Sugar... Mmm Mmm tastey Sugar fuel

[Pesmerga]

So what's up with the US not catching on to Ethanol? Brazil seems to be doing pretty damn fine with 85% of all fuel for cars coming from ethanol.

Do we simply all have to wait until there's simply no more business in gasoline for everyone to switch to ethanol? Clearly it is the best solution, since we can grow miles and miles of the damn stuff.

Humanity fails at species... plz extinct us now kthx

 

[Jandor]

I read somewhere it's not a viable option because there isn't enough space to grow enough. (for the world anyway)

I'll try and find the link.

 

[short recoil]

Too many people with too many cars.

I know the ideal solution but you wouldn't like it.

If you must get a car i think biodiesel is the best bet at mo.
I think it's more efficient to grow oil bearing plants than sugar bearing plants and then fermenting them.

 

[GhostBoi]

The solution is... no more cars, but since that cannot happen, there is no solution.

 

[SAJ]

On a small scale , bio-fuel is a viable alternative to oil but its a diasaster large-scale.
As someone mentioned, there isnt enough room for the crops to provide bio-fuel for everyone and feed people.
What would happen is poor countries would end up supplying the rich with crops needed to provide food-security at a local level.
The result is mega famine, would make ethiopia look like a feast.

 

[Glirk Dient]

Mmm, edible fuel.

 

[Pesmerga]

How does Brazil do it? :|

 

[Raeven0]

The ideal solution is cars powered by psychokinesis.

Just think of the immediate benefits. Stupid people wouldn't be able to drive!

 

[15357]

Some alternatives to gasoline:

#1. Nuclear Reactor -Clean, unsafe, and efficient. Also very expensive

#2. Main Power (Everything hooked up to city electricity) -Clean and safe. But you have a limited range

#3. Battery Charging Thingy -good?

#4. Hydrogen -Unsafe and efficient.

 

[kirovman]

Use mechanical catapults to travel everywhere. They can be horse powered.

 

[Top Secret]

#2. Main Power (Everything hooked up to city electricity) -Clean and safe. But you have a limited range

And this city power just springs up out of the air?

 

[>>FrEnZy<<]

There are many alternatives to gasoline. The reality is, the oil cartels that own the world make sure that these alternatives are not released into society as sucking every dollar they can out of the oil they 'own' is their main priority.

 

[15357]

And this city power just springs up out of the air?

You just gave me an idea:

#5 Wind power.

 

[Razor]

Too many people with too many cars.

I know the ideal solution but you wouldn't like it.

If you must get a car i think biodiesel is the best bet at mo.
I think it's more efficient to grow oil bearing plants than sugar bearing plants and then fermenting them.

Walk, run or bike would be the best thing but like you said, not many people would like it.

 

[CptStern]

the way cities are laid out and the price of housing in urban areas prevents most people from walking or public transit. In my city for example public transit covers at most 50% of the outlying area ..housing in the core is far too expensive for a working family forcing them to find affordable housing in the suburbs which are not always accessible by public transit ..it's not uncommon for people to commute 2 hours everday to work

 

[Sulkdodds]

I predict a dystopian futureworld where all the oil is gone, and most of South America, Central America and Southeast Asia are devoted entirely to growing sugar, their entire existance geared for providing the western world with a supply of fuel. Niether can live without the other. :O

 

[Sloth]

OR
We could use small single celled things to convert garbage into gas...
I don't know the terms at the moment

 

[Sulkdodds]

Nanomachines?

 

[Teta_Bonita]

Where's a Mr. Fusion when you need one? :upstare:

 

[GhostBoi]

People, stop living in dreamworlds, nothing can or will replace oil unless people can make large sacrifices in their lives, but these sacrifices would likely trigger an economic collapse anyway, so there really is nothing macroscopically viable. Things like ethanol and solar and wind may work on a local scale, but on a world scale, they can't replace a fraction of the fossil fuel useage.

 

[Solaris]

Then lets all hop on a bus.

 

[Pesmerga]

Why is oil so good at being burned?

Burned things are all burned to generate steam, no? Find a better material to be burned!

 

[short recoil]

Find a better material to be burned!

I think they should make "human fuel" powered cars for several years.

Kill someone and chuck em in..

That would mean a reasonable supply of fuel and the number of humans it kills would greatly reduce the people using cars!
Problem solved!

