zoom44

actually mugwump is an Iroquois word which meant leader or war leader. it was used by a reporter to describe a bunch of republicans that campaigned for a democrat. so in that sense it meant independent. later it was used as a term of derision calling them "fence sitters" and thats how the word became misunderstood as meaning what you wrote.

also your political statement has been removed per forum rules.

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

but it also created a lot of problems.

Battery is made out of either toxic(NIMH) or could led to deadly explosion(Li-Ion)

power gotta come from somewhere, imagine what would it be like if "all" cars on the road are plug ins ? thats ALOT of power. Where it came from ? Power plants. and how they make power outa those plants? coal, natural gas, hydra, wind or nuclear. Which one you want ? Coal is the worst polluter. Natural gas is 2 times better but it produces much less power. hydra and wind plants produce WAY too little power and its hard to find a good spot for it. Nuclear produces clean power but if there is a melt down/accident we're all fucked, plus where should we store the waste ? I know it can last more than 500 years.

Plus Electric powered cars are way more complex than gasoline buddies, so it will cost more to maintain.

shurgs. I hate life. full of failed.

zoom44

that's only true at normal gasoline spark ignition pressures read

https://www.rx8club.com/showthread.p...ol#post2359332

or more directly at the source

http://www.epa.gov/otaq/presentation...-isaf-no55.pdf

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

NG & Propane is used in the corn driers. but diesel, electricity and to a lesser extent gasoline is used in the farm equipment.
ADM produces 22% of the ethanol in the US.

ndhoffma

well, yeah... but until we build engines that are designed specifically for that...

I was more making the point of why 'flex fuel' vehicles will get lower mpg with more ethanol in the mix of the fuel

zoom44

and ethanol from algae is the direction they should be headed
http://www.dailytech.com/Algae+May+S...ticle11671.htm

i saw another article recently about growing algae in hanging rows ina green house- its floating int he back of my brain that i have room in the backyard for an "algae bio-reactor" greenhouse

zoom44

ah here's a version

http://www.vegcar.net/?p=228#http://...car.net/?p=228

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

Or Sawgrass.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cladium

But, back on topic, 20% ethanol is too much for cars to handle.

zoom44

current cars yes

rotarygod

Electrics are the future. Specifically in series hybrids. The generators can be powered by any fuel but ultimately as battery technology improves the need for the generator will diminish which means fuels for those generators will have decreasing demand. Something that is currently being developed are shock absorbers that generate electricity from the motion of the shock itself which is pretty cool. While it couldn't power the entire car, it could extend the range of an electric vehicle and that's really what it's all about. Hydrogen isn't our future. Ethanol isn't our future. Gasoline isn't our future. Electricity is. What we use as we ween ourselves to that point is up for grabs but ultimately trying to promote any one thing as the future is not the way to go about it. Since fuels as we know them will slowly come to an end, it makes the most sense to just use what we know and can get easily which means not wasting money developing and implimenting a hydrogen infrastructure or a natural gas infrastructure, or even an ethanol based system. Instead of changing away from gasoline to another temporary fuel, we should work on making the electric a viable reality as soon as possible so we can get away from other sources.

FWIW: Coal can be burned very cleanly. I've seen people say it can't be clean and then cite 100 year old technology as a basis for that when the reality is that the combustion chamber design has more to do with how something burns off and how cleanly it does it than the actual fuel being used. You can make anything burn off cleanly and completely if you know what you're doing.

zoom44

regenerative shocks from MIT

http://www.engadget.com/2009/02/10/r...y-team-at-mit/

Shaftski

The electrical grids in our country need considerable reworking/redesign to take advantage of technological possibilities. I work w/ power companies all the time at my job, and it quite frankly scares the hell out of me how poorly they are designed. Biggest problem the utilities face is loss of brain power. The old timers that understand power generation/transmission/distribution are all retiring now, and kids are only majoring in computer science or computer engineering. There's no one to take the jobs that are being vacated due to retirement. So there's no one for redesign efforts.

It will be decades before plug in cars become standard. The grid just can't handle it. There's a big push now for plug in hybrids, to give energy credits to consumers for putting power back into the grid. Too bad our nation's entire grid has to be scrapped to to it, current can only go one way right now. We would have brown outs every night when everyone comes home from work and plugs in their cars to recharge, just like during the summer when everyone turns on the AC when they get home.

All the solutions have warts, it's a question of how many there are.

DarkLord7854

Electricity def is the future, look at Honda's new hybrid, the name currently escapes me, but it has a hydrogen fuel cell powering the car, it can do roughly 200 miles at every fill-up and takes no more time to fill than current cars, plus hydrogen is roughly the same price as gasoline.

The car's only emission is pure H2O.

The only downside is that the only hydrogen pumps at gas stations are located in California currently

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

There are hydrogen pumps at upstate NY, but yeah, Upstate NY, couple hundred miles away from me

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

I still remember the black out from couple years ago.

IT was fun, but also reminds me of how suck our power grid really is.

DarkLord7854

There' a multiquote button, use it

(its this one: and select the posts you need, and then click "quote" on one final one, and you'll have all of them in the text box)

alnielsen

iTrader: (4)

Don't worry, fearless leader & congress will take care of it.

zoom44

honda has a home refueling unit that extracts the H from NG while at the same time heating your water and powering your house.

http://automobiles.honda.com/fcx-cla...y-station.aspx


http://www.plugpower.com/products/re...ialgensys.aspx

DarkLord7854

Guess it's time to invest!

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

shuuuuuuut up !

Search you n00b !

EdwardsB

man having a hydrogen powered 8 and your own hydrogen generation system would be awesome. Then only have to pay for gas when you really want to have fun.


oh and not to ethanol, I want the price of steak to stay reasonable (assuming they produce it from corn).

ferrocene

You can tell a country has gone nuts when it starts burning their food source as fuel.

I've heard that burning coal creates more radioactive waste than modern nuclear plants, but I'm sure the converse is also true.

There hasn't been a new nuke plant in 30 years. Hmmm....what technology really exploded in the last 30 years? All of them, that's what! I vote for Nuclear.

However, take a step back. Electricity isn't the solution, because something has to generate the electricity. The only true renewable energy source is the sun. Every other source gets its power from the sun.

The day a solar panel factory is 100% powered by solar cells on its roof is the day I start believing in solar (a net energy surplus or gain. Currently it takes more net energy to create a solar panel than it will ever give back in return. This can create small pockets of positive energy surpluses, but the system as a whole is losing energy - increasing entropy).

We live in a snowglobe. We can create positive pockets of energy, but the overall system will operate at a loss. Hell, our entire planet and life itself is an example of a small pocket of positive energy (the earth itself), while the universe as a whole is losing energy/increasing entropy. That's how you explain life and evolution to a creationist who tries (feebly) to use science to show that the laws of thermodynamics have been violated by our mere presence in the universe.

Bio and algae is a good field. Let microbes create methane out of air, water and sunlight.

ferrocene

On a different note, I thought ethanol was 100 octane, and that in turbo applications people purposely squirt alcohol into the system to cool it down and to add power (AI). I'm guessing ethanol in the gas tank doesn't help in this regard? Just asking.

EdwardsB

Beer is more radioactive than the cooling water returning to a river from a nuclear power plant - learned that from history channel.

Even tho its power sucks I would rather hydrogen than electricity. I would miss the sound of an ICE in my driving experience.

nycgps

iTrader: (1)

It also carries much less energy, and lots of cars today cannot stand too much Ethanol in them.

No one really wants to use Ethanol cuz everybody knows its a really pathetic form of "energy". but hey, who cares about what we the consumers think? Its always up to those higher ups/rich *** who decides what we can/will use.

Pretty much

dunno about that part.

Yeah but lets not forget, a Nuke plant SHOULD be closed after maybe 50 yrs of "use". but hey, thats not the case in lots of areas ... and if a melt down occurs ... you can hope that its not the one "around" you, but radioactive waves will go up to the atmosphere then its gonna go every freaking where. Look at what happen to Chernobyl. Sure it blew on the other side of the earth at 1986, that place is still deadly, at least to all kinds of "living beings", and the waves is still all over earth. hmm 1986 ... another 400-500 years before it will disappear (the bad stuff)

Bad thing about Solar panel is that you cannot get it 24 hours a day. sure you can have tons of it and store it in a battery or something. but Current battery technology simply not good enough for storing large amounts of energy in a "stable" matter.

BEST power should be Lighting, Its free, you get it every few weeks or so everywhere, each strike of lighting can power a big city for a LONG time, thats PURE energy right there. but again, there is no way to store such "high amount" of energy in a safe and fast way.

Some Scientist has said that Li-Ion will probably last another 10-13 years before another "revolutionary" battery technology can come out to replace it. so ...

lol