500 MPG

[erw38]

Do you think it will be done?

forums.biodieselnow.com/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=5231

[Isnibs]

15 percent petroleum 500miles
Is that 75miles to the gallon of fuel.
It's late an me brains pooped.

[Letitroll98]

The rub here is the energy cost to produce the ethanol/methanol is higher than refining gasoline. The other rub is that you have to include the cost of the electricity for plug-ins. There are the opportunity costs of diverting crops for alcohol production as well. So it's not a free lunch.

However the energy policies of drill more holes and conquer more countries is a complete dead end. There are many problems to overcome, but there were in the NASA plan to go to the moon, the Manhattan Project, and marketing the Ipod. So what. The alternatives to a visionary energy policy are more expensive and dangerous than reaching for energy independence. I agree with the intent of the article, just not with how easy they say it all is.

[scottydl]

I would love to see this happen. Our economy is obviously WAAAY too dependent on foreign oil, and frankly speaking, it will eventually collapse. Why not use the resources we have? I believe the US is #1 is corn and soybean production worldwide... even with the increased R&D costs of converting these items into usable fuel, it would no doubt be a good move in the long run. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

[Aurora40]

Letitroll98 said:

There are many problems to overcome, but there were in the NASA plan to go to the moon, the Manhattan Project, and marketing the Ipod. So what.

Well, I'm not sure the problems facing the iPod are very similar.

As for those other two, they were overcome with sheer force. The NASA plan to go to the moon took a very long period of time, and cost incredible amounts of money. The Manhattan project also cost incredible amounts of money, required building incredible facilities, and tapped incredible brains to accomplish. The payoff from landing on the moon was very small, though the payoff from the Manhattan project was very high in terms of lives saved in the years since.

I don't think this type of unbounded spending would be worthwhile for something like fuel economy.

[Aurora40]

As to that article, talk about oversimplifying... 50mpg for hybrid (um, for what size car??), plus plug-in = 75mpg (based on what??) plus flexible fuel = 500mpg... Sure, ok, whatever...

I mean, I'm all for better economy. I'm a bit of a conservationist. But that article points to no facts, makes no in-depth analysis, nothing. Just some guy saying 50 to 75 to 500, done.

The only sort of fact pointed to is advances in semiconductors. How many semiconductors run on gasoline? What's that have to do with anything? Battery technology has not progressed significantly, and combustion engines still run on the same principles they did 90 years ago. They are very refined and advanced, no doubt, but there are some fundamentals of internal combustion that can't just be ignored or brushed aside.

[Marc]

500 MPG? Mother Nature is going to have to make some
big changes to the laws of physics & chemistry.


___________________

GM!!! BRING BACK OLDS!!!

[Aurora40]

scottydl said:

I would love to see this happen. Our economy is obviously WAAAY too dependent on foreign oil, and frankly speaking, it will eventually collapse. Why not use the resources we have? I believe the US is #1 is corn and soybean production worldwide... even with the increased R&D costs of converting these items into usable fuel, it would no doubt be a good move in the long run. Let's keep our fingers crossed...

In what way are we obviously too dependent? To say it will eventually collapse is to say that you can just draw a line from here to the future, and it will never waver or turn. That's just not reality.

I will ask that if you think it is so obvious, and our doom so impending, why would you drive an Aurora? Why not drive a diesel and fill it with biofuel? Heck, you could collect and make your own fuel rather easily if you were so inclined. Perhaps it's because you realize that the obviousness of our dependence, and the immediacy of our speeding doom is all just fluff to push an agenda.

[scottydl]

Yeah, something like that... What I mean is that it seems very dangerous to have our daily lives run by a global resource that we don't even possess. Now I'm certainly no tree-hugger, and I enjoy that daily life... hence my driving an Aurora and such. But I'd like to see more viable fuel alternatives in the future, regardless of whether they offer increased mileage (that would just be a bonus).

