<![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About? - Jalopnik Comments]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About? - Jalopnik Comments]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @billstewartx: Really, NG buses = No stink? The problem w/ NG combustion is the formaldehyde by-product...

SeanKHotay

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> CRYSTAL METH. KEEPS GOING FOR DAYS, EVEN AT FULL TILT!

LandofMinos,Top Gear Australia sucked, 2 out of 3 hosts MUST DIE

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I'd like to see us drill for more oil to increase the supply. Then I'd like to see some more refineries built to expand refinery capacity.

Acd

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> i have seen the future, and it is in chengdu, china

electric trains and
6 lane roads... 2 lanes each way for natural gas powered buses and taxis and electric-bicycles
1 lane each way for bicycles

NO gas
NO diesel
no private cars

NO STINK!!!

and most shocking of all
NO FAT PEOPLE!!!
you gottta love that....

wanna see what the future looks like?
go backwards.....

wheels OF satan!

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Methane... from the methane that is emitted at garbage dumps, to the methane you find in sewers, to the methane from livestock to the methane I make when I relax in front of the TV...

petersterncan

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Sidzilla: You mean lard?

petersterncan

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @lascauxcaveman: ya, i know, high cost, viable etc etc

I was simply correcting @Teach in that the barrels he claimed not to exist, infact DO exist. Thats it and thats all.

danio3834

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> * Vin's Hemp Diesel *

BlueRSX

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Dark matter. There's plenty of it. Apparently. Or rather, unapparently.
Fat-o-lytic converter.
Isoprenoid biosynthesis. It makes damn near everything else.
Camp6ell's venom.

NovaloadMissesPolar

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Sidzilla: i'd be surprised if your three brain cells could work together to run them over in your titan, far less soylent green-ify them.

camp6ell

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Biodiesel and Ethanol FTW.

Sonic84

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> bull semen.

Jeremy Clarkson endorses it.

BriGaid

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Beer.

scotte

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Biodiesel hybrids with rechargeable batteries for now, and after people stop being so sluggish on the issue of hydrogen fuel cell power, people should switch to that. The recharging of the batteries would be accomplished by wind and solar-powered charging stations at each gas pump. Also, there was a particular cylinder technology that some dude in Africa developed that saved something like 20% on fuel economy of each car he used it on; I read about it in Popular Science. Also, each car must use the energy from braking to recharge the batteries, as well - preferably that new technology developed for F1 racing that's twice as efficient as efficient as the current versions in things like the Prius.

Now, I understand that Biodiesel doesn't eliminate all of the bad stuff from the exhaust, but considering how slow the fuel cell idea is progressing, I predict that we won't see any production versions of these fuel cell cars for at least another five years. Until then, we need something readily available that won't take major changes in technology, yet will still give large benefits to fuel economy. Then, when we've toughed it out with the Biodiesel long enough, the fuel cell cars will arrive, albeit slowly. I wouldn't expect FC adoption rates to be anything spectacularly more substantial than what we're seeing now the hybrids, so at least in the mean time before we fully adopt FC cars, we'll be using something a little bit less terrible for the environment than current petrol is.

Blah8

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Shapeshifter: Tesla is using Lithium Ion cells, the same thing that they use in laptops and cell phones. While they can be recycled it's not 100%, and depending on how it's handled and in what amounts lithium can be very toxic.



Personally I find this thing pretty interesting [www.theaircar.com] . It runs on compressed air. Range is a bit low right now but you should be able to refill it just like a normal car and hopefully they'll be able to get the range up. Performance sucks though.

something_unique_and_descriptive

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Shapeshifter: I'm not sure that the Tesla's Li-ion batteries are toxic per se, but Li-ion battery chemistry is very volatile, as shown by exploding laptop batteries of the same type. I read a while back that the Tesla uses battery packs that are essentially C-cells wired in series. Still, you have to consider that there's some pretty hard hitting environmental impact from the manufacturing process.

No one has mentioned jet fuel as an alternative fuel yet! I drove a Rotax race kart that used it - it could achieve 100mph with you sitting about 3 inches off the ground. It's technically 'alternative' because no one uses it, right?

