What is the most economically-viable carbon-neutral/positive fuel...

[sandorski]

Are you fucking with me or just being naturally Canadian?

Fucking with ya. It doesn't matter what you choose, there's a lot of $ and Time involved in making the change. You basically have 2 choices:

1) a Liquid fuel you can put in current ICE. That requires significant Refinery Construction for Production, possibly alternate Storage facilities for Gas Stations, and possibly alternate Storage in Vehicles.

2) Electricity. New vehicles would require Electric Motors and Batteries. There would need to be increased Production capacity of both. Electrical generation would also need increased, but it has the advantage of already being available in significant Volume and Distribution, adding more Supply is time consuming, but it's a well understood Energy source with many ways of producing it.

It's biggest mark against it is the range limit of current Batteries. It could certainly be sufficient for a good portion of current travel needs, but until the Batteries are improved won't be good enough for a complete change.

 

[frostedflakes]

Nuclear energy is safe as hell. Chernobyl happened because the dudes turned off a dozen warning signals and safeties that said "STOP THE DAMN REACTOR"

Economically viability wise, not sure as they are pretty expensive to make and need government subsidies. And just wanting to use that electricity of transportation? A massive waste.

Overall, a slow transition to a multitude of alternative energies would work the best. Hedging our bets on a single thing is a terrible idea.

But, current methods are already pretty damn efficient. Sure they burn thousands upon thousands of gallons of gasoline in ships, but they transport a staggering amount of cargo that is more efficient then most everything else

Not to mention Chernobyl didn't even have a containment structure. No commercial nuke plant in the US has *ever* been built without a containment structure. The RBMK-1000 design was just terrible and it didn't help that the reactors were staffed by people who had no clue what they were doing. But what happened in Ukraine could literally never happen in the US. Even if a reactor does melt down, the containment structure will prevent nuclear fallout. Just look at Three Mile Island. There was a partial meltdown and the containment structure did exactly what it was designed to do. The damage from the meltdown was contained within the structure and did not contaminate the surrounding areas.

Anyway, with respect to OP's question, I've always been very impressed by Brazil's sugarcane ethanol program. I think some studies suggest its EROI is like 12:1, which just blows my mind.

Another interesting thing is that engines designed for ethanol can actually be very fuel efficient (on par with diesel engines IIRC). For example ethanol has a much higher octane rating than gasoline, so you can run engines at higher compression ratios using ethanol. There's a perception that with ethanol you have to sacrifice fuel economy, but with an engine optimized for ethanol fuel that's not the case.

 

[darkswordsman17]

I never said the answer would have to be economically viable, just that it's the most economically viable. Big difference.

If its not viable, then how does that make it any more feasible than electric motors?

The most economically viable would probably be a mixture of ethanols, but you'll run into issues with using food-crop land/resources for non-food products which just wouldn't make it feasible. Plus, you'd introduce a ton of extra cost/development needed as you can't use the existing oil infrastructure for this stuff.

Not only that, but you'd have to effectively modify/replace such a large amount of the vehicles that you might as well just swap in electric motors or come up with some cheap personal electric car (think an electric bicycle) and force people into electric commuter trains.

In short, there's really no clear answer. The scale of change that you'd have to do makes all of them unviable right now.

 

[silverpig]

You can't tell me nuclear is a fuel for the transportation industry without giving extra information. How is the stored energy converted from nuclear energy going to be the most economically viable of all fossil alternatives?

Electricity.

 

[silverpig]

Guys, I'm talking about today (as noted in the OP). I would love for electric motors to power all of our vehicles, but that's not going to happen today because it'll be prohibitively expensive for most industries. Unless you've got some figures proving that every car and truck can now run on electricity cheaper than gasoline, you've got to change your tune.

Your thread is BS then. You ask for the next best thing, then when people give you alternatives, you shoot them down saying that they aren't cost effective. No shit. If you could instantly change every car over to run on water with a $1.25 insert and hook your car up to your garden hose we'd be doing it already.

 

[Howard]

Your thread is BS then. You ask for the next best thing, then when people give you alternatives, you shoot them down saying that they aren't cost effective. No shit. If you could instantly change every car over to run on water with a $1.25 insert and hook your car up to your garden hose we'd be doing it already.

I haven't shot down any answers that didn't already shoot themselves down before the Submit Reply button was pressed. How can you say that electric (motors) is the cheapest when you don't provide any figures?

 

[destrekor]

hemp or switchgrass

both will grow with very little effort demanded of the planters

and both will provide ethanol at far larger amounts per acre than other common sources.