[erw38]

Volkswagon is already halfway their with their newest prototype.

Do you think it could ever catch on here? Just look at the horse power it makes..........a whopping 8 bhp!

[Letitroll98]

Aurora40 said:

Well, I'm not sure the problems facing the iPod are very similar.

I don't think this type of unbounded spending would be worthwhile for something like fuel economy.

I'm somewhat puzzled by these statements. The Ipod example may be going from the ridiculous to the sublime, but the problems of market analysis, conseption, feasability studies, cost analysis, ad infinitum, are the same in the Ipod development and the problem of how to develop and market alternative fuel vehicles. You seem to allude to this, somewhat obtusely, in your well stated objections to the articles "solutions". I agree with your feelings about the article on the whole, btw.

Misdirected unbounded spending in energy policy would be of course unwise. And I'm not the expert to ask what is the right way to go. But myself and many others (Senetors McCain and Kerry included) have been lobbying our congressmen for a "Go to the Moon" energy policy for years. The most immediate benefit being the ability to extridite this country from the morass of mideast oil politics, something that is quite likely to cause WWIII at any moment. The details of this policy would be left to minds much brighter than I, thank goodness.

As far as driving Auroras, petroleum fuel economy is only a stop gap measure of limited value. We have plenty of oil for my lifetime and there won't be any real hue and cry for alternatives until Americans are forced to pay real prices for petrol products anyway. So I've decided to drive as fast as possible while clanging a bell of warning. The move to fuel efficient and alternative fuel autos will be driven by the same market forces that produced the Apple Ipod.

[Marc]

Let's see.....this "car" weighs 290 Kg, or 638 lbs. The
engine, such as it is, is putting out 8 1/2 hp from 299cc,
or a hair more than 18 CID.
Assuming every last one of those 8 1/2 horses gets to the drive wheel or wheels, with a driver and a passenger on board, for a total weight of say, 938 lbs,
you will have a weight to HP ratio of appx. 110 : 1.
Acceleration times will be in terms of minutes......no thank you, VW!!!


___________________

GM!!! BRING BACK OLDS!!!

[SupaStealth]

well, heres a car i designed in high school

smv.berkeley.edu/SMV_2003/20.html

we got 1016.92mpg

[Aurora40]

Letitroll98 said:

But myself and many others (Senetors McCain and Kerry included) have been lobbying our congressmen for a "Go to the Moon" energy policy for years. The most immediate benefit being the ability to extridite this country from the morass of mideast oil politics, something that is quite likely to cause WWIII at any moment.

Right, this is what I find to be a bad idea. The moon philosophy's real most-immediate effect will be to toss huge sums of your and my money out and make very little progress. And like going to the moon, it will probably ultimately achieve the end goal, but will not be worth the humongous price paid for it.

Letitroll98 said:

The move to fuel efficient and alternative fuel autos will be driven by the same market forces that produced the Apple Ipod.

This is precisely where it should come from. Real people investing their own money into things that they believe will be successful and that there is a real market for. Not from politicians investing my money into something unfounded and trying to force a market (as they do currently via tax breaks).

[scottydl]

SupaStealth said:

well, heres a car i designed in high school

smv.berkeley.edu/SMV_2003/20.html

we got 1016.92mpg

Wow, that was a HIGH SCHOOL project? Impressive! What kind of fuel was used in those cars, and what performance results did you have?

[Marc]

Also, where was the engine used originally, and how
much HP & cubic inches does it have?


________________

GM!!! BRING BACK OLDS!!!

[Letitroll98]

Aurora40 said:

Right, this is what I find to be a bad idea. The moon philosophy's real most-immediate effect will be to toss huge sums of your and my money out and make very little progress. And like going to the moon, it will probably ultimately achieve the end goal, but will not be worth the humongous price paid for it.



This is precisely where it should come from. Real people investing their own money into things that they believe will be successful and that there is a real market for. Not from politicians investing my money into something unfounded and trying to force a market (as they do currently via tax breaks).

