbags. It ain't.

The Honda 125 can haul 4 people (I have picture somewhere) and I think does much better than 55 mpg. I asked my Indian friends and they told me it is closer to 190 mpg. So I looked that up. 2012 Hero Honda Super Splendor - Top Speed

[fizzissist]

The Honda 125 can haul 4 people (I have picture somewhere) and I think does much better than 55 mpg. I asked my Indian friends and they told me it is closer to 190 mpg. So I looked that up. 2012 Hero Honda Super Splendor - Top Speed

Sorry, but I'm not buying the 190mpg. The physics of how much fuel at optimum ratio/rpm/mile/cc doesn't sound right. I haven't bothered with running the numbers, but from experience and having had to refuel the one I rode, 75mpg would seem pretty much the max..... And I think it might drop some with 4-up...
I did ride 3-up, full size males mind you, on a motorcycle taxi, and I have seen a full on 5 member family (and maybe a chicken or two) going down the road...

Checked out that Honda... I think $47000 is a little outside of my budget, even if it got 300mpg. That and the 9hp would mean it takes you awhile to get it too!

[RIN]

1 gal of gas contains about 44 kWh energy. If 9 HP is required to propel the bile 90 kmh (55 mph) it will take 1/8th or about 0.845 kW to propel the bike 45 km/h assuming 20% efficiency the bike would travel 44*0.20/.845*45/1.6=292 mpg.
I think that 180 mpg is possible provided low speed. Low speed is the rule in India. If you have better estimation what it takes to propel the bike at 45 kmh and /or efficiency you can better numbers.
For comparison Honda Rebel 250 ccm has 75 mpg rating so for 125 Honda it could be double mpg.