Eric Lai

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @00solstice:

The reason we're doing corn-based biofuel in the US is because of those lobbyists. There's already a huge federal subsidy for corn, which is basically why people grow it.

However, they just grow it because it grows where they are and they get free money for doing it. If we fixed it so they got free money for a more efficient crop they probably wouldn't mind too much. The farm bill is basically the issue, here.

Anyway, if we're talking weird stuff then what about shaved aluminum? Probably not clean enough.

Seriously though, i'd put my money on straight electrics. I'm not saying "batteries" will be behind them--might be batteries + supercapacitors or the like. But it seems like the power will be generated elsewhere (nuclear/solar/wind/etc) and stored, so why not in straight electrical form? Seems like once we get the storage mechanism (and charging mechanism, although that's less critical) straightened out it's the most flexible and simplest way to go.

Steam power is also pretty interesting.

Strange that cars started out with steam and electrics as the "other" fuel and now i think it might go back to that.

The whole "inhale o2, exhale co2" mention is also interesting. What if we made a car that ran on co2 (or a fuel made out of co2)? Probably not possible, but my chemistry isn't up to proving it one way or the other.

@something_unique_and_descriptive:

A. Tesla's batteries are not toxic (AFAIK... i might be wrong)
B. Where i live, 200 miles is perfectly adequate. I never go more than 200 miles in a single day except for the really rare, occasional trips i go on. I could easily just rent a conventional car for that. So for me (and i think a lot of other people) the range is not really an issue, as long as you can find some place that will let you leech electricity overnight.

Shapeshifter

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Diesel is the only realistic fuel for now. I think something that runs on hydrogen, but doesn't go up like the Hindenburg in an accident is the future. Perhaps a fuel cell of some sort.

Ultimately though, I expect we'll end up with wagons like at the start of Mad Max III, drawn by teams of Clydesdales.

Euromobile

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @grzydj: E-Class right now, Jetta and Accord next year...

Ethan Allison

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Rust-MyEnemy: Stitches.

JayP71

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> With the size of these SUV's clogging up the road, making 56 point turns in the middle of the street, we should mandate unless you actually tow something with your truck, you must get a tattoo on your head saying either...
a. i have a small pecker.
b. daddy didnt love me.
c. my next car is a BMW.

That being said, lets all go with steam power.

boognish

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @ubie: ah the proverbial perpetual machine. How to get the car moving such that we can regeneratively brake?

However, the Pinto ideal is totally sound.

Fitty7lax

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Hey, here's an idea.

With all the iron that's sitting around, why not try iron fusion!

SeanKHotay

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Rust-MyEnemy: The cat licks himself.

SeanKHotay

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I see it as a multi step process.

Right now we're at step zero, we've got hybrids which don't really count for anything since they really not all that efficient and at the end of the day are probably more environmentally un-friendly than a normal car (those batteries are eventually going to fail, and they're pretty damn toxic).

Step one is Bio-fuel. We're starting to see this with bio-diesel but what I'm looking forward to is E100 ethanol... just think of the compression ratios. It wouldn't be too hard to get 200 HP out of a 1000cc engine... just imagine what you could do with a big block V8. The reason I think this is the first step is because the infrastructure is already here, you can retrofit a car to run on E100 and the fuel companies can retrofit the pumps at your local gas station.

Step two is Hydrogen. Don't particularly care how it's made but where I live (Washington state) we could do 100% clean hydrogen right now, take water from the pacific ocean and use electricity from hydro-electric dams to split it.

Step three is on-board nuclear fusion reactors.



You'll note that nowhere on my list are pure electric cars, and there's a reason for this. They won't work.

See, right now Tesla is bragging about a 245 mile range... I live in the middle of nowhere, it's 130 miles to the nearest "big city" and I make that run every couple of weeks, so that's 260 miles round trip in one day, if I don't drive around when I get there. One of my friends makes a 500+ mile trip every month or so. A lot of people don't live in big cities and as such we have to drive long distances fairly often, electric just won't work for that.

