I’ve been reading a lot of late about the end of oil, and what will come next. No sector is more affected by this than transportation.
From all I can discern, it’s clear there are significant shortcomings for every possible proposed replacement.
It’s also clear that, with a combination of these technologies, we might come up with more efficient, emission free ways to move things around.
Due to these issues, which I’ll explain below the fold, the smartest car anyone on the planet could be building or buying right now is this: a flex-fuel, bi-fuel, plug-in hybrid.
So what the hell does that look like?
Flex-fuel means the car can run on a mixture of gasoline and alcohol-based fuels (ethanol or methanol) in any mixture (up to a point. Some cars can now run on E85 – allowing a mixture of up to 15% alcohol-based fuel).
Bi-fuel cars have two completely separate fueling systems, either of which can be used at a time. A good combination here would be one flex-fuel system and one CNG (compressed natural gas), LNG (liquified natural gas) or LPG (liquified propane gas) system.
Hybrid technology allows you to run on electric power, when available, and then switch to fuel when you’re out of electrical power. In addition, some hybrids recapture the energy lost in the braking of the car – that stored momentum can be converted to reusable energy. Being able to plug in and charge your hybrid will allow you to run longer on pure electrical power.
Now of course, if that electrical power is generated by coal-burning or oil-burning power plants, then you’ve merely traded your tailpipe emissions for the power plant’s. But if that electricity comes from water power, solar power, wind power, or geothermal power, now you’re talking dramatically reduced emissions and greater energy efficiency.
So where can you buy such a car?
Nowhere. Yet.
You can find samples of any one of these – flex-fuel, bi-fuel, plug-in EVs, and hybrids. The plug-in hybrids are just around the corner. I’d guess the flex-fuel hybrid will be next. But if you could get all in a car? That would be cool!
Why didn’t I mention hydrogen fuel cells, you might ask?
First, there’s tank size. According to the the interesting government site (yes, that’s NOT an oxymoron)at FuelEconomy.gov,
Since hydrogen gas is diffuse, it must be stored in high-pressure tanks in order to store enough to travel reasonable distances on a full tank of fuel. Currently used tanks, which allow hydrogen to be compressed to 5,000 pounds/square inch (psi) of pressure, can only store enough hydrogen gas to allow FCVs to go about 200 miles before refueling. However, manufacturers are designing and testing tanks that will store more hydrogen at a higher pressure.
As of just yesterday, that barrier seems to be breaking. According to this South Korean site,
Professor Lim Ji-sun of Seoul National University’s School of Physics announced on August 4 that he had found a new material with a structure that can store hydrogen in normal temperature without pressurization. This new matter can store enough hydrogen to move a car for a certain distance, a trip that would have consumed the same volume and weight in gasoline as the hydrogen used.
…With the storage efficiency for commercialization of Professor Lim’s new material at 7.6 percent, surpassing that targeted by the U.S. Department of Energy 6.5 percent, his discovery is expected to draw interest from automobile makers worldwide. The thesis by Prof. Lim’s team was published in the August 4 issue of the Physical Review Letter, a scientific journal in physics.
But even without that limitation, there are still distribution problems. I think in all of Los Angeles, there’s only one place that pumps hydrogen, and it’s at the airport, for demo purposes, primarily. You can’t send hydrogen through oil pipelines, can’t store it in oil tanks, and can’t can’t pump it through the local gas stations. In other words, we’d need a completely new infrastructure built before that would be useful.
So I’m not yet betting on fuel cells as the next big thing, yet. I think you’re best bet is going electric where possible, and keeping your fuel options open.
Now if someone could come up with a catchier name than flex-fuel, bi-fuel, plug-in hybrid, that might help as well… How about the Chimera?
