Metal powered cars.

Glaucus · 21 Feb 2006 at 16:22

http://www.drive.com.au/editorial/article.aspx?id=10663&vf=7&bg=27&pp=0

Now this to me, sounds like the perfect alternative to petrol. Can run in normal engines witha few modifications, the fuel is reusable. Its totaly clean/ Infact the only down side I can see is *** weight (for iron anyway) the fuel would way about 100kilos, however would we mind lumping taht around in a 1-2tonne car...

Hydrogen sounds good but in practice isn't really taht good with storage and production problems. Where this is easy, everythign about it screams that it could suceed..

What you guys think..

Glaucus · 21 Feb 2006 at 16:32

Raist said:
The only thing I've heard about hydrogen is a problem with the exhaust. In normal testing the byproduct is water (awesome!), but what happens to water cold-weather climates?

theres a big problem with storage as well. and production currently uses fossile fuels. And yes as water is 100X more powerfull a greenhouse gas as co2 it might be worse than petrol.

Glaucus · 21 Feb 2006 at 16:38

how about iron or boron though?

Glaucus · 21 Feb 2006 at 17:10

kaiowas said:
This is a long way from being a workable alternative to oil. The metal isn't really being used as a fuel more as an energy carrier. Once you've burned the metal you have to reduce it back from an oxide to a metal - this process will require energy.

One way or another the energy that's fuelling the whole process will still have to come from burning fossil fuels until other energy sources (solar, tidal, wind, nuclear etc) become viable on a large scale.

Thats the same with any alternative though..

Glaucus · 21 Feb 2006 at 18:31

chopchop said:
we already have some good renewable fuels, but they are not being used!!

vegetable oil - can be grown
alcohol - can be made from fermented organic matter, maybe even from the leftovers when making vegetable oil.

question is why is it not being used?

economics and also farming scale..

Glaucus · 21 Feb 2006 at 19:53

Ex-RoNiN said:
Iron is not a renewable source - we would be delaying the problem, rather than solving it.

He he if you went on to read the nano particles can be reused by removing the oxygen, returning it to iron..

Glaucus · 22 Feb 2006 at 16:13

chopchop said:
farming scale? with all the set aside land, space to grow it isnt a problem..

I don't now I havent read anything about the farming side. all i Know is crops take a while to grow, I cant imgaine you get much fuel per hecter, we also use a hell of a lot of oil. anyone now how many hecters we would have to grow to replace oil demand?

Glaucus · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:33

To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares. There are 5.7m in the UK. Even the EU's more modest target of 20% by 2020 would consume almost all our cropland.

thats quite some deficit :eek:

. I wasn't expecting it to be that. So we have 5.7M hecters of farm land but to replace petrol we would need to grow 25.9m hectares. Think thats a good reason not to even bother with biofuel. Seems stupid spending all the money on the infastructure on a fuel when it's not even viable.

Glaucus · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:46

Stiff_Cookie said:
What if your not trying to replace 100% of fuel? what if your aiming for 25% or 30% etc

I dan't really see the point, I cant see the public buying cars with diffrent fuels. Two fuels is ok, public might go for 3 fuels. But there must be fuels out there (like this metal) that could replace 100% of fuel. If your going to do it, do it properly. ANy way it wouldn't even do 5% let alone 20% and thats using all are farmland..

If those figuers are right 25.9m/5.7M = 4.54%

Glaucus · 22 Feb 2006 at 22:57

As I siad A few fuels is ok. 3 maybe even 4 more than that and I just can't see it working. People dont won't to buy exspensive cars with an uncertainty in the future. TAx, availability(petrol stations and supply) at some point the goverment will(well should) pick 1 or 2 alternative sources and fully back it. Getting it implemented in nearly all petrol stations and getting *** infastructure set up. With out infastructure the public arent going to buy. With out public running alternative fuels the infastructure isn't going to be implemented. This is where the goverment needs to step in and help set up the infastructure.
IMO of course

Glaucus · 22 Feb 2006 at 23:08

I read that, *** other day, very intesting especially as theres vast amounts of deserts in the world.

Glaucus · 22 Feb 2006 at 23:19

Sleepy said:
And plenty of zinc as well.

The only thing is, if you belive global warming. Then hydrogen produces when burnt. In powerstation not a problem can be collected. But in cars it goes into the atmosphere. Now water is thought to be 100X better a greenhouse gas than co2.

I don't think its a problem, but why are all these greenpeace style parties pushing for it.