quote:
Originally posted by JohnBrowning:
I would rather see a huge increase in diesel and diesel hybrids. The above are already viable and cost effective. If you factor in biodiesel both manufactured and home made you could potentialy save a lot of oil!
Diesel hybrids apparently arent the best setups because diesels dont lend themselves well to the frequent startup/shutdown cycles that a hybrid vehicle typically sees (if youre using it for steady state driving, you probably would have been better off with just a regular diesel anyhow).
We need to see very low sulfur diesel for these vehicles to be viable here anyhow. Without catalysts and particle traps, people think these vehicles are terribly polluting (though I disagree, and wish MANY more diesels were offered even today). Id take a diesel anyday. I can dream at least...
I doubt if one was to look at the biodiesel seed to fuel energy balance, that it would be much different than any other fuel out there, even the electrolysis of water to hydrogen and then its compression. Granted, biodiesel is CO2 neutral, more or less, but economical at the end of the day? I cant say... maybe not as much so as many claim. One thing is for sure though, there wont be enough used fryer grease to fuel fleets if its use gets very widespread. Using virgin oil changes the economics somewhat.
Now, if one could do biodiesel reformation (Mesofuels presented on this at the fuel cell seminar), or non-nutritious sugars reformation, then you have a good source of hydrogen. Use it where possible in a system that has >40% LHV fuel in to power out, and it is more environmentally friendly than even a diesel engine. driving dynamics may be somewhat different, but thats something that simple to get used to, if one isnt too stubborn.
Imagine even if it (fuel cells) wasnt used for automotive service, but rather for home combined service. High efficiency local power production (grid augmentation) with heat generation as well. I think that homeowners would end up seeing a savings.
Problem is that cost makes it such that nobody would see any real savings or monetary expenditure reduction except perhaps in total gallons of fuel used, quantized for their entire electrical use, heating use, etc.
I wouldnt poo-poo fuel cells too much yet. There are kinks and issues with more or less any new technology that comes out. This one may have a few more than others, but many of the added 'complications' in reality will be quite simple to the average user, by the time the technology arrives to them.
The real solution: People coming to the realization that they dont need to jackrabbit start from every stoplight, and that they dont need a v6 or v8 in their vehicle. now that would save a LOT of fuel!
JMH
[ April 08, 2005, 10:24 AM: Message edited by: JHZR2 ]
