Metal powered cars.

Ex-RoNiN · 21 Feb 2006 at 20:36

AcidHell2 said:
He he if you went on to read the nano particles can be reused by removing the oxygen, returning it to iron..

You can't do that infinitely because the process introduces waste.

Eventually, the iron would become unusable.

Then what do you do? Dig up new iron.

Jokester · 21 Feb 2006 at 20:46

The main benefit of this is that your effectively making a battery, that has all the benefits of being rechargeable, but all the power output of a conventional fuel.

Jokester

Sleepy · 21 Feb 2006 at 21:00

Ex-RoNiN said:
You can't do that infinitely because the process introduces waste.

Eventually, the iron would become unusable.

Then what do you do? Dig up new iron.

err is there a secret iron shortage?

Usel · 21 Feb 2006 at 21:18

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?

I believe the Dutch Government are providing a lot more backing into biofuels and are currently using Rapeseed oil in Agricultural machine's in it's testing phase.

The problem is that some expects believe that just as much fuel is used to grow, harvest then refine/produce the fuel than what you end up with.

In the UK there is no government backing in the above fuel.

benjo · 21 Feb 2006 at 21:25

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 in cold-weather climates?

Just put antifreeze in it

Ex-RoNiN · 21 Feb 2006 at 22:03

Sleepy said:
err is there a secret iron shortage?

There certainly isn't an infinite supply.

chopchop · 21 Feb 2006 at 22:18

AcidHell2 said:
economics and also farming scale..

economics yea i can see that, having to make new equipment to mass produce it. but half the equipment is there already.. vege oil to bio fuel, is a small chemical reaction. it is already partly done as it is used as well as animal fat in bio diesel at the pumps.

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

Sleepy · 21 Feb 2006 at 22:19

Ex-RoNiN said:
There certainly isn't an infinite supply.

Iron constitutes 5% of the earths crust. It is effectively unlimited.

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?

Jokester · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:02

AcidHell2 said:
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?

Depending on the plant type, you can expect between 1.5-3 tonnes of fuel per year per hectare.

The UK's total arable land is 5.7 million hectares and we use 37.6 million tonnes of fuel. We could grow rape that only provides 1.5tonne of oil. We could increase this by using the biomaterial left over to make diesel but even still it doesn't look good.

Doom and gloom.

Jokester

Stiff_Cookie · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:11

There is a now fuel being introduced in the states called E85. It is made from corn and that is all I know. I think its ethanol. Dont know but there are commercials and everything now on the boob tube about it. If its as clean as they make it out to be it could be good for the economy and enironment.

Jokester · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:17

Stiff_Cookie said:
There is a now fuel being introduced in the states called E85. It is made from corn and that is all I know. I think its ethanol. Dont know but there are commercials and everything now on the boob tube about it. If its as clean as they make it out to be it could be good for the economy and enironment.

Yeah I saw those adverts, think it's Ford that's doing them and selling the cars that run on it (E85 - 85% ethanol). Sounds great, but looking deeper, the figures are pretty scarey, to make any sort of dent into our hydrocarbon dependency would require us to essentially clear all the rainforests and convert it into palm oil plantations.

Jokester

Stiff_Cookie · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:31

Jokester said:
Yeah I saw those adverts, think it's Ford that's doing them and selling the cars that run on it (E85 - 85% ethanol). Sounds great, but looking deeper, the figures are pretty scarey, to make any sort of dent into our hydrocarbon dependency would require us to essentially clear all the rainforests and convert it into palm oil plantations.

Jokester

Over here I think is more. I went to a website about it and several car makers have compatible cars.

Well, its not a perfect solution but the more people lean on towards it the more funding and development will go into it.

Also, now that i think about it I dont think they want everyone to go to E85 but say 25% convert. Thats 25% less fuel used by cars, less pollution etc. I think the future is going to be a mix of alternatives not just a replacement.

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.

Stiff_Cookie · 22 Feb 2006 at 20:37

AcidHell2 said:
thats quite some deficit . 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.

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

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%

Stiff_Cookie · 22 Feb 2006 at 22:51

AcidHell2 said:
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%

We have multiple grades of fuel at gas stations why not multiple types of fuel to pump. Each type would have a special nozzle to prevent putting the wrong fuel in, bar the idiot who will MAKE it fit.

We already have diesel and petrol. Once those are gone why not E85, metal and say hydrogen or whatever. I dont see it being any different to the system we have now bar gas stations having to convert but they would have to anyways once petrol runs out. We already have 'Alternative fuel' gas stations here that provide ethanol, I think. Dont know what they provide but I know its not petrol.

Like I said, its still new. It may not get to 20% but we dont know that. Right now it wont do a lot of good but its still developing. Maybe it can be kixed with something else. I dont know. All I am saying is that it should be disregarded just because we cant all start using it tomorrow morning.

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

Sleepy · 22 Feb 2006 at 23:05

Another metal that could "power" a car is Zinc.

From issue 2512 of New Scientist magazine, 13 August 2005, page 27

HYDROGEN has been touted as the pollution-free fuel of the future, except that producing it still involves burning fossil fuels. But now concentrated sunlight is being used to make hydrogen with far less pollution.

At the Weizmann Institute in Israel a 54-metre-high tower equipped with mirrors focuses sunlight down into a solar reactor. "We get 2000 times the normal sunlight concentration," says team member Christian Wieckert of the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland.

The researchers use the intense light to heat zinc oxide and wood charcoal to 1200°C. They react to form gaseous zinc and carbon monoxide, part of which is recycled and part burnt as fuel. The zinc is condensed into zinc powder that can either be used directly in zinc-air batteries or reacted with water to give hydrogen and zinc oxide, which can then be recycled.

"Now we can store and transport solar energy efficiently as zinc, and then convert it to hydrogen whenever we need it," says Wieckert.

Glaucus · 22 Feb 2006 at 23:08

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

Metal powered cars.

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