Fuel of the Future

[sunk]

I was just going to work when i saw a Dodge Viper pass by. Sure it has divine performance but how long will people keep buying 10mpg cars?
Our oil reserveses are going to run dry in 50-70 years. And by the looks oof things, prices are not going to come down. Then the environmental factor comes in and you begin to think that what will be the :
a)sustainable fuel of the future

b)performance fuel of the future

Diesel? the engines produce more torque but have more SPM emmission.
Hydrogen? It is promising but why havn't we gone towards it ?
LPG? Ethanol?

[man 430gt]

I was just going to work when i saw a Dodge Viper pass by. Sure it has divine performance but how long will people keep buying 10mpg cars?
Our oil reserveses are going to run dry in 50-70 years. And by the looks oof things, prices are not going to come down. Then the environmental factor comes in and you begin to think that what will be the :
a)sustainable fuel of the future

b)performance fuel of the future

Diesel? the engines produce more torque but have more SPM emmission.
Hydrogen? It is promising but why havn't we gone towards it ?
LPG? Ethanol?

Worrying i know, we need to think of something and fast

[MrKipling]

All this bollocks about oil reserves running dry is just that - bollocks.

Oil drilling works by exploiting the pressure difference between oil-wells and the atmosphere - like syphoning petrol. Once the pressure is equalised they stop drilling, leaving (usually, according to my Uncle who works in the industry) billions of barrells of oil in the earth. We just haven't needed to develop a way of getting at it yet, when we do, we will. Stop worrying about it, we'll still be buying supercars in ten years time.

[henk4]

All this bollocks about oil reserves running dry is just that - bollocks.

cheap oil reserves will run dry. However if you put more money in extracting, like for instance the Athabasca tar sands in Canada or the Venezuelan shale oil stocks may last much longer. However, cheap petrol by that time is history, as the oil companies want to maintain a sizeable return in investment.

[Matra et Alpine]

We just haven't needed to develop a way of getting at it yet, when we do, we will. Stop worrying about it, we'll still be buying supercars in ten years time.

over 120 years ago Broxburn was the oil capital of the world !! Tiny part of Scotland

It was shale oil, VERY high quality. BUT to get it out you had to mine it, drag it to the surface, heat it to HIGH temperatures to release the oil and then dump the shale in hige piles almost mountain size !!!

VERY expensive, VERY destructive.

High pressure steam injection is used to positively pressurise current oil reserves in a number of areas, but it only releases the lighter oils and is expensive.

Technology doesn't have an answer to everything - something I realised more and more the older i got

Also, the petro-chemical industry uses more oil than cars, so now that the reserve rate decline is recongised we're on the slippery slope and cars will become the unpimortant customer as so far the chemists have'nt found alternatives for many of the chemical reactsion de[pendant on petro-chemicals So by the time it gets to something like less than 50% of what we produce NOW, there is NO scope for mass fuel for cars

[jorismo]

I'm sure that most car manufacturers are working on alternatives. We've seen VW with some cars using almost no fuel. And nowadys most cars are pretty economic. For instance our Renault Megane, it has a great diesel enigine with a pretty low consumption.

But I also think that there are some very good alternatives to oil based fuels. For example electricity or hydrogen. And perhaps LPG.

Remember, you shouldn't only think of the reserves that are left, but also of the environement!!!

[6speed]

I think cars will run on air. An electric charger will start the car to move till about 40 km/h, and then it will shut off, allowing the air that goes into the bottom of the car to propel a fan which rotates the wheels.

Either that, or cars will be run on centrifugal force. Four high gravitational weights will be attached at each wheel, causing gravity to move the car forward, and continuing to propel the car.

These may sound like far-fetched ideas, but take a look at both, they are plossible.

[Matra et Alpine]

These may sound like far-fetched ideas, but take a look at both, they are plossible.

I love perpetual motion machine slip ups

They ARE far-fetched and they are NOT plausible/possible.

[PerfAdv]

Fuel Cell Vehicles are already a (expensive) reality:
http://www.nrel.gov/vehiclesandfuels/hev/fuelcells.html


Flywheel, an elegant solution, as part of a hybrid setup:
http://www.upei.ca/~physics/p261/pro.../flywheel1.htm

[The_Canuck]

i read alberta has enough oil to supply northamerica for 50 years without touching any foriegn oil. but there not drilling it yet

[Egg Nog]

i read alberta has enough oil to supply northamerica for 50 years without touching any foriegn oil. but there not drilling it yet

The high price of oil is making oil from the tar sands more viable - they've been gathering oil from here for quite some time now, although they aren't "drilling it" per se. It's gathered through a very expensive method where (this is the simplified explanation) very hot water is added to the sand and the oil is skimmed from the top.

There is a massive amount of oil in the tar sands (I've heard possibly even more than in the entire Middle East), and it will continue to be extracted from there (and I imagine more so in the future) because of rising oil prices. I wonder if the USA will attack Canada for it?

EDIT: Please don't reply to that last sentence. It was a joke, and this is not a political thread. Thanks.

[Zytek_Fan]

Ethanol is a promising alternative fuel. All cars produced now can run 85% ethanol.

[h00t_h00t]

Nitromethane is clearly the way forward.

[lucifer]

take the highway to hell fuel is free, its my garauntee

[Esperante]

I'll take the escalatour to heaven, thank you.