Alternative fuels- which direction?
I wasn’t sure which heading to put this under so it got two.
I’m sure most people remember George W Bush committing $1 billion towards research for hydrogen fueled vehicles. I remember thinking at the time that hydrogen fueled vehicles didn’t make a lot of sense. There are two kinds of hydrogen vehicles. The first would burn the hydrogen in some form of internal combustion, the second uses hydrogen ‘fuel cells’ (batteries). The major drawback to hydrogen is the fact that it is ‘1′ on the periodic table of elements. While that may not mean much if you aren’t a science major, it does mean that hydrogen is the smallest molecule known. That creates complications of storage (how do you hold something that is molecularly smaller than the ‘holes’ between other molecules?). It doesn’t work with existing vehicles, my old Jeep for instance cannot be simply ‘converted’ to use hydrogen. And finally the major research is going into the fuel-cell or storage method of hydrogen fuel. The power has to come from somewhere. In some parts of the world there is some form of cheap energy that can be used to create the hydrogen for fuel cells and a decent amount of research is taking place where it makes sense. But for me- and most people- this means buying a new car, and it’s still years away.
Interestingly enough, there are alternative fuel vehicles on the road today. Just take a look at these sites: 85% ethanol fuel information and journey to forever for ethanol based fuels information. Biodiesel information. We can, today, reduce dependency on foreign oil production by taking advantage of the cars already in production. Estimates are that 1 in 4 cars built in Detroit will be capable of running an 85% ethanol fuel mix, and there are many today that already are. So why is the President spending money on what is arguably a long term, expensive solution to today’s oil crisis when encouraging fueling stations to add a pump or two of e85 could drastically cut our dependency on foreign oil overnight? It can’t be that GW has ties to the oil industry and that long term solutions prop up short term dependencies on oil companies, that would just be wrong.
Oh, in case you missed it in the links, buying e85 fuel saves 20 - 30 cents per gallon and if you want to save even more you can make it yourself.
