Alcohol has been used for generations in many places
all over the world as automotive fuel.
It's cheap, renewable, easy to produce, and
relatively clean-burning. The health hazards
that automotive emissions cause us all would
probably be cut at least in half if we used
common ethanol instead of gasoline.
Low Octane should no longer be much of a problem,
given today's more efficient fuel injection and
electronic ignition systems.
SoyGold has already demonstrated that solvents
and deisel fuel can be made from soybeans.
SoyGold diesel fuel is just as efficient as
petroleum diesel, burns cleaner, and actually
burns with a pleasant smell; people have
described it as smelling like "French fries."
Wouldn't that be better than suffocating when
you're stuck in traffic behind a bus or truck?
How about Biodiesel, also made from vegetable oil?
Plastics can be made from soybean and other vegetable
oils, with far less processing.
Biodegradable plastics can also be produced from vegetable
oils.
In fact, everything you can do with oil can be done instead
with the complex hydrocarbons in natural vegetable oils.
Except destroy the environment with tanker spills and
excessively toxic exhaust emissions.
What about fuel cells?
Currently the converters for fuel cells using
alcohol are rather large, but they can be made
smaller if serious research was dedicated to it.
Hydrogen is the fuel of choice for powering fuel cells.
Gasoline is actually more dangerous to store and
transport than hydrogen.
Hydrogen explodes and burns almost straight up,
containing the horizontal radius of damage to
the surroundong area.
Gasoline explodes in all directions and spreads
like liquids do, potentially endangering a wide area.
Most people have images of the Hindenberg and
tanks of hydrogen exploding like "hydrogen bombs."
This is a misconception.
Hydrogen can be produced by electrolysis from water.
Internal combustion engines can be modified to run on
hydrogen. If used in cars, very little of the hydrogen
atom is actually turned into energy; almost all of it
recombines with oxygen to make water again.
Water is the only exhaust product.
Hydrogen is a high energy gas that's easy to
manufacture, is safer than gasoline, and gives off
ZERO PERCENT pollution.
It seem obvious to me that we still use petroleum
mostly because the petroleum industry wants to stay
in business.