The next problem with electric is that they have to be charged. How many of you have a garage where you can park a working car? Right, not many, because if you have a garage it's probably got a project car in it, and most people don't have garages. What about the millions of people who live in apartments? Or people who park on the street. The only people that electric cars will ever work for are people who live in big cities, are rich enough to have a house with a garage, and boring enough to not have a project.

And finally there's those batteries again, and again they're eventually going to fail, and again they're really friggen toxic.

something_unique_and_descriptive

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @pride156: Mine would be powered by my hate of OC drivers, cuz I need premium.

Solo_Racer

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Hot air from politicians and PAC's.

mytdawg

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @danio3834: Yes, the oil sands in Alberta are a huge reserve of hydrocarbons - but the process of extracting them is WAY dirtier and more energy intensive than just plain old fashioned oil wells in the desert.

It's there, and at $100/bbl its even viable, but at huge environmental cost. Like replacing your catalytic converter and muffler with a straight pipe to get more power, its another sweet idea, except for the externalities.

lascauxcaveman

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @HDC:
[www.halfbakery.com]

Otherwise, a bicycle seems to work pretty well for me. It runs on any kind of food (even used cooking oil and ethanol! Well, maybe it wouldn't run very well) and has low emissions. We're still working out some bugs with the top speed and range, and it doesn't have nearly as good towing ability as a Hybrid Tahoe, but costs a heck of a lot less.

discontinuuity

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Fitty7lax:

Use electricity to flash boil the water, and recharge the electricty source with regenerative brakes. Alternatively, you could put the system in a Pinto, and wait for it to catch fire and boil the water on its own.

ubie

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Nuclear produced hydrogen.

akatsuki

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @brettro82: Doesn't this fat guy breath oxygen, and expell CO2?

BraappBraapp

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @TR3-A: Touche

TeacherSnake

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @danio3834: I think Wraithwerx was referring to crude oil, and this what what I responded to. Even the discovery last year of a 6bbl deep water field in the Gulf of Mexico is insignificant when you look at the scale of domestic and international demand. As far as oil sands go, those projects largely remain to be seen if they are economically (let alone ecologically, and therefore politically) viable. There may theoretically be trillions of barrels in the great white north, but that doesn't mean that production of oil there will ever rival that of even a minor OPEC member like the UAE. www.theoildrum.com is a good source for industry news, its worth checking out.

TeacherSnake

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> What we need are cars that run on sentences.

TR3-A

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> It needs to be a total energy plan, with individual motorized transport as just part of it. First, we need to build nuclear fission reactors that input sewage, to produce electricity, biodiesel, fertilizer and recycled water. Motor transport would come in two classes, city runabouts that are strictly rechargable plugins, and extended range/larger vehicles with turbodiesel-electric drive. The diesel can come from diversified sources like garbage or sewage, algae, crop sources and even what remains of fossil petroleum and coal. The increased demand for electricity would be provided primarily from nuclear power, with augmentation by wind, solar and tidal power sources. This is actually doable right now, with technology we already have. Unfortunately not enough people who can facilitate this transition are working on it. Eventually the fission reactors can be converted to fusion when the technology is ready for commercialization, but until then, we need to use fission to get rid of the sewage and waste, reclaim the water, and produce the increases in power which inevitable population growth, both here and in the developing world, will require. And we don't have a lot of time to do it. This has to be done in the next decade or two, or everyone will be hosed.

DoctorNine

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> You know what be cool is if I could make my Titan run on hippies!

Picarso

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @TeacherSnake: I have a good friend who is a field engineer on the oil sands in Alberta.

I trust him, and you can trust me that those "billions of barrels" certainly do NOT exist. Its actually TRILLIONS.

danio3834

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Whatever happened to the synthetic gasoline that appeared on this site a while back?

Thats the way to go. F U peak oil theorists!

danio3834

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @WraithWerx: These "billions of barrels" do not exist.

TeacherSnake

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> the problem with ethanol and biodiesel is that they still produce carbon emissions. We need to accept nothing less than 100% carbon-free fuel. That immediately axes plug-in electrics. Hydrogen is where it's at, and Honda is definitely on the right track with the FCX. The hardest part of breaking the petroleum addiction is building the infrastructure to produce hydrogen without carbon emissions (wind, solar, fat guy and a twinkie on a stick). We'll get there, and I really think hydrogen our the best bet.

brettro82

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @ubie: how do boil the water?

