What do you think of alternative fuel sources for gas?

Question

Since gas prices are up, even during the war and Mideast crisis, what you do think other alternative fuel sources for gas that's much cheaper, like crops? This info is for a future nonfiction article. (I'm not sure what gas would be in the cars and transportation category. Am I right to choose commuting?)

Answer 1

Auto manufacturers already have MILLIONS of alternative fuel vehicles on the road!
I am in the auto business & have studied this extensively for years.
Henry Ford made his 1st vehicles to run on Ethanol so that farmers could produce their own fuel!
The problem is WE HAVE TO REDUCE CONSUMPTION in order to reduce gas prices.

There is not a magic wand to reduce fuel prices.
But we can reduce our own fuel costs buy taking very simple steps. But everybody keeps looking for the "quick fix" to fuel prices.
There is no ONE quick fix.
There are MANY alternative fuel solutions to reduce our consumption, but people don't know enough or are to lazy too take advantage of them.

Answer 2

Unfortunately, right now the only real motor fuel available to most people is gasoline, and that's not going to change overnight no matter what new miracle fuels are invented in the near future. The problem is not the fuel itself, but the infrastructure required to get that fuel from the producer to the customer.

Alcohol is a reasonable alternative fuel for those vehicles that can use it, but 90% of the cars on the road today can't burn straight alcohol, and if they could, the USA doesn't have the production capacity to meet the demand.

Hydrogen fuel cells may be a great method of fueling automobiles, but how are we going to move the hydrogen from producer to customer? Have you seen a hydrogen pump at your neighborhood gas station?

When Henery Ford built the first model A more than 100 years ago, people were buying gasoline in 1 gallon cans from their local drug store. The corner gas station didn't become a reality for many places until more than fifty years later!

Today it seems like there's a convenience store on every street, but how are we going to develop the infrastructure for the next great development in personal transportation?

Answer 3

Right now the only reason ethanol is cheaper is that the government is subsidizing it like crazy. It gets worse mileage than gasoline, too. I think the best bet with present technology would be to make synthetic gasoline out of coal like the Germans did in World War II, but it would take a lot of investment to build refineries to do that.

Perhaps sometime down the road they may get cellulosic ethanol in production on a large scale, or some of the other methods of converting organic material directly into oil. The present way of making most of the ethanol - grow an entire corn plant and only use the seeds - is pretty inefficient.

Popular Mechanics had a very interesting comparison between gasoline and alternative fuels. Check it out:

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/earth/2690341.html

Answer 4

hey check this out!!!!http://wbir.com/news/archive.aspx?storyid=36673 its cool about gas