The best alternative energy source

[Vindekarr]

That and, every single part in a toyota prius is imported, some of the manufacturing does as much or more harm than a "amoral" petrol sports car does being built, driven proverbialy till the wheels fall off, and disposed of.

 

But the biggest problem with electrics is, as Jim so neatly put, where the power comes from.

 

But nobody ever seems to consider what happens after these cars grow old. A hydrogen electric or petrol/diesel car can be ENTIRELY recycled from top to bottom. The tyres, engine, interior, body, chassis and fuel tank/cell can be either melted down and made into new metal parts for other uses, or recycled into second hand plastic, often used for making new whitegoods, and every kid of my generation in australia knows the smell of playgrounds, which here, are almost entirely now made of sliced n diced car tyres, turned into soft bouncy foam, used as a playground surface, and in many other things too, like in packing crates. The bottom line is, at the end of the day, only the battery, fuel and lightbulbs cant and wont be recycled. As I type this now Im eyeing a sculpure I made by melting a car fender in metalwork class, into a little stickman fake of "the thinker"

 

With an electric car, the bodywork is all plastic, so you dont really have anything reforgable, a humungous battery full of some truly abominable, often simply thrown onto a landfill, where they crack open and ooze toxic by products into the ground and water table. far smaller "eco-tyres" that leave a lot less usable rubber for its many post tyre uses, and even still, just making the damn thing in the first place does a huge amount of harm. A lot of the things that go into the megabatteries such as lithium are mined, and anything but freindly to nature...

[Turian3]

As for cars, well when I see most "scientists" ideas about what a future vehicle will look like I usualy have trouble not laughing out loud.

 

A lot of people see electric cars and yell in delight, because they see a car that makes no greenhouse contribution and use no fossil fuels. Hybred like toyota's prius and camry receive a similar standing ovation. These same people often look at performance oriented petrol cars with absolute disgust, as they use a lot of fossil fuels, and in the utopian lala land that these same people live in, that is all there is to it. This is wrong. on a highway, a Ford Mustang, powered by an eight cylender supercharged petrol engine, uses fossil fuels, its engine is powerful and fast, and can keep the car the highway speeds with very little effort, thus to go 60 mph costs it very little fuel or engine wear. In a toyota prius, going 60mph for the high commute that is so common in the USA, the engine is a very small petrol, normaly it uses a small amount of petrol, but what its owners and fanboys dont understand is that at the normal 60 km/h speed limit, a performance car with a massive powerful "decadent" engine actualy does the environment far far less harm than the adorable little prius.

 

Its even more laughable when they go on about solar energy. The advocates for solar powered cars either were dropped as babies or have never driven a conventional car. Ive driven a solar car on a sunny day, and its a horrible experience. To reduce weight they have a plastic seat, which is uncormfortable and gets very very hot, they have a cockpit so small it gave me claustraphobia, they have no climate control, and because they absorb sunlight into themselves, the interior gets so hot you risk heatstroke. furthermore they are laughably slow, have no luggage space and even if they did their "engines" are so weak they could'nt carry a bag of chips, let alone your groceries.

 

But the worst offenders are electric cars. Not only do they have laughably arrogant names like the "gee-whiz" and "thunderbolt" but they have little more comfort than a solar deathrap, no airbags, no crumplezone, no internal safetycell, a top speed of 30 mp/h and no room for your family or luggage. Whats more, they dont use fossil fuels to move. But they use plenty in their construction, its a fact most greenies are to ashamed to admit that to make an electric car does about as much or more environmental damage than it does to make a petrol car and drive it till it breaks. Not only that but they are horrificaly unsafe in a crash, have short ranges, use batteries full of extremely toxic chemicles such as the lethal hydrazine, and cant even be recycled.