Fitty7lax

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Alternative fuel?
Just drill the billions of barrels we are not allowed to tap on American soil and send the middle east and enviro-nazis to hell.
- in a solar powered hand basket.

WraithWerx

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Anti-matter. It's the wave of the future. This idea of burning stuff for power is caveman technology. Make it so.

TR3-A

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Why wait on the biofuel? [www.greasecar.com]
and the exhaust smells like whatever was cooked in it.. Fries, chicken, donuts... mmmmmmm donuts...

ĎāvĕΓħëβЯĂvė

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> My bad: bikeportland.com.

caust12

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> This thingy here: [portlandbike.com] or one of these jammies: [ducati.com]. I for one bow to our new motorcycle producing overlords.

caust12

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> local renewable energy, which will obviously vary from region to region, but fundamentally resulting in an electric/repurposed-waste-to-fuel hybrid.

camp6ell

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Haha, steam would be dope.

TeacherSnake

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Steam! I can heat the boiler with whatever is handy: wood, kittens, soylent green, squirrels, cow pies, coal, diesel, biodiesel, old tires, unicorn fur, propane, CNG, diapers, or heavean forbid gasloine. If it burns, I'm rollin'

P161911

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @txturbo930: I don't think you really know what you're talking about. Recently high oil prices are driven by a number of factors, one of which is indeed "fear," also known as speculation. Other factors are geological, and others are economical. You might be interested to know that the biggest oil firms' earnings in the third quarter fell by 15%. Much of this can be attributed to lower profits from refining, as a result of a decreased difference between crude oil and gasoline prices. Essentially, gasoline prices have not mirrored the price jump of crude oil of recent months.
More alarmingly, oil production fell by 9% on average over the past year. This, despite the best efforts of the big oil companies, is largely a geological problem. Oil is a finite resource, and the sooner we come to terms with that the better. But before we begin regurgitating snippets from FOX and CNN, maybe it would be a good idea to look at the underlying factors behind high prices at the pump, no?

TeacherSnake

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Since I'm too late to the party to introduce Soylent Green and Mr Fusion, I'll offer slightly more realistic 'plug-in electric/diesel-backup' hybrid.

Saabophile2's suggestion of switchgrass biofuel also looks promising. A recent History Channel documentary pointed out that corn biofuel only produces 1.3 units of energy for every unit required to produce it. Brazil's sugar cane fuel produces 8 units for every 1 expended in production. And switchgrass/cellulose fuel is estimated to produce 16 units of energy for every single unit expended in production. Very promising, if the program can garner enough support to get started and accepted (expect the corn farmers and their lobbyists to throw a tizzy).

00solstice

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @txturbo930: I tasted that stuff and it's a total rip-off, not sweet at all. But it wasn't very light, either, so maybe what I got was cut a bunch of times before it got to the street.

Tanshanomi

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @BlackIce_GTS: Yes, but what will we do with all the ADP? Think man, think.

I'm going with assorted bio diesel, with plugin hybridization. That'd get you really far from where we are today. It also transitions well in to an all-electric or increased biofuel world.

Corn ethanol seems to be big among Iowans, and not that many people with engineering degrees, but cellulosic or or other methods might show promise. It's important b/c at least in the US, non-diesel petrol is probably not going away any time soon.

Mad_Science

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Why not steam? All of the issues with steam powered cars (heavy water use/slow start-up times) have been resolved by moden tech. Who needs Exxon, if you can fill up with a garden hose. VW apparently had a working prototype in the mid-90s.

ubie

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Skydiver: Yea, but watch out for the minors. Er, miners, not minors.

Tanshanomi

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Big oil companies aren't paying anywhere near 100 a barrel most of them don't by light sweet crude. They buy the heavy stuff which is cheaper and refine it into multiple products. Media and fear is allowing them to use this as an excuse to jack us at the pump.

txturbo930

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> My next car will be a diesel.

My next next car will be a diesel-electric-motorcyclish hybrid.

