Future Fuel Trends

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

So now we've had the interim Senate report on what they think might happen to oil and its alternatives.

The question I would like to put out there is - What do you reckon will be the next big development in vehicle fuel usage?

Will John Howard get everyone onto LPG? How long will that last? Is there enough of the stuff?

Is Ethanol the go? Will we have flex fuel vehicles and be making enough of the stuff to replace petrol? Will the E85 vehicles from the USA show up here?

Likewise, will commercial Biodiesel take off? Is there enough feedstock to replace dino diesel to a meaningful extent?

Will CNG take off in family cars (not buses)? Will we be able to fill up from home sometime soon?

What about Hybrids? Are they ever going to get any cheaper? Who can afford the batteries every 7 years?

Solar?

The main question is not what is possible (no concept cars please) but what you think will be the NEXT BIG DEVELOPMENT in family and "normal" cars.

[Maxwell Member Find all posts View Profile Close Maxwell]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

Methane!
It would seem to be the most logical at the moment with the technology today.
Except for the high pressures required turning it into a liquid.
Cheers
Maxwell

[Guest Close David]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

My Honest belief is that the alternative of choice to conventional fossil fuels will be the one governments can make the most money from regardless of any other consideration.

They make billions from petroleum based products now and there is no way they are going to forfeit that money on a fuel they can't tax just as heavily.


Whatever the next thing is, you can bet that the first consideration before it's implementation is how easily a government can control and tax it.

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

Until recently, I would have thought that the simplest solution to dwindling supplies would have lead us to diluting the petro- fuels with bio- alternatives. That is, we would see more ethanol in petrol and perhaps more BD in diesel to make things go further.

Having read some reports recently, I think the bios are not getting the support from experts. That is, some do not see that the supplies of the bios will be big enough to make much impact.

[Jake Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jake]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

That is, some do not see that the supplies of the bios will be big enough to make much impact.

Sure, and if cars were allowed to go faster than 5km/h, the cows would stop giving milk. In other words, I find that hard to believe. OK, maybe just biofuels wouldn't be enough or practical. But if it's true that a relatively small area of the earth's surface receives as much energy from the sun in a day as is used by all of us in a year, I don't see why there should ever be an energy crisis.

In the mean time some use of renewables and a bit of energy saving already go a long way.

[Slippery Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Slippery]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

Hi guys. I am a newby to biofuels, only getting seriously involved a couple of months ago, but wow, have I found it interesting.

I do believe biofuels and in particular, biodiesel has a future but, as you pointed out, feeedstock is a problem.

There is a movement afoot to see if algae is a viable option and all the articles I have read seem to indicate, given the right conditions and the right algae you can produce huge volumes in small places.

My guesstimate, worked up from a total lack of knowledge, seems to point somewhere in the area of 60 000 lts per acre/year. Using a photobioreactor you can condense that awsome reproductive power to a much smaller footprint and throw in control of the whole process to boot.

I have been trying to find info on how to make a photobioreactor that will fit into my 6x3 shed - any ideas out there. There seem to be a few lab size units and one or two out door type units but not much if any for the back yard guy.

Just imagine, growing your algae overnight, harvesting it before breakfast and driving to work with your own fuel in the tank.

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

To put this another way, what will ford and holden do next?

[pangit Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close pangit]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

To change topic slightly, I think the next big thing in transportation should be massive investment in public transport!

The private motor vehicle is one of the most inefficient uses of energy for transportation, no matter what fuel you use. At the Peak Oil/Permaculture presentation in Pymble I went to a couple of weeks ago, David Holmgren put up a slide showing the efficiency of all the various means of transportation (in terms of energy use per passenger mile). Walking and cycling were best of course, followed by trains and buses. Short haul air flights were the worst closely followed by single occupancy cars.

The layout of our cities, particularly in Australia, are completely geared towards the car with their spread out suburbs and lack of mass transit infrastructure. This needs to be completely revised if we are to meet our future energy needs, as alternative fuels powering the same old cars is not going to work in the long term.

Back on topic to answer your question Chev, I don't think there should be a single solution or big development. We need to look at all of them. LPG and CNG for sure, but also biofuels, hydrogen fuel cells and other alternatives. There won't be a single solution that will completely replace oil, certainly not in our lifetimes.

