Will petrol ever become redundant?

[Steve]

Will petrol ever become redundant? Will they ever actually find a way to replace it? We can ship a man to the moon but cannot find proper alternative fuels! what do you think?

[jeffy]

i heard they were making cars that ran on water,

otherwise, we have to make do with the electric cars :P

[Noodle Boy]

i heard they were making cars that ran on water,

otherwise, we have to make do with the electric cars :P

Water as fuel? how? we need to find a way to boil it to make steam, and by doing so we need an energy source.

[Steven]

They used petrol to get to the moon though...

[jeffy]

Or was that hydrogen powered car,...

[LFT-OOF]

electric = Borrrrring

Edited October 12, 2011 by LFT-OOF

[LFT-OOF]

If we only had electric cars life would be dull imagine a world with not turbochargers or superchargers there would be nothing to live for...

[Guest]

Fuels like bio-fuel (animal fats/vegetable oil/etc) could easily replace diesel, where as alcohol based fuels such as ethanol (derived from grain) could easily replace petrol.

[P_T]

My view on electric cars,

1. I prefer gas powered home appliances, cheaper than electric. Why would I want an electric car?

2. Takes too long to recharge. You can use the fast recharge but that shortens the battery life.

3. Battery loses its charge in a few years, I don't imagine replacing it would be easy or cheap.

4. The range is still very short.

At best, electric cars only make sense as a single seater city commuter.

I see hydrogen as the future although now some people are starting to use E85 and other bio fuel. I personally don't think it's a good idea to turn our food into car fuel.

[.gorgz]

Petrol won't become redundant till we run out of it.

simple answer.

Think about how much tax your paying on petrol, and then think whether governments would want to lose out on all that money because of a different form of fuel and/or mechanism which helps cars not use petrol.

There's actually rotary engines which run off compressed air, the compressed air is used to turn the rotors and then it's practically re-used over and over again. In other words, it's an engine that doesn't require any fuel.. look it up.

The downside is,rotary engines are much like communism, where.. they only work in theory

But yeah, I doubt the governments give 2 sh!ts about the environment, they're only looking after their pockets, so I doubt they'll ever allow petrol to stop being traded

[Steven]

Petrol won't become redundant till we run out of it.

simple answer.

Think about how much tax your paying on petrol, and then think whether governments would want to lose out on all that money because of a different form of fuel and/or mechanism which helps cars not use petrol.

There's actually rotary engines which run off compressed air, the compressed air is used to turn the rotors and then it's practically re-used over and over again. In other words, it's an engine that doesn't require any fuel.. look it up.

The downside is,rotary engines are much like communism, where.. they only work in theory

But yeah, I doubt the governments give 2 sh!ts about the environment, they're only looking after their pockets, so I doubt they'll ever allow petrol to stop being traded

Let's not forget the laws of conservation of mass/energy here.

Electric cars only real limitation are range and recharge times, both of which are set by the current level of technology of batteries. If you do a bit of research though you would see there are some really interesting batteries being researched at the moment which promises to revolutionize these factors significantly.

For example there are different types of Lithium batteries which will last longer, but the most promising in my opinion are capacitive batteries. Imagine a solid state battery, with no chemicals, that charges almost instantly and can hold an immense capacity which will never decrease with age. The lack of chemicals also means super lightweight as well.

The real limitations are Governments and Oil companies who don't want to lose the income boon that is petroleum offers. If you see oil companies buying up big into power plants that's when you know electric cars are on the way.

The most likely future involves Hydrogen fuels, as the current infrastructure of petrol stations and logistics of transport and tanker companies can adapt to this technology without too much hassle. Refineries would likely need a ground up rebuild to obtain Hydrogen from water but being purpose built they are doomed regardless. If anything Hydrogen offers greater profits for fuel companies as the raw material (water) is in abundance, won't ever run out (as it all returns to water vapor in the end anyway), won't ***** the greens and is far simpler to process. It's just for the time being we haven't reached the stage where people have given up on petrol due to price, so it remains a greater market to continue selling fuel.

The change will be slow, maybe along the lines of a major car company starting to release limited hydrogen cars but also building hydrogen refilling stations. It would likely be a partnership will petroleum companies who would use it as a PR exercise to demonstrate greater environmental awareness whilst keeping their hold on the "fuel" industry at the same time.

None of this bothers me in the slightest, as Hydrogen cars can also be "supercharged" etc just in a variety of different methods.