My next next next car will be modular fuel-cell platform with in-wheel electric motors and paramagnetic paint.

My next next next next car will be a Lord Humongous Death Mobile.

Garebear

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I'd introduce the Allspark to my car, then turn it loose on unsuspecting Prii for food. Think 'Transformers in Jurassic Park'.

Man I hope Michael Bay is reading this...

1300ccsoffury

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> That algae-based bio-diesel sounds cool if it's scalable. Other bio-diesel alternatives just don't scale and are really just for uninformed hippies and Green Party luddites hoping to destroy industrial civilization. Or kill off a bunch of Africans with starvation (probably both).

Personally, though, I think that if it's not electric or electrically-derived (e.g., hydrogen), in the long-run it's probably not viable. Which raises interesting questions about the future of airplanes, much more so than cars.

Because nukes are the only real long-term, low-impact energy solution and they make electricity. All the other stuff is either window-dressing or hugely impactful.

cgates1

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I've read some interesting things about the algae. I like anything but ethanol, which is simply overrated.

dearyou

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @franzouse:
and doing so lovingly.

Al Navarro

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Propane, and propane accessories...

danio3834

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> No one's mentioned cellulosic butanol, so I will. Butanol can be directly substituted for gasoline in any gas-burning car, no modifications necessary. It's not hygroscopic like ethanol so it can be shipped via existing gas pipelines. It's energy content by volume is only a few percent under that of gas, so there's no drastic effect on mileage like with E85.

It just needs to be mass-produced from waste cellulose and we'll be stylin'.

saabophile2

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> kudzu

smokeydog001

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Al Navarro: So what you're saying is that in those drawings of Dragons f***ing Cars (link somewhere in Jalopnik), the dragons were actually filling up the tanks...

franzouse

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @HDC: Running our cars with our own fat!
Let's call it Lipodrive!

franzouse

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Improbability.

aaron x

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Hydrogen. If you can manage to have a local, community based way of producing it. If everyhouse on the block has solar panels, or a wind turbine, they can combine the energy they create to produce the hydrogen that powers their cars.
It also eliminates the danger of having to transport it.
Of course Exxon, Total and the Oil Boys would then find a way to kill the process or claim rights to our roof space...

franzouse

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Rust-MyEnemy: It goes down much more easily

NoneMoreBlack

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Markstre302: Damn my craptastic spelling abilities.

Markstre302

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @SeanKHotay: Question: It's been asked before, but Toast lands butter-side down, Cats always land on their feet.

What happens if you butter a cat?

Rust-MyEnemy is stll out there!

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Sidzilla: Crap, I'd always be out of fuel!

chairmanofthebored

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Personally I'm rooting for alcahol. Burns relatively clean, very high octane rating, and best of all... You can tap into the fuel injection return line and spice up the Coke you picked up with you value meal at lunch.

Markstre302

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @PeteJäyhawk™:

It takes more energy to produce a gallon of Ethanol than you get from using it. Since most of it is derived from corn in this country, which is obviously a row crop, it takes vast amounts of energy and water to produce a gallon of it, yielding a negative energy return on your investment.

Biodiesel produced from algae can be grown in tanks sitting in the sun or from waste water plants, which requires less energy than planting acres upon acres of corn with a tractor powered by diesel made from oil, then harvested, huge amounts of energy to then heat the corn etc, etc.

Ethanol from a low caloric based source like corn makes no sense whatsoever, unless you happen to be a farmer or an ethanol plant owner. The bottom is going to fall out of the market at some point though. It just doesn't make business sense. The only reason it's lasted this long is because of government subsidies and the car makers baking it since they get CAFE credits for making flex fuel vehicles.

grzydj

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @POLAR: Fammable = Flammable

I'm going to develop a Camry that runs on FLAMMABLE Squirrels. Fammable ones do to create combustion nothing.

POLAЯ

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Tanshanomi: That is a good point that I've never really thought of before.

87MustangGT

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Adenosine triphosphate

BlackIce_GTS

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I'm going to develop a Camry that runs on Fammable Squirrels.