At least, I known there is a specific strain of cannabis that can be grown with effectively worthless amounts of active cannabinoids (so smoking it, even super condensed forms, would do nothing), and said strain will grow massive, or at least will have massive growth of certain fibers. Those fibers can be harvested for both ethanol and textiles (clothing (soft? no idea), various products, as well as paper).

I'm not too familiar with switchgrass, but I've read it offers a lot more than corn can.

 

[Kirby]

Soylent Yellow 87
Soylent Red 89
Soylent Green 91

 

[OverVolt]

To answer the OP: Oil

And thats why there's a problem.

There was a MPG contest, how to get the most mileage out of a vehicle. Out of all the electrics, the hybrids, etc, what ended up winning the contest was a plain old internal combustion engine tuned to run lean, coast, etc, with low aerodynamics and weight.

“
But
 our 
analysis 
showed 
that 
the 
only 
two 
absolute 
virtues 
in 
auto 
efficiency 
are 
light 
weight 
and
 low
 aerodynamic 
drag. 
So 
we 
avoided 
the 
hundreds 
and
 hundreds 
of 
pounds 
of 
batteries
 needed 
for 
an 
electric 
and 
chose 
a 
conventional 
internal 
combustion 
engine 
running 
on 
E85.”

http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/09/automotive-x-prize-winner-gets-102-5-mpg/

So oil = king.

 

[Howard]

To answer the OP: Oil

And thats why there's a problem.

There was a MPG contest, how to get the most mileage out of a vehicle. Out of all the electrics, the hybrids, etc, what ended up winning the contest was a plain old internal combustion engine tuned to run lean, coast, etc, with low aerodynamics and weight.


http://www.wired.com/autopia/2010/09/automotive-x-prize-winner-gets-102-5-mpg/

So oil = king.

Ah, but which method of oil production is both the cheapast and carbon neutral?

 

[Fayd]

You can't tell me nuclear is a fuel for the transportation industry without giving extra information. How is the stored energy converted from nuclear energy going to be the most economically viable of all fossil alternatives?

he was saying electricity is the fuel of the transportation industry, with nuclear power generating that electricity.

i'd say for commuters, that's true. however, electricity will not be possible for commercial freight. in those cases, probably biodiesel.

 

[FoBoT]

Flubber

 

[Fayd]

Also, the pebble bed reactors CAN'T end up with a cascading meltdown.

how about a resonance cascade?

 

[sandorski]

how about a resonance cascade?

I don't wanna go near the Test Chamber.

 

[Texashiker]

I don't wanna go near the Test Chamber.

Not even with a Hazardous Environment (HEV) suit?

 

[bignateyk]

Nuclear powering an all electric infrastructure.

 

[disappoint]

i'd say for commuters, that's true. however, electricity will not be possible for commercial freight. in those cases, probably biodiesel.

lol I read that as commercial FLIGHT, I just noticed you said freight. Well I looked it up anyway and biodiesel may be used for flight as well.

http://www.gizmag.com/go/8204/

 

[silverpig]

I haven't shot down any answers that didn't already shoot themselves down before the Submit Reply button was pressed. How can you say that electric (motors) is the cheapest when you don't provide any figures?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electric-cars-cost-per-charge

 

[Jeff7]

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electric-cars-cost-per-charge

Something else that surely factors into that: Electricity gets sent to distribution points by wire.
Gasoline gets driven to its distribution points by truck.


(I was going to say, "Imagine if battery power was delivered by truck," but then remembered that very many people use disposable alkalines instead of NiMH cells. )

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Guys, I'm talking about today (as noted in the OP). I would love for electric motors to power all of our vehicles, but that's not going to happen today because it'll be prohibitively expensive for most industries. Unless you've got some figures proving that every car and truck can now run on electricity cheaper than gasoline, you've got to change your tune.

It's not prohibitively expensive if we shifted oil subsidies to electric/nuclear subsidies. Also as another poster pointed out electric would be cheaper (~$.75/gal for gas would be price parity on their numbers).

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=electric-cars-cost-per-charge

So either you want people to say "oil!!!!", or you're question is bullshit. We don't have the ability "today" to move to electricity, bio-fuels, or anything else for that matter. We are so heavily invested in oil (from infrastructure, to economics, to industry, to just about everything) that we can't get away from it "today."

The nuclear/electric option could be done with todays tech, and investment from the federal government and corporations. All major car companies have the ability to make all electric vehicles. The major limiting factor right now are the batteries, which are at a state that we can get long enough range out of them for most driving needs (with exception to long haul/road trip type deals). If we use natural gas for that though, it's a much cleaner option (if not entirely clean) and could also be done today at a cheaper price than current gas is.

I never said the answer would have to be economically viable, just that it's the most economically viable. Big difference.

