Alternatives to fuel in automobiles...?

Question

Why is it that all though we are such a big nation that third world countries such as Spain, Brazil, and Argentina, just to name a few are using methane fuel from corn and other forms of plants to produce fuel fo there vehicles. The cost of fuel in these countries are about 17 to 21 cents per gal. Is our government this corrupt on kickbacks from the large oil producing countries. Think about this. These third world counties have been doing this now for years on end with big success....

Answer 1

Until it gets profitable it's going to take a while, but here is the near future

http://world.honda.com/FuelCell/HomeEnergyStation/

Answer 2

Dear Best, _____At current technology the best and simplest is ethanol. It is made much the same as whiskey with a still. If using corn to ferment, the solid parts make a superior cattle feed. And pigs just LOVE it. Most corn grown in the US goes to cattle feed anyway. A car can run on ethanol without being modified very much. Even a diesel can be changed to run on ethanol. Ethanol is safer, cleaner, less pollution than gasoline. You lose a little mileage but get longer engine life. and less carbon in the oil. _____The car of the future will be the electric. A better battery will give better range. Now four batteries will give thirty miles range, and eight will give fifty. For a small car (VW) it is pretty good. There is a club in Seattle WA that converts VWs to electric. _____Hydrogen will be great as an energy storage system. Wind mills generate the power and it is stored in a special tank. Picture two tin cans, one slightly larger than the other. Both have the tops cut out. The smaller one is placed open-end-down inside the larger one The larger one has about ten percent water in the bottom. The gas is pumped into the smaller can, and can be used from the smaller can. The pressure is regulated by the weight of the smaller can. Put more in and the can floats higher up in the bigger can---take some out and it floats lower. To use hydrogen in a car you have to have a way to store it. Chemicals, high pressure tank, generate on demand--somehow you gotta carry something to give it in order to use it. _____Coal can be used to fuel a car. Burn it in a steam boiler. It has been done! Most steam cars of the past used kerosene. Gasoline was a waste product. that is why Henry Ford used it ----it was cheap (almost free). Kerosene was used as fuel and for lamps. Before that it was Whale oil. There also was a burner that generated carbon monoxide. After you fiddle with it and shake the leaver, it would produce the gas. That was then fed into the engine. That thing would burn wood, coal, and even coconut hulls. It just about needed a second person just to juggle the leaver on the machine. _____There was a firm that built a car with a "flywheel battery". The flywheel was like the toy gyroscopes you sometimes see---only much bigger. The thing was encased in a heavy casing under a (near) vacuum. Put electricity in one end and the flywheel spins faster, and the other end generates electricity for the electric motor that drives the motor. Great concept! The cost was only three million dollars. The production model was a short one million. Maybe someday when......

Answer 3

Absolutely, we are at the mercy of the oil companies as well as the politicians who owe them so much. They have done everything in their power to squash innovation in fuel regards to fuel economy and pollution control, that last one refers to a loophole in the original Clean Air Act of the early 70s that allowed trucks to not have to meet the same pollution standards as cars, the logic being that trucks were used for work and needed more power, at the time there weren't that many trucks on the road as opposed to now, the auto industry has lobbied hard to keep that exception in place, even though engine technology has long ago progressed to the point where the regulation is no longer needed.
This saves the car companies money because they don't have to put as much pollution control equipment on trucks which are now 50% of vehicles on the road, so trucks and SUVs not only use huge amounts of gas they pollute more than cars as well. Thank you car companies!!!, and the politicians that let them get away with it. Also I can't put all the blame on the oil and auto industries
we're the ones who ultimately buy the cars, and if we gave up the trucks or at least had small cars to use most of the time in addition to the trucks, their influence would diminish with every gallon we didn't use, but so many people's egos and status are more important than anything else they refuse to stop driving the trucks.

Answer 4

They are all far from 3rd world country's :/ you need to listen in geography Spain and Argentina would be considered 1st world and Brazil 2nd.

Back onto the question the oil company's are well established and very wealthy and alternatives fuels are a danger to them so they don't want them to take off especially in America all politics runs on money and who's got lots of money?. Many European and south American country's have experienced the effects of global warming and climate change and have also ratified Kyoto. they see that they need to clean up there act. also There politics isn't run by money in the same way and they don't have oil company's based there.

Australia seems to just follow the Americans around blindly and the government suppress alternative fuels best it can although its becoming more popular as they don't do anything to stop the rising cost of fuel.

Answer 5

human excrement will burn