[P_T]

Thing is, in Australia at least, our electricity is supplied by coal powered plants. Using electric power pretty much negates the purpose of going green.

[LFT-OOF]

does anyone know when e85 is going to be available on pump at like most servos...? wasnt this meant to happen last year when holden released their e85 commodores..?

[trentmeyer23]

Either way the combustion engine will never be phased out. After all these years, it is still the same basic design.

[Ozzcaddy]

It will depend on the oil companies to whether they buy the patent(s) for any new age power. Simple example was the Ralph Sarich orbital engine one moving part), that did not go into commercial build as the patent was bought and the product binned, destroyed, forgotten.

[Hiro]

It will depend on the oil companies to whether they buy the patent(s) for any new age power. Simple example was the Ralph Sarich orbital engine one moving part), that did not go into commercial build as the patent was bought and the product binned, destroyed, forgotten.

It never went into production because a proper production model was never produced, the prototype never demonstrably ran under load, and had major technical issues/downfalls. Also, BHP poured money into the engine long before it ever got close to being a production model - initial invention and investment was in the early '70s, the technology failed to deliver and by the 90's BHP had actually DIVESTED themselves - ie they got OUT of the investment. They didn't buy the patent and squash it, they wiped their hands of it, because they knew there was no money in it.

So many conspiracy theorists/paranoid people out there that think every failed invention has been squashed by either "the man" or "big oil".

[Branno]

They will invent some sort of fuel by using different chemicals. But of course, the petrol that we are using at the moment will eventually run out. But just hopefully not in my lifetime.

[httttt]

Petrol won't become redundant till we run out of it.

simple answer.

Think about how much tax your paying on petrol, and then think whether governments would want to lose out on all that money because of a different form of fuel and/or mechanism which helps cars not use petrol.

There's actually rotary engines which run off compressed air, the compressed air is used to turn the rotors and then it's practically re-used over and over again. In other words, it's an engine that doesn't require any fuel.. look it up.

The downside is,rotary engines are much like communism, where.. they only work in theory

But yeah, I doubt the governments give 2 sh!ts about the environment, they're only looking after their pockets, so I doubt they'll ever allow petrol to stop being traded

Let's not forget the laws of conservation of mass/energy here.

Electric cars only real limitation are range and recharge times, both of which are set by the current level of technology of batteries. If you do a bit of research though you would see there are some really interesting batteries being researched at the moment which promises to revolutionize these factors significantly.

For example there are different types of Lithium batteries which will last longer, but the most promising in my opinion are capacitive batteries. Imagine a solid state battery, with no chemicals, that charges almost instantly and can hold an immense capacity which will never decrease with age. The lack of chemicals also means super lightweight as well.

The real limitations are Governments and Oil companies who don't want to lose the income boon that is petroleum offers. If you see oil companies buying up big into power plants that's when you know electric cars are on the way.

The most likely future involves Hydrogen fuels, as the current infrastructure of petrol stations and logistics of transport and tanker companies can adapt to this technology without too much hassle. Refineries would likely need a ground up rebuild to obtain Hydrogen from water but being purpose built they are doomed regardless. If anything Hydrogen offers greater profits for fuel companies as the raw material (water) is in abundance, won't ever run out (as it all returns to water vapor in the end anyway), won't ***** the greens and is far simpler to process. It's just for the time being we haven't reached the stage where people have given up on petrol due to price, so it remains a greater market to continue selling fuel.

The change will be slow, maybe along the lines of a major car company starting to release limited hydrogen cars but also building hydrogen refilling stations. It would likely be a partnership will petroleum companies who would use it as a PR exercise to demonstrate greater environmental awareness whilst keeping their hold on the "fuel" industry at the same time.

None of this bothers me in the slightest, as Hydrogen cars can also be "supercharged" etc just in a variety of different methods.

I agree with everything Steve has said.

so in short... Yes, there will be a point when we don't need petrol anymore.

[JDM-GTFour]

It will depend on the oil companies to whether they buy the patent(s) for any new age power. Simple example was the Ralph Sarich orbital engine one moving part), that did not go into commercial build as the patent was bought and the product binned, destroyed, forgotten.

It never went into production because a proper production model was never produced, the prototype never demonstrably ran under load, and had major technical issues/downfalls. Also, BHP poured money into the engine long before it ever got close to being a production model - initial invention and investment was in the early '70s, the technology failed to deliver and by the 90's BHP had actually DIVESTED themselves - ie they got OUT of the investment. They didn't buy the patent and squash it, they wiped their hands of it, because they knew there was no money in it.