The most economically viable is oil, which means that the others are not going to be able to break oils stranglehold on the economy. Unless we invest in something else that would drive the costs down and make it economically viable (i.e. price parity with oil to get it into mainstream, which then could drive the cost down more and make it more viable than oil), then we are staying with oil and fossil fuels. There is no other option. We don't have a second option that's all ready for us to start using tomorrow.

Also, what exactly do you mean by economically viable? Electric and biofuels are both economically viable, once the investment to switch to them is made. As it stands today though, there is no other option outside of oil that is available.

Carbon hidden away in the ground is effectively nonexistent, wouldn't you say?

It's not effectively non-existent. All the carbon in fossil fuels that has not been refined yet is "effectively non-existent" at present. That doesn't mean it won't be "existent" once processed/used though. Yeah it might not be in the current atmosphere, but it will be. So either you want economically viable that is not carbon neutral (i.e. oil), or you want less economically viable and carbon neutral (electricity from nuclear energy)/more carbon neutral (i.e. bio fuels).

 

[DisgruntledVirus]

Something else that surely factors into that: Electricity gets sent to distribution points by wire.
Gasoline gets driven to its distribution points by truck.


(I was going to say, "Imagine if battery power was delivered by truck," but then remembered that very many people use disposable alkalines instead of NiMH cells. )

In 2009 ~9 million medium and heavy trucks used ~2 million barrels of oil per day. Assuming 1/10 of that is used for fuel transportation/delivery of oil based products (gas, diesel, heating oil, etc) then that would mean that we remove 900k trucks off the road AND reduce oil consumption by 200k barrels/day.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2010/04/american_fuel.html <-- source for the starting numbers, the rest are all estimates.

 

[Linflas]

Something else that surely factors into that: Electricity gets sent to distribution points by wire.
Gasoline gets driven to its distribution points by truck.


(I was going to say, "Imagine if battery power was delivered by truck," but then remembered that very many people use disposable alkalines instead of NiMH cells. )

Actually I'm pretty sure that most gasoline travels through pipelines to regional distribution points. Trucks are only used to get it from there to the station.

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

There is no way to answer this question because there are a number of technologies being developed which are promising, but unproven. The production of hydrocarbon fuels directly by E. coli fo rexample.

Personally one of the worst things we can do is get caught in a one size fits all solution, and we need to consider the TCO of any system.

For example thorium reactors could be an ideal solution for energy intensive purposes, but we should be moving away from a grid based system even if the initial cost were higher. Why? A couple reasons and none of it related to the source or destination of electricity, but the means by which it is transmitted. As the grid becomes larger it is of necessity larger and more complex. We have "smart" grids now so we lessen the likelihood of a large power outage. That's great, but it then becomes increasingly expensive and more vulnerable to the elephant in the room, and that's solar activity. This is not something which is sci fi. A solar storm caused some damage not many years ago, and one in the mid 1800' was so powerful that people operating telegraphs got severe shocks. At this time there isn't a good solution to this. That means anything that uses modern technology and plugged in will be cooked. Computers mostly gone. The internet- history. Power? Forget it. That's best case. It gets a lot worse than that. Imagine communications gone, data fried, and more. Back to snail mail and typewriters. In the meantime the logistics of running business or government suddenly become impossible. What can be done to avert this is beyond the scope of my post, but this is not Y2K. It's a matter of physics.

Part of the solution would be to minimize exposure to the grid. It's easier to unplug your home or cluster of dwellings and it's easier to minimize the damage. Spending more money than exists to repair society isn't exactly economical.

There's a whole lot more to it than what's the shortest and cheapest route from concept to reality.

 

[Phokus]

Fucking with ya. It doesn't matter what you choose, there's a lot of $ and Time involved in making the change. You basically have 2 choices:

1) a Liquid fuel you can put in current ICE. That requires significant Refinery Construction for Production, possibly alternate Storage facilities for Gas Stations, and possibly alternate Storage in Vehicles.

2) Electricity. New vehicles would require Electric Motors and Batteries. There would need to be increased Production capacity of both. Electrical generation would also need increased, but it has the advantage of already being available in significant Volume and Distribution, adding more Supply is time consuming, but it's a well understood Energy source with many ways of producing it.

It's biggest mark against it is the range limit of current Batteries. It could certainly be sufficient for a good portion of current travel needs, but until the Batteries are improved won't be good enough for a complete change.

The Tesla S has a max range of 300 miles depending on which battery you choose. I think we're almost there.

 

[sdifox]

it is possible to mandate universal battery and you just pull into a station, swap out the battery in x min with a mechanised device and pay x dollars for that. Obviously the batteries would be nationally owned.

install cycle pedals hooked up to dynamos as emergency power :biggrin: