Gas 2.0

I have too much time on my hands, so I took a gander at the 2009 BP Statistical Review of World Energy to kill time as well as wait to see if I won the bid for an Iraqi oil field. I didn’t.

BP and China National Petroleum beat me and they now have the right to develop Rumaila - the largest Iraqi oil field. The two organizations beat out a bid from Exxon Mobil Corporation and the Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain al-Shahristani estimates that the selling of oil rights will garner them more than $1.7 trillion over the next 20 years.

This win shouldn’t be surprising considering 2008 was the first year that developing countries, led by China, consumed more energy than developed countries. It was also noted in BP’s report that industrialized countries reduced their energy consumption by 1.3 percent led by a 2.8 percent decline in energy consumption from the U.S. –the steepest single-year decline since 1982. However the potential benefits of energy reduction were offset by countries who increased their energy consumption. China accounted for nearly three-quarters of the 1.4 percent global consumption increase.

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Unless you are a vegetarian, you probably agree that chicken is delicious. But could this fowl have a future in automobiles? According to a presentation made at the 13th Annual Green Chemical and Engineering Conference this weekend…maybe. It seems that carbonized chicken feathers can hold hydrogen quite well; better than carbon nanotubes or metal hydrides currently being tested as hydrogen carriers. Could this solve the infrastructure problems currently holding hydrogen technology back?

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Picture this; you’re driving down some long, flat, dusty road on your way to the Middle of Nowhere when your car suddenly runs out of fuel. You haven’t passed a fuel station in a hundred miles, and you’re at least half as far from your destination still. Well what if you could just get out of your car, unzip your fly (at least for us lads) and fill your car up with your bodies own natural emissions?

Sounds pretty science fiction and maybe even a little gross. But that is the idea behind at least one entrant’s car in the Progressive Automotive X-Prize, an international challenge for alternative, super-fuel-efficient vehicles. A pee-powered car? Well, why not.

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I’ve always enjoyed the antics of Jesse James, the motorcycle mogul who owns the custom bike shop West Coast Customs. He was the star of Monster Garage, where him and a team of equally-eccentric characters were challanged with creating oddball rides, such as an ambulance that does wheelies. That is one trip to the hospital I wouldn’t mind. But he isn’t exactly what I would call an “enviromentally concious” person, especially after last week’s episode of Jesse James Is A Dead Man, where Mr. James was tearing across through housing projects and golf courses in a nitrous-injected Camaro.

But apparently the idea of breaking the land speed record for hydrogen cars has been on his mind for some time now. Last Wednesday, Jesse blew past the current record of 185 mph and set a new record of 199.7 mph

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Suggestions are floated in the current issue of Industrial Engineering & Chemical Research on the best way to farm living diatoms to turn their oil into a new oil field  containing “massive amounts of gasoline.”

As previously fossilized fuel supplies dwindle,  pinhead-sized diatoms - at the bottom of the food chain - have become the focus of the attention of the rapacious creatures at the top of the food chain. As we humans run out of oil, we have begun to cast about desperately for our new oil supplies.

Where better to look than at the tiny creatures who died to make us oil millions of years ago?

Lets not wait another million years for currently living diatoms to leave us new oil supplies. Lets extract their oil while they are still alive!

A new hydrogen-powered car, whose designs will be “open source” and posted for free use on the web, was unveiled today in London. The company behind the Riversimple urban car claim the new model proves hydrogen automotive technology is ready for roll-out now rather than in 10 years’ time.

The open-source approach means entrepreneurs around the world could download the designs and manufacture the two-seater prototype locally for free.

The car, which drove in to the launch event, is capable of a 50mph top speed, 0-30mph acceleration in 5.5 seconds, and has a 240 mile range. The car’s backers say it has greenhouse gas emissions of 30g/km CO2, less than a third of the latest hybrid petrol cars such as the Toyota Prius and Honda Insight.

The lightweight Smart car-size vehicle uses hydrogen in a modest 6kW fuel cell, and – in the case of this prototype – uses hydrogen converted from natural gas. Hydrogen can also be created from water using electrolysis and potentially even from bio-fuels.

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Last week, the Hybrid Truck Users Forum (HTUF) of CALSTART hosted a “Hybrid on the Hill” day where they showcased new truck technologies. Mack Trucks, Inc. participated in the event and gave federal legislators and policymakers a first-hand look at its parallel diesel-electric hybrid technology, known as the MACK® TerraPro™ Cabover, for heavy-duty trucks. Mack is initially introducing these technology in refuse trucks, aka garbage trucks, where hybrid technology seems to have the greatest impact due to the stop-and-go nature of the trash pick-up system.
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Hydrogen is an alternative fuel whose viability is directly dependent on the amount of money and effort placed behind its development. Electric cars have an inherent advantage as the power grid infrastructure is already in place, but hydrogen requires a whole different kind of transportation and filling station other than the outlet in your garage. But Mazda is still pushing forward with its hydrogen dreams by delivering the first of its Premacy Hydrogen Rotary Engine Hybrids to the Iwatani Corporation.

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“Our grading system will be controversial but is well-defended,” said Dugan. “We defy anyone to show that the current practice of using taxpayer subsidies to produce motor fuels from coal is decent public policy, or even that automakers can produce an affordable, durable car that runs on cleanly produced hydrogen.”  Judy Dugan, research director for Consumer Watchdog

When talking about the technologies that will lead us into a new transportation paradigm, I feel like I’m driving down a winding road full of potholes and missing the shoulders. What technology is best? Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles (PHEVs)? Flex-Fuel Plug-In Hybrid Vehicles? Plug-In Electric Vehicles (PEVs) or maybe cars that run on compressed natural gas or hydrogen fuel cells?  I’m not a waging person so I won’t place my bets but I am willing to “collect the money” from those who want to gamble on the winner. Read the rest of this entry »