Date:         Fri, 18 Sep 2009 15:57:34 -0500
Reply-To:     joel walker <uncajoel@BELLSOUTH.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         joel walker <uncajoel@BELLSOUTH.NET>
Subject:      Re: Hydrogen cars ... a lot of hot gas!! ;)
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> The reason we will not have hydrogen cars is that it is too
> difficult to
> create hydrogen from electricity, and then move hydrogen from the
> place it
> is created to a car only to convert it back into electricity in the
> vehicle.  It is far easier to just move electricity (and lower risk,
> and
> less cost).

my personal feelings on the subject is that everyone is trying too
hard to move too far too fast.

we have the replacement for gasoline already. sorta.
but nobody but chevrolet has done anything about it. sorta.

the problem with electricity and hydrogen is infrastructure ... the
gas stations.

with electricity, where do you fill up on a long trip? and how long
does it take? hours?

with hydrogen, it's worse: do you REALLY want that wal-mart crowd
filling up with a
very explosive gas in your neighborhood? and before you answer that,
ask yourself the same
question about propane. it could also be used as an automobile fuel,
but we don't. wonder why?

so, mr. smarty-mouth, you say, what should we use? and how?

well, as i see it, we already have LOTS of gas filling stations out
there. notice they are NOT
"service stations" any longer. :(  but there are lots of them.
so use them.
for alcohol.
ah, but alcohol is harder to make from corn and such. yeah, but it can
also be made from almost
any organic material, like sawdust, pulp from sugar cane/sugar
beets/etc, and even ... gasp ...
oil and methane, i think.
;) and we already have the storage tanks in the ground, and we already
have the pumps and hoses and
collective mentality to pump a liquid into the cars. oh, and the cars
already have tanks and hoses and such.
and it burns a bit cleaner than gasoline.
it won't be any straight change-over, but it would be a lot quicker
and easier change.
and it starts the sequence of getting the minds of people away from
gasoline.

the next part is the hard part.

NOT using the alcohol as fuel to move the car. sorta.
use it to run a small generator in the trunk. LOTS of trunk space out
there not being used.
and use the electricity from the generator to run the electric motors
that power the car.
that's where chevy comes in ... they're the only one thinking about
building this type of
car. all the rest (hybrids) use a combo of gasoline engine and
electric motors to actually power the car.

so why change to electric only powered by a generator?
cause it will get us into the mental frame of mind and get us
physically used to driving "electric cars".
and if, hopefully, some day the batteries and solar power or whatever
allows us to use pure electric vehicles, then we simply learn to stop
putting alcohol into the tank. :)

so what's the advantage of an alcohol power generator running an
electric car?
range.

if we took a small car, since most electric cars seem to be small (but
with the generator, this wouldn't necessarily have to be so), we can
get maybe 70 miles on a charge of the batteries. but if we had the
generator, which would run to power the car and charge the batteries
(batteries would still be needed to get the car moving at red lights
and stop signs, the biggest lowerers of mpg with gasoline), we could
have a greatly extended range ... 300 miles on a tank of alcohol. or
more, if we learned to build efficient generators

there's a fellow in los angeles who does this already ... but still
uses gasoline. he changes small hondas and toyotas to electric-only
cars, and builds a small trailer with the generator on it. so if you
need to drive to Vegas,  you hook up the trailer and off ya go. the
generator powers the electric motors and charges the batteries, at
highway speeds.

and since the generator would run pretty much at a set small range of
rpm, the emission control stuff for it would be a lot simpler ... no
more rpm ranges from 900 to 4000, back to 2500, down to 1500, up to
4000 and so on. just run along at 2000-2500 or some such. and alcohol
burns a bit cleaner than gasoline, so there should be less pollution
to deal with.

the downside? there's always a downside. :(

alcohol is NOT as powerful as gasoline. never has been, never will be.
so ... we learn to deal with a bit less power.
but!
since it's NOT powering the car, but only the generator that produces
the electricity, we might not even notice the power loss ... we might
all be driving Tesla sports cars! ;) and that electric car seems to be
quite powerful.

oh, and another downside - trying to keep the wal-mart and nascar
crowd from trying to make 'torpedo juice' and drinking the stuff. :)

would hydrogen be better as a fuel? sure. burns cleaner. has decent
power.
but much much harder to fuel the car with.
and harder to make, unless the japanese folks get the urine-hydrogen
working right. they found that it takes MUCH less electricity to
separate hydrogen from urine than from plain water.  if this works, it
might be a VERY interesting future. ;)

electricity? sure. skip the liquid steps altogether. but the storage,
just as with hydrogen, becomes a problem.

so, like i said, maybe we should try smaller steps, but start them
sooner.

all this pie-in-the-sky stuff is great ... except i recall all the
flying cars and robots and neat space station hotels we were supposed
to be having right now, according to all the popular science talk back
in the 1950's.
gee, somehow i must have slept right through those years. ;)

anyway, it's a thought. that might work. now.
:)

unca joel