I'd like to see the US shift over to straight alcohol fuel for cars and light trucks and pure vegetable oil for diesels.

Tell OPEC to shove it.

The vegetable oils for diesels is a no brainer, it's already being done.

And I know we have all seen some pretty impressive alcohol dragsters.

It would be hard to get a consensus on this, but it would be a boom for American farmers and it might impoverish the Arabs. Can't happen too soon for me.

 

Pure alcohol is to flammable for Joe Schmo to pump it. And have you gone to the grocery store and looked at how much a gallon of veggie oil costs?


Biodiesel is a good idea, but not veggie oil

Ethanol is a good idea, the gas makes it more stable. But for a long term solution, I know we've all heard it, Hydrogen.

 

alcohal requires special engines which cost some serious cash. also they make a ton of power but those nra dragsters use 15 gallons of fuel for each run. be a neat idea but just not to doable.

 

[QUOTE=Snake1979]Pure alcohol is to flammable for Joe Schmo to pump it. And have you gone to the grocery store and looked at how much a gallon of veggie oil costs?


Biodiesel is a good idea, but not veggie oil

People are running their diesels on resturants throw away oil, works fine smells like french fries.

Gasoline is too flammable for Joe Schmo to pump but we have used it for generations.

 

gas is tame compared to alcohal.

 

I wasn't suggesting we all drive dragsters, they just prove the point that alcohol is a viable fuel.

From an automakers point of view, easier from an emissions standpoint and no big deal to modify existing engine designs to burn alcohol.

The thing that makes it doable or not is the political will. The White House has been in bed with the Saudis too long.

 

I race using pure methanol. It is no more flammable than gasoline. It does have less btu's per gallon, so a greater volume is needed to make the same power. The engine must be purpose-built to run on alcohol. The biggest problem is alcohol corrodes aluminum like you wouldn't believe, that is why at the end of every race day, we flush the engine with gasoline so that there is no alcohol remaining in the fuel system. Design a corrosion-proof fuel system, a way to deal with all of the water that alcohol would absorb, and build a purpose-built engine, and you'd have it made. Now try and do that and keep it affordable.

 

The problem with hydrogen is that it doesn't exist in a natural state on Earth. We obtain it by breaking apart water molecules, which takes energy. So just because your car isn't spewing hydrocarbons, the coal/natural gas plant that powered the equipment to separate the molecule is. Until this country goes back to nuclear power or seriously investigates wind/water power, hydrogen is not a viable solution.

 

As NASA mentioned above. Hydrogen isn't the wonder fuel that it's cracked up to be. Sure it's clean when you burn it, but it takes incredible amounts of energy to produce it. if you look at the full cycle, running a car on gasoline is CLEANER than running one on hydrogen

Also, don't think that the Saudis are the only ones getting rich off petroleum. The good ole USA makes its share, as does Canada, Norway and a bunch of other places that we'd consider alies.

 

Such as Brazil use E-85 (85% ethanol) exclusively. I have burned E-10 ethanol totally in both my '05 F-350 V-10 motor and '05 Crown Vic 4.6 motor without any problems. By the way, E-10 is 89 octane, whereas regular dinosar fuel is 87 octane. I'm not sure what the octane is on E-85.

 

Someone in Brazil must have figured out some additive in the other 15% to get around the corrosion problem Wiseguy mentions.

 

there's probably 10 resturaunts in my town and 200+ diesels

demand completely outweighs supply

 

Whoa Jake, I was just pointing out that it is a viable fuel.

We need to change the infrastructure to supply all the diesels. But it's worth it. Wouldn't you rather be paying US farmers for your fuel than pay the freaking Arab countries?

 

Get all of those other diesel owners to start eating more greasy, deep-fried foods. Once they start dropping like flies from health problems, the demand will decrease.

 

I didn't say Hydrogen is ready right now, thats why I said in the FUTURE hydrogen is the most viable fuel for atuomakers. I didn't mean tommorow. As NASA mentioned, the better we get at suppling domestic energy, the more viable of a solution hydrogen will become.

And surely your not saying that hydrogen burns dirtier than gasoline? I hope your talking about the production process, and if thats done right that creates no polution, oh, sorry, more oxygen. Once we convert to more of a nuclear solution, either fission or fusion, that problem will all be taken care of.