POLAЯ

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> a car powered by my hate of Inland Empire drivers

MZЯ

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Think big, folks!

A buttered bread slice strapped to the back of a falling cat.

The trick is getting the revs up...no torque down low, just abrasions...

Oh, an simulating the falling sensation for the cat.

Baring that cla...Barring that concept, biodiesel from french people.

SeanKHotay

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Well, oil isn't actually over $100. Its hovering around $97, and although we're unlikely to see sub $60 oil every again, its quite possible that prices will easy ten or fifteen dollars over the next six months. Look much further beyond that, however, and you start to see the effects of increasing demand and stagnant (and eventually decreasing) supply. Peak Oil is near, and we best enjoy our cheap gas while we can.
Oh, and to answer the QOTD, I believe electric cars are the most viable/scalable option.

TeacherSnake

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Blind people. For my hybrid.

jsforbes

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Have you ever noticed how light, strong, and efficient meth addicts are? Isn't it time we harnessed their engery and resourcefulness?

piththeelder

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Sidzilla: Seems you can stick anything in a diesel. Hook up a liposuction pump to car seats and we're off. McDonald's will *own* the world economy.

HDC

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @GSPALDIN: Pffft. The beryllium sphere totally kicks the ass the dilithium crystal.

Skydiver

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Synthaxx: FTW!

FЯeeMan is slowly cЯawling out of the new commenting system

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> We could kill two birds with one stone and develop a car that runs on obesity.

Picarso

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Unobtanium followed by adamantium.

Actually, I'm hedging my bets on anything in a diesel format. My next car, hopefully a Jeep (hint, hint already Chrysler) will be a diesel. There's more potential for bio what with diapers, algae, corn, soy, WVO, rapeseed, cottonseed oil,.... as sources. Then there's GTL and BTL based diesels. Seems heaps more future in diesel than the gubment boondoggle that is ethanol.

And if I can get my a hybrid diesel, more the better.

HDC

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Most definitely Mr. Fusion.

Heep

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Whatever, i don't care what it is, just get the rest of the world using it so that I can have the dino juice for myself. As soon as you all jump to bionic-hydro-diesel the price of 97 Octane will fall and I will rocket myself around the world with an ICE strapped to my ass.

cgraham

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> The Mr. Fusion Home Energy Reactor

Triborough

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> hemp

streetpirate

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Unregular:

i like it

streetpirate

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> cow farts

streetpirate

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Dilithium crystals.

MΩJΩ

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @grzydj: Positive energy gain? I'm no scientist (I'm not just saying that), but isn't that impossible? Maybe I just don't understand the term.

Pete Gaines

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Biodiesel and a portion of fries, please.

If any of the big three can research a car powered by disappointment, they're golden.

Rust-MyEnemy is stll out there!

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Could we make cars that are powered by thousands upon thousands of explosions that occur inside the car itself, blowing up again and again with such force and repetition that all we can hear is a steady thrum, rocketed forward at a speed once thought to be deadly to man, even covering hundreds of miles in days, or even hours without hardly even breaking a sweat? Oh wait, we did that already.

voodoojoo

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Fitty7lax: You're damn straight it is. At least in Japan, depending how common of a last name it is, people could have cars that truly are "Powered by Honda."

no_slushbox

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> wood.
and if that doesn't work, coal.

nuclear fisson is just o to messy.

jakay11

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> A mix. Bio-fuels (especially from waste mass) for long distance vehicles and heavy trucks, but plug-in electric for commuter vehicles. That way upgrades to new fuel technologies only has to happen at the generating plants, instead of in every garage in the country.

Not that I think any of this will happen any time soon. At one point, I seriously looked into converting my fiberglass buggy to electric (easy to do with a VW transaxle), but the component cost is way too high -- about nine G's for everything needed to do a 96V conversion. Might as well be putting an Alpine motor in an R5.

Tanshanomi

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Pardon my retardo grammar in that first sentense...Maybe I should have my mom proofread my posts first.

sandwich_pants

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Energon Cubes

MLicina

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Dollars

Cheap, and getting cheaper by the minute.

Failing that, i'd have it run on stupidity. It's not like the world is gonna run out of that any time soon.