It's like the question of CO2 emissions. There's no point Johnny banging on about geosequestration being the magical solution to our emissions from our coal fired power stations, as that will only ever be part of it. We need to look at nuclear, wind, solar, wave as well. Each of them will help a bit, and combined may go a long way to reducing our emissions. But on their own they can only provide a fraction of our total energy needs.

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

I think the next big thing in transportation should be massive investment in public transport!

Agreed! We need better public transport and a way of convincing people to use it. I don't want more taxes on cars but people really should start looking at what their bus can do. I did 6 months ago and have never looked back. No parking fees, no traffic hassles, no petrol. This will probably happen with increased petrol prices one day.

I would like to see better rail bulk freight systems too.

I guess governments have happily packed up all this infrastructure over the last 25 years to save costs. Why? I don't know but maybe so they can pay for unfunded public sector superannuation and the Olympics.

All the "reduce the use" stuff is covered in the Senate report (Ch 5). I just wanted to ponder what the next car will be. GM and Ford already have E85 vehicles ready to go and John Howard has just given LPG a kick along and the Senate report is also pushing gas (LPG and CNG).

What are the car companies going to sell us next year?

[Jacka Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Jacka]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

What are the car companies going to sell us next year?

Something that we don't want or need.

[Gunner Donating Member Find all posts View Profile Close Gunner]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

To put this another way, what will ford and holden do next?

To state the obvious, we'd like to see diesel vehicles!
When Holden finally killed off the Aussie V8 a couple of years back, they replaced it with the US-built Camaro 5.7lt V8, which also came out here in the US built "Holden" Surburban. The Suburban was also available with the GM 6.5lt Turbo Diesel V8. Put this engine into a Commodore now, Mr Holden! In the states, GM were also selling a 4.3lt V6 diesel in Pontiac cars, this V6 being based on the tried and true Buick, aka Commodore, 3.8lt petrol V6. This would also be quite suitable for local Commodore production. However, both these GM V8 and V6 engines are quite dated now and would not be able to match the emissions from Euro sourced vehicles that are now appearing on the Aust market. Get to work on a better injection system and there's no reason why we shouldn't see them in local family sedans.
Ford hasn't really done as much in the states with diesels that could slot straight into the Falcon, maybe they would have to draw on their Nissan connections (remember the Ford Maverick? The Nissan Falcon ute?) to put a Nissan Patrol Diesel six into a Falcon?

[Jasper Free from the Majors Find all posts View Profile Close Jasper]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

Hi all.
According to this site
http://www.science.org.au/nova/063/063key.htm
Hydrogen may be the next thing.

Also, Dr. Karl on triple j has quoted the following statement twice that Ive heard…..

There are no Hydrogen cars because there are no Hydrogen fuel stations. There are no Hydrogen fuel stations because there are no Hydrogen cars.
The financial cost to the US for the Iraq war would have been enough to implement re-fueling infrastructure and Hydrogen powered cars to get the US market up and running.

Hmmm??

Chris

[Truckdriver Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Truckdriver]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

Only hydrogen isn't really a fuel in the same basket as fossil or nuclear; it's a storage medium for other energy sources and can tend to be fairly inefficient at that...

[smokey2 Member Find all posts View Profile Close smokey2]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

Hydogen is a problem to work with as it is the smallest atom in the universe and is extremely volatile in an accident.

Hybrid cars are already creating problems for our emergency services.

Back to public transport well Qantas are putting more flights on from Sydney to Canberra. ie turning a 3 hour drive into a 1 hour flight at great cost to our environment. This is the sort of transport we can do without.

I to would like to use public transport to travel to work but our cities are designed by land developers with large outer suburbs that don't lend themselves to public transport. Employers don't want you to spend >4 hours a day commuting by public transport when a private car will do it in half the time. For public transport to be effective a change is required in the way our cities are designed and the attitude of both workers and employers.

[Chev28 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Chev28]

Re: Future Fuel Trends

Well I say this in a present climate of dropping petrol prices so there may be some lag.

I believe petrol will go up again before Christmas and get everyone thinking again. I think the first "easy" response people have is to reduce the use. This has quick gains but then further price rises will force structural changes on a household, such as one car, smaller car, lpg, buses, walking, etc.

I think there will be more dedicated LPG cars from early next year as people take advantage of the $1000.

I also think E10 will be much more common. I think a slight price reduction from ULP will help this.

Then the real changes must begin. Or will they? Is petrol going to stay around $1.2X for a while (or until after the next election)?

BTW when is Diesel going to seriously drop?