a thoughtful web.
Good ideas and conversation. No ads, no tracking.   Login or Take a Tour!
comment by b_b
b_b  ·  4612 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Synthetic Gasoline For $1.50/Gallon and No Emissions
I don't buy it. In energy, as in life, there's no such thing as a free lunch. You always get out less than you put in. They don't mention anything about how this fuel is made, which must (by the laws of physics) be more energy intensive than what you get from burning it in your car engine. So, either they're using solar (which, if true, they probably would have mentioned it int eh article) or they're using fossil fuels to make it, a net energy waste, when you could just burn the fossil fuel in your engine to begin with.




fr33lunch  ·  4612 days ago  ·  link  ·  
Thanks for the fr33 plug :-)

As much as it pains me to say this: This idea will never, ever be put into use. For many of the same reasons replacement fuels have failed since the 70's. I agree with your point that they don't discuss the energy or process used to materialize the hydrogen. The science behind the scenes is available for reading at Cella Energy's site.

People are going to latch onto this topic because it discusses the reduction of our dependance on imported oil. Unfortunately, the reason it resonates with people is that when they hear "foreign oil", they infer Middle-Eastern-Terror-Oil when they don't realize that we import the bulk of our oil from Canada.

Laurelai  ·  4611 days ago  ·  link  ·  
CANADA 2,324 barrels a day SAUDI ARABIA 1,465 barrels a day

And we use most of it, can you imagine what would happen to the price of gas if we just stopped buying from the middle east? Yes a majority does come from Canada but a significant amount comes from Saudi Arabia, enough to matter and if you add the amount from other middle eastern countries it gets close to the Canada figure at 2,159 barrels a day.

Laurelai  ·  4611 days ago  ·  link  ·  
The reason is resonates with me is "$1.50 a gallon" :p