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...)

[fiid]

QUOTE (lapuwali @ Mar 8 2006, 11:00 AM)

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.

I definately agree with your hydrogen statement.

The studies I am referring to are the ones that are trying to assert weather ethanol is a net loss or not. My personal opinion is that it isn't a net loss - (or at least it could be made to not be a net loss with some process improvements). But a number of well-funded, well-publicised and well-biased studies are busy swaying the public opinion - I'm not sure that these are fact - probably more opinion presented as fact, and I'm not sure that the people that read the headlines are looking any deeper than those headlines.

My opinion is that we (as a nation) could improve our environmental footprint and perhaps better leverage our existing infrastructure by being smarter about using corn (or other plants like switchgrass) products.

I also think your right though - a hydrogen infrastructure helps abstract us away from any specific energy source, we can use atomic, wind, wave, solar, chemical, fossil and anything else we like energy to produce hydrogen - and the combination of those things might be enough to get us off of oil.

It's also possible to burn hydrogen in an otto engine.. ... perhaps even a type IV one........ handy.