why can we not use ethenol to power our cars, or even hydrogen?

Question

please do not respond with political statements, im looking for mechanical and scientific explenations. ie is there some reasons why we are not using these fuels?

Answer 1

Vehicles can be run off these power sources. But currently ethanol is no more efficient than gasoline nor does it produce less pollution. Regarding hydrogen, with current processes there is no way of generating hydrogen without putting in more energy than you would get out of it. A lot more research must go into the production of this fuel itself, not how to use this fuel.

Answer 2

A normal gasoline motor can use fuel that contains a few percent ethanol. In many countries some ethanol is added to the gasoline.
But to drive on pure ethanol you need a different motor. Just like you need a different motor for diesel.
There are hydrogen cars. They use a fuel cell to generate electricity from the hydrogen.

The reason why we are not all driving ethanol or hydrogen cars is mainly the higher costs. And the fact that there isn't even remotely enough ethanol available nowadays. But that will change. The US want's to be independant from oil imports and Europe want's to lower their emissions and also be independant from oil imports. So they are developing ways to produce large amounts of fuel from plants. Not just ethanol but also other substances that can be used as fuel.

Answer 3

They can be used however, there may be problem of knocking due to water formed as a product of combustion in both the cases.

For a heat engine to be efficient, the temperature difference between the source and the sink (exhaust) should be maximum. While there are limitations both sides. You can not increase the temperature indefinitely. If you decrease the exhaust temperature, the water may condense. When you burn gasoline, the products are carbon dioxide and water. CO2 is a gas at room temperature and the combustion temperature is high, the water does not condense - there are proven designs to ensure that. However, when you use hydrogen, the only product is water. If the temperature of the engine is very high, there may be combustion even before the spark, resulting in reverse torque on engine. -- you will learn more when you learn more about the heat engines and their design engineering. For the time being it is sufficient to know that there are technical difficulties in design of conventional Internal combustion engine. (There are some heat engines using hydrogen as fuel already)

Hydrogen is used in fuel cell powered cars and trucks - Latest invention. It has a memberane having hydrogen in one side and oxygen on the other. It converts the chemical energy directly in electricity. After that it is only electric motor. However, these are very expensive.

Answer 4

There is a slow roll out of ethanol and gasoline mixture sales as more "flex fuel" vehicles come on line.
Due to the danger of storing hydrogen in a vehicle, and the resultant few hydrogen vehicles so far, hydrogen is hardly available as a fuel.
California may lead the way on hydrogen.
High pressure hydrogen, when leaking from a container, bursts into an invisible high temp. flame. I used to work with it.

Answer 5

We need to build and implement the infrastructure in order to make and distribute these fuels on a large scale. It isnt just as easy as having the tanker top off one of a gas staions tanks with hydrogen and switching a pump or two to deliver hydrogen or ethanol, there needs to be hydrogen stations and ones for ethanol in place and a reliable delivery system for these things to work, not to mention the major auto makers making cars that run on these fuels.

Answer 6

Alcohol is made from corn in this country, it is a very expensive process so right now it would cost more than gasoline. In Brazil they make it from cane sugar which is a much more economical way of producing alcohol. As for Hydrogen, it is along way from being practical. Right now we make it from fossil fuels so there is no benefit there. The other problem with H2 is that we need a distribution system, that will take years to develop.

Answer 7

Because it is impractical to use them, and they are more expensive than gasoline.

Almost all newer cars are designed to operate on either gasoline or E85, which is ethanol. It is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.
Ethanol has only about 72% of the energy that gasoline has, so a car that gets 400 miles on a tank of gasoline only gets 300 miles on a tank of E85, plus, in order to make it competitive in price to gasoline, the government has to subsidize it's producers by about $0.50/gallon.
It takes more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it produces. Also ethanol is too corrosive to distribute by pipelines so it has to be delivered from the producers to the users by railcars or trucks.

Hydrogen is expensive to produce and cannot be easily stored or delivered in large quantities. It would have to be put in high pressure tanks if used in autos, which would be very dangerous if there were an accident, similar to using propane, which some taxis and delivery trucks use. It is a very volitile and explosive gas.

Answer 8

Of course there are no scientific or mechanical reasons we cannot run automobiles on ethanol or hydrogen or steam for that matter.

But you already suspected that, didn't you? It's all about economics and politics. It's about who is in power and wants to stay there. Alternate energy sources will be made available when the powers that be can make a greater profit on them than they do the current sources.

Not before.

Answer 9

They do not have the production capacity to make ethonol for fuel in the US. The cost to produce the hydrogen is higher then the costs for the oil based fuel. Until recently there has not been a cost push for finding alternate fuel sources. This is slowly changing.

Answer 10

sure it is going to be our patriotic duty to purchase a Hydrogen-powered automobile. yet come on, face the information. A Hydrogen powered automobile is probably going certainly one of the main costly autos available. and incredibly, no longer a super style of people could have sufficient funds some thing as costly as that. supply it a while and, with any luck, the fee will come down. sure, BMW is popping out with a Hydrogen automobile and with any luck different companies will shop on with of their footsteps, yet this is an argument of years! the automobile companies could arise with a sparkling layout and each little thing! i'm sorry yet I have not have been given any thought what the fee could be like, yet i'm confident it is going to be extensive.