 

[>>FrEnZy<<]

Im telling you people that we there are heaps of alternatives. Ive heard of cars that can run off air for chrissake. But these technologies arent being developed because they aren't recieveing any funding. As these technologies would be a direct threat to the oil cartels that own the world, it's no wonder that these technologies are not being developed to suit the worlds needs.

 

[GhostBoi]

Im telling you people that we there are heaps of alternatives. Ive heard of cars that can run off air for chrissake. But these technologies arent being developed because they aren't recieveing any funding. As these technologies would be a direct threat to the oil cartels that own the world, it's no wonder that these technologies are not being developed to suit the worlds needs.

Just because something CAN be done doesn't make it economically viable. Just like Hydrogen fuel cell cars, obviously those can be built, and do work, but that does not mean that everyone can afford them or that we can change our whole infrastructure to center around it.

 

[SAJ]

Im telling you people that we there are heaps of alternatives. Ive heard of cars that can run off air for chrissake. But these technologies arent being developed because they aren't recieveing any funding. As these technologies would be a direct threat to the oil cartels that own the world, it's no wonder that these technologies are not being developed to suit the worlds needs.

There are alternatives to oil, yes, but only in terms of storage or delivery, not both.
Hydrogen ,electricity and air fueled cars(yes they do exist) use their respective fuel sources for storage of energy, which must be produced somewhere else.
Biofuels of any kind can be produced independant of electricity , but require arable land and fertilizers(which oddly enough are oil based).
Oil, on the other hand is its own energy supply(requiring relatively very little energy to extract and transport) and its own battery(each barrel of oil cotains many hundreds of man-hours of energy).
Its this dual nature of oil which is impossible to recreate with any existing technologies, and that is the real crisis we may be facing very soon.
The free lunch could well be off the menu in the space of a few years.

As for the air cars, I am very excited by the prospect but they are probably doomed to failure. They are too low-tech(dont require large corporations to deliver) and they depend on propriety technology(consider air car=microsoft and gasoline =open source).
Damned impressive stuff though.

 

[Teta_Bonita]

Just because something CAN be done doesn't make it economically viable. Just like Hydrogen fuel cell cars, obviously those can be built, and do work, but that does not mean that everyone can afford them or that we can change our whole infrastructure to center around it.

That was the same case with gas powered automobiles in the early 20th century, before Henry Ford made them affordable. If Ford did it to gas cars, we can do it to fuel cell cars.

 

[15357]

I think they should make "human fuel" powered cars for several years.

Kill someone and chuck em in..

That would mean a reasonable supply of fuel and the number of humans it kills would greatly reduce the people using cars!
Problem solved!

But the bones and some stuff like teeth might not burn and clog the engine.

 

[Jandor]

I read that Hydrogen cars are not viable because the Hydrogen cell requires a rare metal, while no problem when making a few hundred or few thousand cars. When making millions there simply isn't enough.
I think it was titanium.

If we stop burning oil for energy and use it exclusively for fuel, it could last much longer.

Brazil can do so well on its alcohol fuelled cars because it has the climate to grow lots of sugar cane very quickly and easily. something countries like Britain or the USA can't do.
Brazil also gets lots of it's Electric from Hydroelectric dams.
When the oil crisis comes, move to Brazil

 

[GhostBoi]

That was the same case with gas powered automobiles in the early 20th century, before Henry Ford made them affordable. If Ford did it to gas cars, we can do it to fuel cell cars.

What the post above me points out is that the fuel cells are made out of a rare metal, which is platinum, and he is correct to replace the fleet of 700 million cars on the road would be impossible. Also there is no feasible way to transport hydrogen around as you can with oil, oil just flows through pipes. Hydrogen is very small and can fit through the smallest of cracks. NOt to mention, there is also the problem of a truck carring hydrogen to the hydrogen station, and exploding halfway there. There are about 10,000 gas stations across America replacing all of these would be very costly and time consuming. By the time the ammount of time it would take to make this switch has passed we will already be waist deep in the problem of scarce oil. And you know how hard it is to move around in all that gooey oil.

 

[Angry Lawyer]

If we got Short Recoil to continuously run on a treadmill, we'd end up violating energy conservation laws and flood the universe with electricity.
Which is why we haven't done it yet.

-Angry Lawyer