 

At the moment the only truly viable replacement for petrol is hydrogen, which has the backing of oil corporations, but even that uses fossil fuel powerstations to make. Simple fact is that with hydrogen you make no carbon footprint by driving, no toxic gasses(the byproduct exhaust is fresh, drinkable water) and you dont lose anything that makes a car useful, such as range, speed, performance(some hydrogen concepts are faster than their petrol rivals) and they even look the same.

 

But to make a hydrogen car you need to make hydrogen. to do this you need to "free" the hydrogen from existing elements, this is easily done, I once did it for a school science fair, all you need is a tub of water, literaly any water will do, two powerleads with the correct endplates, and a huge electric jolt. This releases a massive swarm of hydrogen bubbles, which are easy to collect, harmless to us and nature, and can be used to make ultra lighweight batteries for electric cars known as fuel cells. But you ofcourse need a huge electric jolt, Electricity comes from coalfire power stations, oh dear...

 

For hydrogen cars to replace petrol cars and remove all environmental damage from transport is easy. Hydrogen vehicles are quite cheap, very reliable, as fast or faster than convential cars and have exactly the same shape, size and role. The engine is fueled up with hydrogen just like a petrol car gets gas, and the only by product of this is water, when the contents of the fueltank are expended, they hydrogen blends with oxygen and the result is water, H 2 O. That and hydrogen can come from anything with an H in its composition; its the most common element in the universe, so it isnt going to run out any time soon.

 

But for these to exist you need power, so until nueclear or geothermal power stations are fully operational, the greenhouse effect will continue in the transport sector.

 

 

As I said in my first post I belive a hydrogen based economy is the best way to go. I was also unaware of the fact that electric cars are not as enviromentally friendly as they claim to be. Right now I belive Iceland is a leader in hydrogen tech. However as Vindekarr said it should be relativly easy for any nation to adopt hydrogen. They are also able to be recycled unlike the "green" electric car. I wonder why hydrogen hasn't been thrown around as a viable option for a gasoline addicted world.

[Marxist ßastard]

I wonder why hydrogen hasn't been thrown around as a viable option for a gasoline addicted world.

Because unlike gasoline, hydrogen is a gas. And unlike propane and natural gas, hydrogen cannot be compressed to a liquid (except at -400 °F). So if you want to store any practical amount of hydrogen in a fuel tank, that tank must support temperatures near absolute zero or pressures into the thousands of PSI. These are major technical hurdles.

 

Now, that having been said, you don't need to store pure hydrogen to have a hydrogen-fueled car. There are some technologies that use chemical reactions to release hydrogen as the car needs it. But these mobile, rechargeable, hydrogen-producing chemical reactors have many of the same problems as batteries—cost, size, weight, lifespan, and the use of rare and toxic metals. And their energy density is only now reaching 6 MJ/L (in the laboratory), compared with 30 MJ/L for a gasoline fuel tank.

 

So hydrogen vehicles aren't really practical right now. Maybe in 15 years—but by that time battery-powered electric cars may become practical—or maybe then we'll have switched over to cellulosic ethanol—or everyone will be wrong and we'll be using betavoltaics or Tesla coils or some other crackpot technology. Playing favorites at this point makes as much sense as picking future senators out of a kindergarten class.

[Vindekarr]

To my knowledge practical hydrogen cars have been in production for several years.

 

Honda released the Clarity in california in 2008, and cars like it work fine now. Put simply, these hydrogen cars use a tub of hydrogen gas (presumably) to run an electric motor, when it runs out, you simply fill it back up from a gas hose, these are called fuel cell vehicles, and fuel cell buses have been around for going on a decade now, The problem inst the technology, or making it work, as it exists, is practical, and it sure as hell works. Its just getting the hydrogen to the gas station.

 

Thats why need hydrogen to be picked up as the alternative, because fuel cell cars are ready to go, and have been for years, we just need the fuel for them to be readily available.

[JimboUK]

To my knowledge practical hydrogen cars have been in production for several years.

 

Honda released the Clarity in california in 2008, and cars like it work fine now. Put simply, these hydrogen cars use a tub of hydrogen gas (presumably) to run an electric motor, when it runs out, you simply fill it back up from a gas hose, these are called fuel cell vehicles, and fuel cell buses have been around for going on a decade now, The problem inst the technology, or making it work, as it exists, is practical, and it sure as hell works. Its just getting the hydrogen to the gas station.

 

Thats why need hydrogen to be picked up as the alternative, because fuel cell cars are ready to go, and have been for years, we just need the fuel for them to be readily available.

 

We need a lot of electric to produce the hydrogen so we're back to finding a clean way of producing that.

[brokenergy]

When scientists make synthetic photosynthesis (creating a bacteria that can produce food from light, water and CO₂) then we will have clean energy; it is the only way without destroying the environment. Alternately we can be energy efficient until that day comes... :whistling:

 

As for others...

 

Solar: Unless you live the Middle East, North Africa, Australia or anywhere where the majority of year is sunny (or space) will not be feasible and requires a lot research. It would be great for a car but for large scale domestic power use where the majority of power is used between 3-9 pm it would not work.

 

Wind: Same as solar when it comes to domestic use but it requires places with a lot of wind in order to give basic supply. Plus I live near a wind farm for a while and the sound drove me nuts.

 

Hydro: Sure lets dam a river, drag everyone who lives near by 1km from the new lake and see the environmentalists/farmers/people who live down stream for the site come and protest. Look at China and you will see my point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mekong

 

Nuclear: The most viable source of energy at this point but you must know that it is a silent killer. No, I'm not talking about the waste but the thermal pollutions that it causes. If you are a genius and are able to make the waste useful and deal with its thermal pollution problem then it would be a sustainable source for years to come.

 

As for all the others that I didn't mention, more research has be done to see that it is capable to give base load power before it can officially be used in commercially.

[Vindekarr]

Solar: Unless you live the Middle East, North Africa, Australia or anywhere where the majority of year is sunny (or space) will not be feasible and requires a lot research. It would be great for a car but for large scale domestic power use where the majority of power is used between 3-9 pm it would not work.

 

Like I said earlier.

 

Solar is not great in a car,

 

I dont know about you, but I was assigned to a solar car project once. They figured since Im a kart racer and amatuer car racer, I'd make an ideal test driver. This was a bad idea. Im not a small guy, 2.1 metres, 220 pounds and built like a grizzly. So Im not comfortable in the majority of keicars to begin with.

 

Eventualy they got the thing working, and on a mild spring day, I was conscripted to test pilot it. This is why electric cars such as the kit I drove will never succeed:

 

The interior is agony, its tiny, I barely fit, so they got a skinny girl to sit in it, and she barely fit. The cockpit is seemingly the focal point for all the sun's furnace heat, it has no cooling measures, hell it CANT have cooling measures, so in any country that they are practical, they are also so painfuly hot that you are at genuine heatstroke risk. Furthermore the suspeion is abysmal; you get shaken apart every bump, the seat wasnt padded, it had no luxuries, it had lousy acceleration and speed Ive actualy driven gokarts faster in my teen years and it had absolutely nowhere you could carry groceries or cargo. Nor could it, as weight is a vital concern.

 

 

The engine lacks power compared to other forms of electricity, its weak, but worse than that, it has almost no torque, very slow acceleration, and it requires the absolute minimum weight possible. This means no passengers, no cargo, no luggage and no comfort addons.

 

The outer hull needs to be absolutely covered in solar panels to work at all, this makes for an ungainly shape, a complete vulnerability to dust and damage, and because of the huge surface area needed, a very very large flat body.

 

But worst of all, these simply cant function as cars. A car carries you, your luggage, and some passengers, this carries you, in absolute agony, and isnt even properly reliable. This means that its only possible use is in performance vehicles, and since it can be outperformed by something with a lawnmower engine that costs a 30th of what this costs and does a lot less environmental damage via no chemicaly treated solar panels, it has no future there either.