So many conspiracy theorists/paranoid people out there that think every failed invention has been squashed by either "the man" or "big oil".

Excuse me? Are you saying "big oil" would not quash anything that infringed on their massive profits? I'm sorry man... youre living in fairy tale land if you think they wouldnt.. Every business no matter what line of product, will try and outdo the competition.. Big Oil is no different.. in fact they are much, much worse.

There is a way to run a car on Hydrogen, converted from Water. Check out this Youtube Video before you say BS.. watch ALL of it.

http://www.youtube.c...77AB90EB0750C0C

[Hiro]

It will depend on the oil companies to whether they buy the patent(s) for any new age power. Simple example was the Ralph Sarich orbital engine one moving part), that did not go into commercial build as the patent was bought and the product binned, destroyed, forgotten.

It never went into production because a proper production model was never produced, the prototype never demonstrably ran under load, and had major technical issues/downfalls. Also, BHP poured money into the engine long before it ever got close to being a production model - initial invention and investment was in the early '70s, the technology failed to deliver and by the 90's BHP had actually DIVESTED themselves - ie they got OUT of the investment. They didn't buy the patent and squash it, they wiped their hands of it, because they knew there was no money in it.

So many conspiracy theorists/paranoid people out there that think every failed invention has been squashed by either "the man" or "big oil".

Excuse me? Are you saying "big oil" would not quash anything that infringed on their massive profits? I'm sorry man... youre living in fairy tale land if you think they wouldnt.. Every business no matter what line of product, will try and outdo the competition.. Big Oil is no different.. in fact they are much, much worse.

There is a way to run a car on Hydrogen, converted from Water. Check out this Youtube Video before you say BS.. watch ALL of it.

http://www.youtube.c...77AB90EB0750C0C

I didn't say they wouldn't TRY to quash things. Whether or not they succeed depends a lot on the media, governments and the people. Besides, if the oil companies try to take a monopoly on fuel sources, then how different is it from now? When the oil runs out (and it will run out, at some stage), where do you think you'll be buying your hydrogen/recharge at? Chances are it'll be a BP, Shell or Caltex - the oil companies know that their main source of income is limited and this will cause them to divest into future-proofing their "massive profits". Necessity is the mother of invention, remember - this is why BHP invested money initially in the orbital engine (long before they supposedly "quashed it") because they saw a possible future (and thus possible profit) in it - when that future didn't materialise, they got out like any reasonable investor would. Even the guy who INVENTED the thing got out

For every quack theory with dubious engineering claims that has been supposedly quashed by the oil companies, take a look at how many other alternate fuel theories are alive and well in the scientific community - hydrogen, LNG, biodiesel, electric, hell even nuclear.

And if you believe the claims in the Youtube clip (I haven't had a chance to watch it fully, but it looks like every other free energy pseudoscience), then you're a muppet. Seperating hydrogen from water takes a significant amount of energy, and that cannot be fully reclaimed by burning the hydrogen - to put it simply, you are losing energy. If you got more energy out of the reaction than you spent splitting it in the first place, you'd be violating both the first and second laws of thermodynamics. Therefore, you might as well just take the energy you were going to use to split the water, and just use that to power an electric motor. The reason why you would use hydrogen created from electrolysis as a fuel is for one main reason - portability. It is much easier to store X amount of energy in the form of compressed hydrogen than it is to store the same amount of energy as electricity - this is why electric cars have such ****ty range in comparison to petrol. So by having an on-board electrolysis system AS WELL as a fuel cell, you are shooting yourself in the foot TWICE - you're adding extra weight to the car AND reducing range. Do you see cars driving around with oil refineries in their boot? NO, of course you don't (and the principal is the same) - the refining is done at a remote source in bulk and then the fuel stored in manageable amounts on the in tanks and in the vehicle itself.

The main perpetuator of the water-as-a-fuel free energy myth was a guy called Stanley Meyer, who was found guilty of fraud a good 15 years ago (and has since died, which was "apparently" murder to quash his theories....FFS can't a person die these days without people thinking that it's a coverup?).

[JDM-GTFour]

And if you believe the claims in the Youtube clip (I haven't had a chance to watch it fully, but it looks like every other free energy pseudoscience), then you're a muppet.

