OT: how far we've come?, 35 years of non-progress Options

[lapuwali]

Hybrids are the buzzword now, and people marvel at how the latest Civic hybrid gets 50mpg.

Autoweek had a short article on the early Civics, which got 55mpg with a carb. 1.2L, 50hp, 1500lbs. Sure, they were slow, but they were described as still being fun to drive. The way most people drive modern Civics, I doubt they'd notice if they suddenly only had 50hp.

(yes, I know emissions are much better, it's quieter, it crashes better, yada, yada...)

[lapuwali]

QUOTE (fiid @ Mar 8 2006, 10:30 AM)

One of the things that is interesting about the ethanol situation is that all the studies about exactly what it's environmental footprint is seem to be heavily funded (and influenced) by various groups with a lot to gain/lose from the outcome of the study. One such study came up with the conclusion that it was a totally useless fuel, but this study is re-issued every 3 years using the same data, by the same person/group, and with the same lobbyists behind it. Distilling ethanol isn't very hard - I believe it's actually possible to do it with a 100% solar solution - i.e. use cool groundwater for cooling and use solar heat to boil off the alcohol/ethanol. You'd have to burn ethanol (or corn oil) in the process of producing it - i.e. to run the ag machinery, but that doesn't seem non-tractable (no pun intended (IMG:http://www.914world.com/bbs2/html/emoticons/smile.gif) ). An awful lot of energy gets spent on exotic seeds from monsanto - which I'm sure is increasing the environmental footprint. It strikes me as doable - the only question is - will the profitmaking entities involved think outside the (current-revenuestream) box enough to do something different. I'd bet that unless we're really fucked, no-one is willing to do that.

A couple of studies have tried to guess at how much corn (or whatever) would be required to produce enough ethanol to drive 100% of the vehicle fleet, and I'm pretty sure they came up with "more than we can reasonably produce". I wish I could remember where I saw that...

I'm still a believer in hydrogen. No carbon, endless supply. Yes, it takes energy to produce it, but so does anything else. Yes, it's even a net loss in energy production, but it's a viable way to turn forms of energy that aren't sufficiently portable (solar, nuclear, wave) into a form that can be used in a mobile device, like a car.