The Honolulu Advertiser reported on a high school micro fuel cell car competition today. The winning entry had an efficiency of about 3 miles/gallon. I drive a Honda Fit with ten times that gas mileage. The Toyota Prius, a hybrid (battery plus internal combustion engine-ICE) can do slightly better, but in June of 2006, the University of British Columbia won the university Supermileage Competition with a 3,145 miles per gallon vehicle featuring optimal aerodynamics, light-weight construction, and a small displacement engine (54 cc). Details can be found in Chapter 2 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth. Clearly fuel cell efficiencies will improve over time, but they have a long way to go.
One possible trend is from the ICE to battery to fuel cell powered vehicles, or some combination thereof. The problem with the hybrid car today is that the gasoline is an imported fuel which produces carbon dioxide. An electric vehicle is perhaps worse, because the electricity to charge the battery usually comes from coal-fired powerplants. The standard hydrogen fuel cell leaves a lot to be desired because hydrogen is very expensive and the infrastructure is non-existent. An excellent debate between Daniel Sperling and Joseph Romm on the subject is found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/01-point.html .
In time ICEs could well disappear. A second problem with batteries is that, unless the ultra-capacitor concept can be perfected, the lithium battery could well be the final one. Thus, most futurists point to the fuel cell as the power source of future cars. Wouldn’t it then be ideal if a cost-effective renewable liquid fuel can be found which can be fed to a fuel cell without reforming (converting the liquid to hydrogen, which is an expensive process)?
Well, actually there is such a biofuel. Given biomass, the simplest alcohol, methanol, should be more economical to produce than ethanol. This is the part difficult to comprehend, but: one gallon of methanol has more hydrogen than one gallon of liquid hydrogen. Why not, then, side-step the cost and infrastructure problems of hydrogen by using a direct methanol fuel cell. Yes, methanol has half the energy density of gasoline, but the fuel cell is twice the efficiency of the ICE, so the storage tank remains the same size and the vehicle goes about the same distant on a fill-up. Unknown to most, the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) will begin to replace batteries in portable applications next year. Unfortunately, no government funding has gone into developing this option for vehicular applications. Plus, for reasons beginning with the Farm Lobby, renewable biomethanol does not qualify for any Federal incentives. Information of how to start a team to gain control of this promising field and change the existing laws can be found in The Huffington Post.
One possible trend is from the ICE to battery to fuel cell powered vehicles, or some combination thereof. The problem with the hybrid car today is that the gasoline is an imported fuel which produces carbon dioxide. An electric vehicle is perhaps worse, because the electricity to charge the battery usually comes from coal-fired powerplants. The standard hydrogen fuel cell leaves a lot to be desired because hydrogen is very expensive and the infrastructure is non-existent. An excellent debate between Daniel Sperling and Joseph Romm on the subject is found at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/3210/01-point.html .
In time ICEs could well disappear. A second problem with batteries is that, unless the ultra-capacitor concept can be perfected, the lithium battery could well be the final one. Thus, most futurists point to the fuel cell as the power source of future cars. Wouldn’t it then be ideal if a cost-effective renewable liquid fuel can be found which can be fed to a fuel cell without reforming (converting the liquid to hydrogen, which is an expensive process)?
Well, actually there is such a biofuel. Given biomass, the simplest alcohol, methanol, should be more economical to produce than ethanol. This is the part difficult to comprehend, but: one gallon of methanol has more hydrogen than one gallon of liquid hydrogen. Why not, then, side-step the cost and infrastructure problems of hydrogen by using a direct methanol fuel cell. Yes, methanol has half the energy density of gasoline, but the fuel cell is twice the efficiency of the ICE, so the storage tank remains the same size and the vehicle goes about the same distant on a fill-up. Unknown to most, the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC) will begin to replace batteries in portable applications next year. Unfortunately, no government funding has gone into developing this option for vehicular applications. Plus, for reasons beginning with the Farm Lobby, renewable biomethanol does not qualify for any Federal incentives. Information of how to start a team to gain control of this promising field and change the existing laws can be found in The Huffington Post.
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With ground transportation hopefully to soon be well in hand with the DMFC, my next hypothetical feat of magic will deal with air transport. I will later this month report on a simple solution for the future of aviation.
Well, there are stirrings of recovery, again, as the Dow Jones Industrials jumped 401 to 8979, tracking similar gains around the world, and the price of oil dropped to $72.66/barrel. Guaranteed, Japan, Europe and world stock exchanges will increase even more tomorrow. Our unstable economy, perhaps manic-depressive, is becoming psychotic.
Well, there are stirrings of recovery, again, as the Dow Jones Industrials jumped 401 to 8979, tracking similar gains around the world, and the price of oil dropped to $72.66/barrel. Guaranteed, Japan, Europe and world stock exchanges will increase even more tomorrow. Our unstable economy, perhaps manic-depressive, is becoming psychotic.
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Omar is now a tropical storm with a crazy projected pathway: continued movement in the northeast direction for a bunch of days, then, perhaps, a wild swing west for several days, then another amazing move east, dissipating somewhere in the mid-Atlantic a month or so from now.
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1 ความคิดเห็น:
Hello,
Although methanol appears to be a promising option based on it energy density and ability to produce from biomass, it also has some really grave health and evironmental concerns that supporters seem to gloss over. A quick look into methanol will reveal that it causes blindness and birth defects with minimal exposure and chronic exposure can be fatal. Methanol can be absorped by the human body through ingestion, inhalation, and absorption through the skin. Environmentally, methanol is extremely water soluable, whereas gas float on water, methanol spills with contaminate our driking water supplies. We need to investigate further before jumping on the methanol bandwagon.
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