Your first point about the money being wasted is well founded and I have little argument other than NASA had a clear cut goal and achieved it in short order. Only afterwards when NASA was manufacturing goals for itself (Space Shuttle) did it flounder. So you are right that we would have a tall order to define a clear cut goal, the very thing we both found wrong about the article.

Market conditions will generate alternate fuel vehicles. Good friends of mine lost it all in a well funded, Ford supported, electric car venture that was ahead of its time. They paid the economic cost of error. The argument for government investment in alternate fuel vehicles leading to energy independence is that the economic cost to all of us will be very great if we delay until market conditions generate the demand. The big three will not risk the error my friends made without government mandate.

If you think there will be no geopolitical cost for continueing on our present path and that the multi billion dollar international auto industry can turn on a dime to alternative fuels when we hit the petroleum dead end, then I would hope you are right. Because I don't see any meaningful progress toward energy independence in the last 35 years since the 1st energy crunch and I fear we are headed for a global petroleum conflict. So does our present adminstration if you read Paul Wolfowitz's papers from the early 90's on the subject. Otherwise, why would we be in Iraq now?

It is because of these reasons that I would spend taxpayer money on the admittedly risky venture of massive research into alternate fuel energy independence. Barrel of crude oil, over $50 and going up. Gal. of gasoline, over $2 and spiralling upward. Benefits of energy independence, priceless.

[Aurora40]

Letitroll98 said:

Market conditions will generate alternate fuel vehicles. Good friends of mine lost it all in a well funded, Ford supported, electric car venture that was ahead of its time. They paid the economic cost of error. The argument for government investment in alternate fuel vehicles leading to energy independence is that the economic cost to all of us will be very great if we delay until market conditions generate the demand. The big three will not risk the error my friends made without government mandate.

There is no government mandate for hybrid vehicles (the Godsend, according to that article). There was none when GM sunk billions of dollars into the EV1 program. There is none for hybrid vehicles. Yet automakers risk money exploring all of these avenues.

GM invested in building a fleet of hybrid diesel busses that have made and will make a drastic difference in the fuel consumption of big-city mass-transit. They were not forced or compelled to do this, it was a good business case.

Letitroll98 said:

It is because of these reasons that I would spend taxpayer money on the admittedly risky venture of massive research into alternate fuel energy independence. Barrel of crude oil, over $50 and going up. Gal. of gasoline, over $2 and spiralling upward. Benefits of energy independence, priceless.

I do not see what the current cost of gasoline has to do with anything. In fact, I would say the cheaper it is, the more cause for worry there should be. As gasoline gets more relatively expensive (and relatively, it is no where near past peak prices in the US), the more impetus there is for private investment in alternatives, and the more real market there is for such alternatives.

There is no magic about the government, or about the abilities of it. The only magic is that they can piss away all the money they want, and continue to get more. They don't have to win over any customers, keep anyone satisfied, show any progress made from the money they spent. They can just force you to pay for whatever it is they are selling.

Oil will not just run freely and then all of a sudden the tap will be dry. It's not like a bottle of ketchup or something. As the supplies dwindle, prices will rise, and opportunities for successful alternatives will grow.

[scottydl]

Aurora40 said:

Oil will not just run freely and then all of a sudden the tap will be dry. It's not like a bottle of ketchup or something. As the supplies dwindle, prices will rise, and opportunities for successful alternatives will grow.

I agree with this... however I think what you are describing is in process right now. Supply (or access to that supply) is decreasing, demand is increasing, and prices are steadily increasing. We may not be at a critical level yet, but should we wait until that point to start looking at alternatives? I think it would be best to research and develop other fuel sources now, so we don't have to deal with the transitional hysteria that could come otherwise.