Please watch the video before you make judgement.. I see youre from the school of thought that "if my education system told me something isnt possible then it isnt, and your an idiot if you think otherwise" there would be no innovation in the world or new products if everyone followed that dogma.. remember.. the earth isnt flat and it isnt the centre of the universe... and did we not recently find out that the speed of light is not the fastest? Our scientific "FACTS" are being challenged all the time.

I guess you think Tesla was a crackpot too...

[Hiro]

Please watch the video before you make judgement.. I see youre from the school of thought that "if my education system told me something isnt possible then it isnt, and your an idiot if you think otherwise" there would be no innovation in the world or new products if everyone followed that dogma.. remember.. the earth isnt flat and it isnt the centre of the universe... and did we not recently find out that the speed of light is not the fastest? Our scientific "FACTS" are being challenged all the time.

I guess you think Tesla was a crackpot too...

No, I'm from the school of thought of "if the overwhelming evidence from past and present is towards one theory, then there is a decent chance that it is correct". I may be a skeptic/cynic at heart, but I also subscribe to Occam's Razor. Remember too that a lot of scientific theory is based around summations and generalisations, and isn't assumed to be 100% set-in-stone - the speed of light limit is a classic example of this, for 99.99% of cases it can be assumed to be the limit, but there was always the chance that there would be an exception. Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity itself is a generalisation of General Relativity and is well known to not be 100% correct, but in the circumstances that it is used it is accurate enough (it ignores gravity for instance, because in a small-enough relativistic state gravity is uniform and thus irrelevant), and has been experimentally both proved and disproved (but that doesn't make it wrong).

Besides, comparing a couple of guys on YouTube to someone like Tesla (whom yes I believe was a bit of a crackpot, but he _was_ a brilliant thinker) is a fairly long bow to draw. There is a big difference between a video posted online with very little merit or method (guy reaches into engine bay, apparently disconnects something but we can't really tell because we can't see it, then states that he just disconnected a fuel line which is "proof" that the engine is running on water) and a genuine scientific proof. Real discoveries, real advancements are made in labs, by educated but outside-the-box thinkers, and are published in respected scientific journals and media releases, not by Joe Bloggs in his backyard (and especially not from something that was probably made from plans on the internet) and posted on YouTube.

As I said before, the concept of water as a fuel source is nothing new (ie hydrogen obtained from water), nor is it revolutionary. Fuel cells alone have been running around for at least 40 years (the Apollo spacecraft generated electricity in hydrogen/oxygen fuel cells, which also created cooling and potable water for the craft and the crew). Water itself however has been widely debunked as a valid self-contained fuel (and I am at pains here to differentiate between valid and possible - sure you can run an electrolysis cell in your boot and split water into hydrogen and oxygen, but to propose it as an alternative fuel source is laughable at best) due to the inefficiencies and entropy inherent in splitting and recombining the molecules (this is true for any chemical reaction - the energy required to break a molecule is greater than the energy relased by reforming it), regardless of it being used in a fuel cell or in an internal combustion engine.

As I said before, the future for water as a fuel source lies in the hydrogen being split from water using electrolysis (or other methods) at refining plants using mass-produced environmentally friendly energy (solar, wind, hydro, bacterial etc), then sold and stored on a car as a compressed gas/liquid to be combined with atmospheric oxygen either in a fuel cell or internal combustion, giving only water vapour and energy as a product. This has already begun with vehicles such as the Honda Clarity, and is only a matter of time before it becomes widespread - no way that "Big Oil" can "squash" THAT well-proven and well-known technology.

[JDM-GTFour]

Real discoveries, real advancements are made in labs, by educated but outside-the-box thinkers, and are published in respected scientific journals and media releases, not by Joe Bloggs in his backyard (and especially not from something that was probably made from plans on the internet) and posted on YouTube.

!! Now that's just plain nasty :D.. I'll bet there are hundreds of devices we use everyday made by Joe Bloggs in his backyard..

All credit cannot go to the "scientific community"and "highly educated" douche bags with their sense of superiority for every breakthrough since man invented the wheel...

[Hiro]

Oh don't get me wrong, there is a place for backyard inventions and inventors (and it is such a shame that the ABC canned New Inventors), but those are mere flashes in the pan compared to something as groundbreaking and future-shaping as a viable world-wide alternative fuel source.

[juvenile]

Who was the guy that built an engine which ran on water a long time ago and mysteriously disappeared? So did he by the way....

The hamster wheel should also make a comeback..