if we can turn corn into gas for cars, is it possible to do that with?

Question

illegal stuff like cocain, pot, and other things that grow on"farms" and in the wild? It would be helpful to use another source of something that is natural

can a car only use ethinal. I am not good with science , but want to help with the whole oil issue. that is my goal with find out answers thanks to all of you for helping

Answer 1

The more energy that obtained from a unit of fuel (say a liter), the less fuel you need to use. The ability to renew the source of that fuel is also important. You need to balance between the amount of energy that can be obtained from a certain type of fuel and the ability to renew your source. And, of course, in today's world, you would prefer a fuel that can be developed locally rather than having to depend on foreign countries.

Diesel fuel is about the most efficient fuel available, followed by gasoline. The problem with both is that oil takes so long to develop from decomposed life forms that you can consider them virtually unrenewable. Once you use up all the oil that curently exists, the amount of new oil that's created is so small as to make oil irrelevant.

Of renewable sources, ethanol from corn, grain, sugar cane, etc. is the most efficient fuel you can find. It isn't nearly as efficient as gasoline or diesel, but it is renewable. Of course, being renewable doesn't make it a magic bullet. It takes a lot of land to grow the corn to turn into ethanol. It's a great thing for farmers to do with excess corn, since it keeps grain prices high, but growing enough corn to replace gasoline and diesel completely would be pretty hard.

You also want a fuel which responds very fast. In other words, when you step on the gas pedal, you want the car to respond immediately, not 10 seconds, 20 seconds, or a couple minutes later. Coal is very efficient, but doesn't react nearly as fast as gasoline - that makes it a great fuel for electric companies, but not a great fuel for cars. Diesel doesn't react as fast as gasoline, but its performance is certainly good enough for the average car/truck.

Some fuel types and their efficiencies (I also give a link to a site with a calculator to compare the efficiency of different fuels):

Diesel: 38,520 kJ/L
Biodiesel: 35,600 kJ/L (very good fuel comparable in performance to diesel)
Gasoline: 34,920 kJ/L
Anthracite coal: 34,700 kJ/L (Anthracite coal is the high quality coal)
Propane: 23,760 kJ/L
Ethanol: 21,960 kJ/L
Methanol: 16,560 kJ/L (not very efficient, but reacts very quickly)
Hydrogen (compressed): 1,460 kJ/L (no that's not a typo)

Answer 2

Corn works because it is high in energy. The energy goes to feed bacteria that convert the food energy in the corn into alcohol.

Green bio mass will work. In fact, some landfills capture the methane that escapes from the decomposing refuse. However, it isn't worth it to build a plan around the captured illegal things you mention. Corn, grains, sugar cane, and other things high in energy work best. Now, could those things be dumped into the vat will all the corn? Sure. The chemical engineer who is in charge of the process might not like having this stuff added to his mix, however, it would be converted.

However, how much ethanol would be created by 100 pounds of pot? Not enough to make it worth the trouble of transporting it and definitely not worth the money you would have to pay the guards to make sure it really ended up as ethanol.

Answer 3

Pot fuel? Mmm, stinky! I somehow doubt that pot or cocaine has potential as fuel - politically or chemically. Besides, corn is much more plentiful and easier to grow and care for. Not only that, but Saab has created a fully-functional concept car dubbed "Aero X" that runs on 100% ethanol (and generates 500hp!) And while E100 (100% ethanol) filling stations are still a ways off, a guy named Bill Sasher has a company called Dogwood Energy that makes Ethanol stills for only $1400, where you can refine your own ethanol to use in your vehicle. And if you have an E100 vehcile, well - you could grow your own fuel !!
Sounds far-fetched, but the technology is here, and its almost affordable - so keep your eyes on the industry. Ethanol seems to be the answer, and it is well within reach!

Answer 4

The reason we can turn corn into "gas" is because we can produce ethanol from corn which we can use to run cars. Currently, we add about 10% ethanol to our gasoline, but there are cars that run on 100% ethanol. I don't think that you can produce ethanol from the things that you mentioned.

Answer 5

We already do it and it's called Ethanol. All cars can use the 15% blended, but only some cars can use the 85% Ethanol stuff.

Answer 6

If you burned pot in cars, do you know how many pot heads would be chasing cars down the road for the fumes?????

Answer 7

pee would is natural isnt it that way if you need to make a pit stop ta da

Answer 8

that is a cool idea.

Answer 9

I don't know