Plus, the only reason that oil is in such high demand is because we buy it. Imagine if the US or Canada did come up with a realistic, usable alternative fuel vehicles... demand on crude oil would go down, supply would increase, and prices would fall back to a reasonable level for the rest of us (who would still putter around in our gasoline autos).

[Letitroll98]

Aurora40 said:

There is no government mandate for hybrid vehicles (the Godsend, according to that article). There was none when GM sunk billions of dollars into the EV1 program. There is none for hybrid vehicles. Yet automakers risk money exploring all of these avenues.

GM invested in building a fleet of hybrid diesel busses that have made and will make a drastic difference in the fuel consumption of big-city mass-transit. They were not forced or compelled to do this, it was a good business case.

Actually, there is a government mandate for these vehicles with significant tax advantages to recover R&D and production costs. It's just that it's focused on LEV and ULEV rather than the gas mileage discussion we are having here. Global warming is a political hot button that we have agreed to spend some taxpayer money on now.

Aurora40 said:

I do not see what the current cost of gasoline has to do with anything. In fact, I would say the cheaper it is, the more cause for worry there should be. As gasoline gets more relatively expensive (and relatively, it is no where near past peak prices in the US), the more impetus there is for private investment in alternatives, and the more real market there is for such alternatives.

There is no magic about the government, or about the abilities of it. The only magic is that they can piss away all the money they want, and continue to get more. They don't have to win over any customers, keep anyone satisfied, show any progress made from the money they spent. They can just force you to pay for whatever it is they are selling.

Oil will not just run freely and then all of a sudden the tap will be dry. It's not like a bottle of ketchup or something. As the supplies dwindle, prices will rise, and opportunities for successful alternatives will grow.

I don't think the government is any repository of genius either. I believe they should spend money directing free enterprise toward energy independence, just like we do with noxious emissions. As far as the tap running dry instantaneously, of course it won't. But will it run dry faster than we can change is the question. Although the following address's environmental issues directly, I think this quote from MIT's news ezine is pertinent:

Quote
"In a paper published in the Nov. 1 issue of the journal Science, an international team of climate and technology experts evaluate several advanced energy technologies for their ability to supply carbon-emission-free energy and their potential for large-scale commercialization. They found that no existing alternative energy source, nor combination of sources, could adequately replace the energy produced by fossil fuels. The team's conclusion: massive research commitments are needed to develop these technologies to effectively slow global warming.

"To reduce greenhouse gas emissions from our energy systems while maintaining energy prices at comparable levels to today will take revolutionary change as opposed to evolutionary change," said Howard J. Herzog, a principal research engineer at MIT's Laboratory for Energy and the Environment and co-author of the Science paper.

The study's call for prompt and aggressive energy research and development distinguishes it from the Bush administration's Energy Plan, which focuses on domestic oil exploration." Unquote


To be fair, the study and article are focused on global warming initiatives, but I propose that future petroleum non-availability and reducing green house gases are two sides of the same coin. We are not that far apart here though. I’ll go along with not spending one more dime of taxpayer money than we are spending on the war in Iraq. Just devote that much money to underwriting private industry initiatives for energy independence. No “NASA” type agency, just investment money and tax advantages. Could we agree on that?

[SupaStealth]

our car was a 3.5hp briggs and stratton motor, we used 89 octane fuel i believe, performance wasn't too bad, not highway worthy though for sure. it weighed about 60lbs without the driver, keep in mind, this car was 11 feet long, steel chassis(althogh we didn't need too much since the carbon was a strong body material) the engine and drivetrain weighed half of the total weight at around 30lbs alone. i believe we ran a 12tooth clutch to a 120tooth hub(we had it geared so that the top speed was only 28mph at 5500rpm), on a 700mm tire that was at 120psi, no suspension. i'm sure if you crashed at any speed above 15mph, you'd be seriously injured from the carbon fiber. the top speed, safely, was around 45mph. i'm sure it would easily go 70mph with no wind. cross wind sure pushed it around though and made it interesting to drive.