New Fuels In New Engines - Hydrogen Fuel Cells
Vehicles are currently available that run on hydrogen, a truly alternative energy source that has nothing to do with carbon. Hydrogen has got fantastic potential when it is made using power from pv panels, but for the moment, all the hydrogen is factory made by consuming huge amounts of energy generated using the usual carbon rich fuels. So hydrogen is great, but until it can be made using pv arrays, it’s not. But at least it is a considerable step in the right direction.
The hydrogen itself is used in two fundamental ways. BMW have chosen to use hydrogen gas in the same way that petrol gas is used currently. It is used in combustion and conveniently the BMW can switch from petrol to hydrogen operation yet offer similar credentials in power delivery. Obviously, hydrogen fuel is not taxed yet by governments so it is seen as a cheap fuel and filling stations are being established especially in the US (California).
The other and more popular method of using hydrogen in vehicles is to use a hydrogen fuel cell to generate electricity to drive an electric motor. Hydrogen atoms naturally have an electric charge (electron) attached to them and the fuel cell basically collects these charges. The section on FUEL CELLS makes understanding them a bit easier. This method of hydrogen usage is currently used in many buses around the world and these electric versions are a better alternative to the older, more polluting types typically used in city centres. They can be seen at:
www.hydrogenforecast.com/ArticleDetails.php?articleID=286
As I’ve already hinted at though, the other amazing thing about this type of technology is that you can derive hydrogen yourself from water using solar power. For a long time it has been known that Hydrogen can be collected after passing a lot of DC Current through water, but this is a wasteful way of using the DC power you generate. There is now real evidence that hydrogen can be made using heat not electricity from Solar Collectors and there are different varieties of Fuel Cells (current fuel cells have palladium or platinum catalysts which are very expensive) that can process the hydrogen and extract energy quicker and cheaper. The vehicle that can make hydrogen, store it, and have it available for use with a cost effective fuel cell is being developed right now.
The message that the consumer is aware of pollution has obviously become clear and as we become more familiar with using, storing and transporting hydrogen, we will be ready for the day when its production can be brought to a personal level. One day there will be lots of hydrogen, the ultimate free fuel. Make your own fuel. What will they think of next? A car that makes it own fuel maybe.
See this amazing TV report from Fox in the US that shows a family car powered by water HERE...
Postscript: The future thinkers amongst us would imagine that with increasing sea levels, the use of hydrogen would be a superb long term solution. In using sea water as our next fuel derivative we would in fact be doing everyone a favour. The Atlantic is 10000 ft deep on average and the Pacific 11000 ft. That’s a lot of hydrogen.
There’s more than enough about the uses of Hydrogen in vehicles from this site:
www.4hydrogen.com/about.html
To see a hydrogen vehicle being filled using home made hydrogen and for an explanation see:
www.bellona.no/en/energy/hydrogen/
For further Hydrogen Fuel Cell information see our PRODUCTS page.
New Fuels In Old Engines
Apart from hydrogen though, the mainstream market is dedicated to diesel or petrol engines and now there are lots of new fuels on the market. Firstly though let’s just understand how they work in an engine.
Petrol liquid is mixed with air and then sucked into the engine where it is squashed, or compressed, in trade talk. Just as it’s being compressed, a spark occurs from a spark plug and the petrol gas explodes and the engine runs.
Diesels do not need spark plugs, however, which is why they may have a reputation for reliability. If the diesel gas is compressed, it naturally explodes anyway, which makes things a lot simpler. Petrol also explodes when compressed a great deal but the explosion is violent and will ruin an engine. The spark in the petrol engine is to get the petrol gas to explode in a controlled fashion.
Any fuel that has OL at the end of it (and natural gas) uses a spark to make it explode. All the others work the same as diesel in that they get compressed and explode anyway. So ethanol, methanol, gasohol can all work (with slight alterations) in a petrol engine and biodiesels can work in a diesel engine. They do not work in the wrong engine.
The diesel that is widely available at the moment is made from mineral oils from oil wells. Biodiesel is fuel for diesel cars only and is made from vegetable oils. Either the oil is manufactured specifically for use in vehicles and is marketed as such, or it can be ‘home-made’ using vegetable or animal oils previously used in cooking. Your car can smell of chips, kebabs or fried chicken depending on your tastes. Personally I fancy the korma smell but you can't be fussy as lots of people are now able to manufacture their own diesel and just about all the vegetable oils market now has an outlet for oil that was previously waste. It can be made by most dedicated tax evaders in their garage.
Since I wrote the above paragraph some months back, the expansion of biodiesel has been enormous. Huge factories have sprung up that blend and refine vegetable oils to make it into a mainstream product. It is manufactured and blended using palm oils, linseed, mustard, canola, soy, cotton, coconut and rape seed. Biodiesel is a superior fuel to diesel from mineral oil for the following reasons:
- Zero sulphur content
- Zero toluene and benzene emissions
- Equivalent energy content to mineral diesel
- Flash point of 300 F compared to 137 F for mineral diesel
- Significant reductions in soot and hydrocarbon emissions
- 70 per cent reduction of carbon monoxide emissions
- Non-toxic and biodegradable (fully degraded from waterway environment after approx 28 days)
- Vegetable oils have superior lubrication qualities over mineral oils, resulting in less engine wear.
