Who can answer this question about fuel for cars?

Question

I keep reading bout the Fed by 2020 ( 13 YEARS ) making higher gas requirements and the automobile industry saying the increase is too steep for that amount of time etc. Also reports on how to get off of foreign oil.

My question is, over 10 years ago, I saw news local news report of a man who ran his car on used oil from fast food restaurants (they showed him pouring oil from mcdonalds in his car), also heard of cars being able to run on hydrogen gas made w/ water and electricity, etc.

So if all of this is existing, why is it not being used, why is everyone acting like its non existant and in 13 years can only have slight improvements?

My personal only guess is oil companies paying over governent, and w/ as much that is taxed on oil, if cars were running on oil would mean billions and billions of our criminal governments income would be gone.

Whoever can explain this in a way that makes most sense gets best answer.

Answer 1

Veggie oil is a solid technology that has worked well for 100 years. Hydrogen doesn't work yet, and has some serious issues.

Dr. Rudolf Diesel originally designed his engine to run on SVO, but it'll run on darn near anything: heating oil, Jet A, kerosene, crude oil, even coal dust! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diesel_engine Vegetable oil has one drawback, at cool temperatures it's too thick (viscous) to work in most fuel injection systems. Throw a bottle of veggie oil in the fridge and you'll see the problem.

To solve it, either modify the fuel to be thinner (that's called biodiesel http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel.html ), or modify the vehicle to preheat the SVO http://journeytoforever.org/biodiesel_svo.html
A home mechanic can easily do either one.

Firedrayke is flat wrong about SVO/biodiesel. Actually, SVO/biodiesel give about the same fuel economy as regular diesel. And biodiesel production is very efficient, yielding 3.2 gallons fuel product per fuel input
http://www.mda.state.mn.us/renewable/renewablefuels/balance.htm
SVO is even more efficient.

(ethanol, on the other hand, has the properties Firedrayke speaks of - high energy costs of manufacture and poor fuel economy. Our government is behind it because they were lobbied to by big business.)

And actually, biodiesel is hugely popular among diesel people. Just read magazines for diesel-SUV enthusiasts ("Diesel Power") or any long-haul trucker magazine, they talk about biodiesel a lot and it's all good. Note these people are NOT liberals or environmentalists. B20 biodiesel is available at truck stops all over the country. There are many more biodiesel plants than there are ethanol plants. (partly because biodiesel is much easier to make.)

What about WVO? Right now, restaurants pay about $1.00/gallon to have their waste oil hauled away to rendering plants, where it's used for other purposes, such as animal feed (ever wonder why dog food is greasy? Ewwww!) There isn't enough WVO to run the whole country, but there is enough to run your car.

There's more virgin SVO, and there can be a LOT more if efficient plant crops like algae are used. SVO goes for about $2.59/gal. at CostCo. You have to pay 40-60 cents road tax (but you may get all of that back in other tax deductions and credits.)

Now as for hydrogen, there are three big problems:
#1 making hydrogen. Making it from fossil fuels defeats the purpose, and making it from electricity is not efficient (yet).
#2 storing hydrogen. They just don't have any good answers for that one. That's a HUGE problem with no solutions in sight.
#3 Running a car on hydrogen. Cars set up for CNG can burn hydrogen too, but it's terribly inefficient. Fuel cells will be more efficient once they get the cost down.
But problem #2 is the killer, especially because other 100-year-old technologies already do it better! Why convert electricity to hydrogen, store it (hard) then convert it to electricity, when it's much easier to store the electricity directly in batteries.

Yes electric cars beat hydrogen right now, and they've even solved the "what happens when your batteries run down" - it's called a plug-in hybrid, that runs the first 40 miles on battery then uses the engine for longer hauls.


Bottom line, biodiesel works today. SVO/WVO works today. Thousands of people have built electric cars, and upgrading it to a hybrid is doable. Hydrogen is a long, long way off.