 

This is one of the problems faced by the transport sector in the future. Everyone wants to re invent the wheels: we have a working system now, we need to change the fuel type i existing cars to something that doesnt use carbon or replace carbon with something worse. Its shear idiocy to try and get the whole world to accept something entirely inferior when better cheaper options exist for the same end results as the proponents of solar, hydrazine, and plug-in electric cars are now finding out to their detriment. What we need is something that does the basic function of a car: an easy to control, fast multiperson transport that can carry up to 5 people and 300 kilograms of baggage 500+ kilometres without running out of propellant.

 

Solar cars cant do that, and they liekly never will. Neither can battery electrics, and hydrazine, though extremely effective, is so damn dangerous that its not a sane option. Right now hydrogen fuel cell is one strong option, hydrogen combustion is another, and other new options will arise. But we need to think practicaly and think all of this through. Because one of the hard things around at the moment is the tide of impractical, irrational and at times downright laughable bad ideas being spewed out by thinktanks and universities. Departing from the car blueprint would be a mistake-the further from that you go, the higher the cost, and the bigger the socioeconomical impact.

 

Solar has a great part to play in the form of heliostats, but solar panels themselves are simply too big, too unwieldy and too weak to be useful on a large scale.

 

river dam hydro is even worse, it doesnt use carbon fuels, but it does massive environmental damage, destroys communities and usable land, and produces little power, its time is over.

 

Fusion has limited potential, but is total overkill for anything less than an outright metropolis. Paris, London, Tokyo, New York and so on would be able to make great use of plasmafusion, but other than that, its just overkill.

 

But wind is the worst. It looks ridiculous, blocks air routes, requires a capricious, fickle and increasingly unpredictable and unreliable energy source for almost no generated power and massive expense. The more global temperatures climb, the wilder and less predictable the weather becomes, and with that, the chances of a wind turbine being on at the right time, or even in the right place, are slim.

[Vindekarr]

Heliostats, a variat of solar fields, are one very good way to phase out nueclear fission and coal plants, and provide power to small isolated communities.

 

A heliostat is a simple device. A ring of or more of medium sized mirrors, controlled automaticaly, focus light onto a large exposed pipe at the top of a central toer. the water flowing through the pipe is thus blasted into steam, which then powers and old fasioned but very powerful turbine plant. This provied ample energy for no fuel cost. And the only materials needed are concrete, steel, and mirrors. Its already in use in spain and some other countrie,s and for anywhere on earth or another subterran ore terrestrial planet close to the sun, its an ideal power station for smaller places. You'd still need a large plot of land, but they are a fraction the size of a solar panel field, dont need toxic expensive panels and provide a goodly amount of energy. You'd still need a plasma fusion reactor for any sort of city, but for a town or military base(provided it doesnt have an Energised Runway or Railguns, this would be ideal.

[SilverDNA]

I'm not quite sure but I think I found the flaw in the hydro engine in a theory I had reading the emissions of hydro engines. It is only an idea I had so I'm posting this to get it some way clearer and to get other opinions to this.

 

I thought of the the following lines to come to this.

 

-The emissions of hydrogen engines as are water vapor /Steam and are rated very low compared to the gas based ones.

 

- I now tried to imagine a world where everybody has a car that has only a hydrogen engine.

 

and now the questions that bothers me.

 

-How high is the emission of a hydrogen engine in water vapor /steam?

 

-Could this lead us not to an climate change because of the higher humidity in the air if everybody has a hydrogen car?

[ginnyfizz]

Solar is no good for a car, but it is wrong to assume that there needs to be fierce unbroken bright sunshine for it to work for buildings. It merely has to be daylight. I have seen a large medieval church in Sleaford, Lincolnshire, England successfully use solar power. They can heat and light this beautiful and huge building, AND sell power back to the National Grid, even in winter. England is not noted for its unbroken sunshine, and yet solar energy has been seen to work. A new housing estate has been built near me and the residents are finding their solar panels more than adequate (even in the winter.)