There should be a great welcome for biodiesel. It might still involve the burning of carbon but at least the carbon comes from our environment as part of plant growth and is not actually considered to add CO2. There is the growth, production, transportation, processing chain that does involve the usage of energy so biodiesel is not quite the environmental solution it claims to be, but mankind has essentially learnt how to avoid the 300 million year wait usually involved in the formation of mineral oils. Technology can have very far reaching effects on our lives. Don't get too carried away though, biodiesel is still a polluting and environmentally negative fuel.
For details on home made biodiesel see:
www.homepower.com
www.veggiepower.org.uk
For details on the industry standards and if your car is compatible see:
www.biodiesel.org - US
www.biodieselfillingstations.co.uk - UK
There are details for the suppliers of equipment for making commercial and home grown Biodiesel in our PRODUCTS section.
Natural Gas Conversions
A petrol car has a tank in it with petrol stored as a liquid even though it is actually petrol gas that is used to run the engine. The carburretor or fuel injectors, pump in little bits of petrol liquid and mix it with loads of air from the air filter to make a petrol gas. The petrol gas explodes when the spark plug sparks.
Natural gas conversions can be used on petrol vehicles except that it is just gas straight out of the bottle that is used. There’s a bit of mixing with air but it’s not as complicated and a professional natural gas conversion garage can convert your vehicle as long as you are happy to have a gas bottle in your car. Your petrol can still be used if you run out of gas simply by turning a tap in the engine. In the UK it’s half the price of normal petrol with the same sort of mileages achieved (but a little less performance) and in Italy I have seen cars fitted with it from the factory. That funny little tailpipe on a Ford Mondeo is where the gas goes and is not the exhaust.
At current prices in the UK and New Zealand, the conversion pays for itself in one year and natural gas is available from about 20% of garages. It’s better than petrol as far as pollution goes but it’s still burning a fossil fuel.
A great Information site:
http://cng-lpg-conversion.com/ - India
See our PRODUCTS page for conversion specialists and parts.
Ethanol
Brazil has had a well established ethanol fuel market since the 1970’s. Most cars used to run on it until the oil price came down and manufacturers went back to petrol cars in the 1980’s. More recently, an ethanol and petrol blend (approx 20 - 24% ethanol) has become available once more and many vehicles there are now fitted with a chip which detects the fuel type and adjusts the engine automatically. These are called flex-fuel vehicles and they are widely available.
The US is starting to use this fuel and it is comes in the form of E85 (85% ethanol to run in special vehicles) and E10 (10% ethanol used as an oxygenator and petrol replacement).
Ethanol is made through the fermentation of plants but the best results in terms of quality and price are made using corn or more precisely, the sugars from corn. The corn is fermented with yeast so essentially ethanol is brewed. The process is becoming cheaper as more parts of the plant are proving to be useful and other plants are being introduced to improve or cheapen the end product. Along with biodiesel, this means that fuel is actually being grown but ethanol can be made using a far simpler system that can be established easily.
As far as using ethanol in your vehicle is concerned http://autorepair.about.com/cs presents a picture where ethanol seems to pose few problems for vehicles in the US market, and see this Australian site for an extremely useful list of vehicles worldwide that are, or are not, compatible www.fcai.com.au/ethanol.php/2006.
One third of global maize (corn) production (2003) was in the US with China producing half of the US. The next were Brazil and Argentina so it’s easy to see why ethanol is being developed in The Americas and the rate of construction of new plants has gone up according to demand which is high. Farmers are loving the new crop because the genetic engineering factor is less significant and there is a constant demand for corn and the plant as a whole.
See: www.greatchange.org/bb-alcohol2.html
There are some flies in the ointment though. There is an environmental limit to how much water crops would be able to consume and there will be increased levels of fertilizers to deal with and besides all that, the production of ethanol involves 30 % more energy than it can provide. Ethanol just misses out on being a junk fuel I think, because it gives nations a degree of fuel independence they would not enjoy and the technology is simple. It will liberate a lot of people. The media gambit is that it uses Carbon Dioxide that is already in the atmosphere, yet if you think about it, it all comes back to hydrogen technologies being the total answer. Sea water is everywhere, as is the sun. Ethanol is great but once again it puts pressure on our environment. Oil, no matter what form it takes, is just not the answer.
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ARTICLES |
Articles are invited under this Vehicles and Fuels section. Please send enquiries to Contact.
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Ethanol Economy - The Economist 19/05/07
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Cellulosic Ethanol - Rick Swan - Forest Grower and Teacher 07/03/07
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