Synthaxx

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I'm excited about gasoline and diesel.
And these can be alternative fuels is they are created by the wonderful, and perhaps funderful, but also smelly process of Thermal Depolymerization, which uses heat and pressure to simulate what decaying organic matter undergoes over a few million years buried underground. It's a bit energy intensive (that's what nuclear, solar and wind are for), but not much more than stupid corn ethanol (or clean electrolysis hydrogen), it produces relatively clean fuel, and the best part, is that we can use waste products to create it. From crap to turkey guts to used tires, anything with carbons and hydrogens turns into oil.
And just like regular petrol-fuels, it can be augmented with alcohol (preferably cellulosic ethanol from waste, not energy crops) or agri-oils or whatever makes actual energy and environment sense.

sandwich_pants

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> A plug-in electric car with backup bio-diesel generator for long hauls.

I want to put solar panels on the roof of my house, bank it in batteries, and plug the car in at night to recharge.

90-95% of my driving is local short commutes, so I would rarely use the backup generator to recharge the batteries (like the Chevy Volt).

TPSreports

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @teargas: Nice one. I haven't heard "Shaq diesel" in forever.

Andrewpetty

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> kittens.

daegon

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I'm hedging the Pixie Dust markets as we speak.

-chet

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Mr. Fusion [cgi.ebay.com]

Mark Arnold

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Diaper diesel seems like a great idea to me, I already have a raw material production going on at home.

Diesel six in a Crown Vic, high mileage, low co2 emission, full size highway cruiser.

TurboBrick

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @no_slushbox: SOYLENT GREEN IS HUUUUUUUMMMMMAAAAAANNNNN!!!

Fitty7lax

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> 1) LiIon recharged by fusion (or fission + natural gas + clean coal)
2) Fuck it, in car fusion reactors
3) > 100 octane ethanol in turbo engines
4) Soylent Green

no_slushbox

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Al Navarro: That tears it. Al for the win.

Sometimes there's just no competing against this guy.

lascauxcaveman

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Idealism and dreams. I think the Prius runs on that.

Next to that, Mr. Fusion.

Fitty7lax

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Bong resin.

Unregular

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Personally, I take the train to work and a couple other places. Gas is fine for places the train doesn't go.

Twist my arm and I say Bio-diesel in a Grand Wagoneer would do me fine. Supposedly their were diesel Grand Wagoneers not that I have ever seen one.

BLS

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Dragon Spunk

Al Navarro

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Biodiesel made from algae. It can net a positive energy gain since it requires no planting like soybeans.

I think it has massive potential, too bad there aren't any diesel passenger cars I can purchase in the US.

[www.msnbc.msn.com]

More:
[www.livefuels.com]

grzydj

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> @Maymar: My Libido is also powered by tequila. Ladiez, watch out!!!

teargas

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> If I were to buy an Alternate Fueled Vehicle today I would pick CNG. Natural Gas is selling for 72 cents a gallon in my neck of the woods.

MΩJΩ

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Shaq Diesel.

teargas

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I'm most excited about the car that runs on my own sense of self-satisfaction. Or the Chrysler Turbine car, which could run on tequila.

Seriously though, bring it all on, any car that runs on anything.

Maymar the technophobe

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Battery Power for sure or some kind of renewable low cost biodiesel.

TheAstronot

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> I'm waiting for a car that runs on happy thoughts.

Picarso

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> Nitromethane!

See it SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!

danio3834

]]> <![CDATA[Which Alternative Fuel Are You Most Excited About?]]> The Diaper Song
Electric Bonsai Band
from "Primal Urges"

There's a diaper in the sink
There's a diaper on the chair
There's a diaper in the freezer
We are never unprepared
Every corner, ever closet
Every cupboard in the place
Has a diaper waiting just in case

There's a diaper on the TV
There's a diaper underneathe
There's a diaper in my briefcase
Stuck between the briefs
There are diapers down the hallway
For as far as eyes can see
But Emma likes to pee on me
She will hold it in for hours
For the opportunity
Emma likes to pee on me

Diaper Diesel is number 2

POLAЯ

]]>