Answer 2

Government cant figure out a way to tax people for something there getting free They lose control but in my eyes that wouldn't be so bad not to lose control but to stop thinking like my grandfather did back in the 20s . I'm 51 now and have seen things that the government has control of that it would make your head spin all the way from flying cars to free energy . Ive seen one motor that would continuously run the without refueling the only thing they would tell me is that it ran off bubbles what kind of bubbles i have no idea. They will not release new ideas because they say its for national security reasons. Take a look at this ( www.first-molecule.com ) This is not a new idea its been around for the longest but the guy figured out a way to miniaturize it just like the cell phone got smaller and like the computers keep getting smaller . I purchased 2 dealerships myself the guys even selling them on eBay hopefully people will start taking matters in there own hands and stop depending on the rich oil kings that want more and more

Answer 3

I am sure you are right about the influence oil companies have over governments; that's also evident by the frequent totally inexplicable fuel price hikes and the unwillingness of governments to protect consumers from monopolistic behaviour.

Vegetable oils can certainly be recycled and used in vehicles; but most require some engine modifications. Distrubution and reliability of supply are therefore important; these, of couyrse, are controlled by the same oil companies.

Answer 4

Used cooking oil is viable in making Bio-Diesel, but at present time the cost to make it is somewhat high. Last I heard, it took 1 gallon of diesel to plant, harvest, process and deliver 1.25 gallons of Bio-Diesel.

I do recall the guy who put the oil directly in his tank, but not the science behind what made it work. I do recall that the resulting mileage was about 7-10 MPG. And frankly, you have to have a monster tank or a chain of hook-ups to go any great distance. Add to that the fact that a lot of food chains are starting to recycle their oil.

As for hydrogen, the fuel takes much more specialized equipment. This leads to these vicious hurdles:

Higher price for the car because of the upgraded fuel system
Higher price for the fuel from stations that do carry it
Fewer stations carrying the fuel you need, at least initially
Cost of electricity used by the plant to produce the fuel

I know I didn't cover everything, but I seriously doubt "THE MAN" is keeping alternative fuels from us. This is just a slow progression. It will happen eventually...

Answer 5

It is true about the vegetable oil/shortening burning diesel engines, apparently they take little modification and your exhaust smells like chips, but there are not enough mcdonalds out there for everyone.

Hydrogen is just a fairly clean battery in my opinion, but I can't see any harm in that and I am with you in asking; "Why isn't this here now?"

I am a little bit uneasy about the U.S. turning to bio fuels and using food to run cars, perhaps we should just buy better cars. I just bought one and I drive my V8 truck a whole lot less now at $5 per gallon.

As far as conspiracy theories...make political contributions taxable and reportable and that might be a good thing.

P.S. I work for big oil by the way....

Answer 6

I grow weary of all these conspiracy rumors about blaming the government and oil companies for our not using higher gas milage cars and alternative fuel cars. This is rediculous.

The only reason is we will not buy the small fuel efficient cars and alternate fuel cars. If we would, the manufactureres would produce them. Look at Japan, Korea, Europe. They have been in a fuel crisis way longer than us. Our government can't control there engineers and scientists. If there were better new technology available, and people would buy it, they would make billions and billions. Don't you think they would?

Answer 7

"My question is, over 10 years ago, I saw news local news report of a man who ran his car on used oil from fast food restaurants (they showed him pouring oil from mcdonalds in his car), "

Bio-diesel

Answer 8

With respect to waste oil from restaurants, yes it has been used to run diesel automobiles. However the amount of waste oil available is very small compared with the amount of oil needed.

With respect to hydrogen generated electrolytically from water, current equipment available requires 50 kilowatt hours of electricity to generate an amount of hydrogen with the energy equivalent to one gallon of gasoline.

Current utility bills for residential use are between 10 to 20 cents per kilowatt hour. At the lowest cost of 10 cents per kilowatt hour that is $5.00 for an amount of hydrogen with the energy equivalency of one gallon of gasoline.

At that cost it is not economically competitive with gasoline, however some people do buy the equipment to produce hydrogen electrolytically in their homes and have the engine in their car modified to run on hydrogen, it just takes a lot of money to do that.

Some people have used solar photovoltaic systems to produce the electricity, however the standard $30,000 system for your home only produces 10 to 20 kilowatt hours of electricity per day, so it takes several days to produce even an amount of hydrogen with the energy equivalency of one gallon of gasoline.

Also, electricity produced by a solar photovoltaic system costs about 50 cents per kilowatt hour to produce, so an amount of hydrogen with the energy equivalency of one gallon of gasoline will cost you approximately $25.00.