Cost Conundrum Holds Up Diesel Hybrid Cars

It is certainly physically possible to use ethanol as a motor fuel, but I doubt that it would be used without the various substantial subsidies it has today. See for example http://www.taxpayer.net/bailoutwatch/ethanol.htm Googling ethanol fuel subsidy turns up many references.

 

That's why ethanol may not be practical outside the growing state. Here, it simply isn't taxed as high. That offset helps balance out the difference between efficiency, state budget, farmer revenue, etc.

But in the grand scheme of things (federal level), gas is subsidized quite a bit anyway.

Haven't you ever wondered why a gallon of gas cost $4 in Europe and less than $2 in the US?

 

The difference is taxation. Europe taxes gasoline enough to help pay for the incidental costs of gasoline use: pollution mitigation, additional health care, and mass transit. The US taxes gasoline to cover some of the cost of building highways and a little mass transit, and essentially none of the cost of pollution related illnesses and the military defense of foreign oil producers. Gasoline in the US today ought to be priced and taxed to about $4 per gallon just to keep up with inflation.

Domestically produced bioDiesel will be a much better deal.

 

The government has been "in" for decades... making sure auto makers and oil companies make as much profit as possible. Democrats and Republicans are in total agreement: All that matters is to maximize corporate profits.

I believe another solution is to have two fuel tanks: Fossil diesel is used during warm-up, and the heat produced liquifies the biodiesel, which is then used for the remainder of the trip.

The first cars ever produced didn't use gasoline at all: they used wood! They employed a two-chambered firebox. Wood was burned in the lower box, analogous to the firebox in a steam engine. The upper box was sealed. Wood in the upper box was heated by the fire below, but no air was admitted to the upper box. Thus the volatile vapors of the wood were driven off by the heat, but could not burn because there was no oxygen. These vapors were piped to the engine, where air was introduced, and the engine thus ran on wood vapors. This method was revived briefly by the Germans in WW II, when they were faced with a fuel shortage.

An internal combustion engine, whether diesel, otto, or atkinson/miller, provides high power output for its weight, but poor fuel efficiency. It also provides a rapid response. Hybrids have eliminated the need for a rapid-response engine, because the electric motor can provide that. External-combustion engines, such as the Stirling, have a very slow response, but are more efficient, and have the potential to burn much cleaner than any ICE.

 

the amount of energy in todays gas formulas are much higher than gas in the 20's and 30's making a direct comparison of gas mileage impossible. the model T did supposedly get about 20-25 mpg... which is the fleet average for cars sold in the US.

 

Ethanol vs BioDiesel

What internal components would be destroyed? Could they be replaced by ones that could survive the alcohol fuel? Could steps be taken to eliminate the engine roughness? From the referenced web site, it appears that many car companies are producing FFVs which can run on regular gas or E85. I'd love to have the choice on my Prius (when I get it - currently on 4 waiting lists ...)

Also, more on topic, any idea how an ethanol-hybrid would compare to a biodiesel-hybrid?

 

It's hard to tell what the actual cost of FFV is, since it is actually done with insincere intentions. See, each FFV sold earns the automaker an exemption credit and there is no requirement that the owner ever uses E85. That's why there are so many where I live, yet not a single advertisement for E85. In fact, virtually every owner I've ever questioned didn't even realized they were driving a FFV and had no clue what E85 was. That's sad.

Anywho, the requirement often overlooked is the fact that E85 is the maximum. The vehicle hardware actually needs to automatically adjust to the particular mixture you put in your tank. It has to have the ability to accept a fillup of E85 squirted into a tank that still had a few gallons of 100% gasoline in it... and any other mixing ratio you can think of. Plus, it still needs to compensate for air differences (due to temperature changes).

Did you know at one point Ford was actually planning to expand FFV to their entire line of vehicles? They started with Ranger. Every single one in my area had one of those little "leaf" symbols on it. That effort died miserably. However, the "leaf" symbol didn't. That is now what Ford is using to indicate their hybrids instead. Interesting, eh?

 

What about Diesel Hybrid Truck? Its available in Japan by Hino Commercial Trucks
Link To Hino
[Broken External Image]:http://www.hino.co.jp/dutro/images/hybrid_title.jpg

 

I have just joined PriusChat after taking delivery of an 05 yesterday in Charleston, SC. There was recently an article in the Post and Courier here in Charleston concerning biodiesel and SVO (straight vegetable oil). The conversion for a conventional diesel to run on SVO is about $800. The car is started on conventional diesel and then switches to the veggie fuel. The SVO tank contains a heater to prevent gelling of the fuel in cold weather. There are also filters to remove impurities. A USC student in Columbia obtains used fryer oil from local resturants. The fuel costs him about $.60 per gallon and his exhaust smells like french fries and chicken strips. The article is probably still available at www.charleston.net if anyone is interested. Hope this helps.

 

i think i read somewhere or possibly my Dad told me that many cars in the 20's got 25 to 30 mpg, but they were a lot slower, lighter and did not have things that kill mileage like AC, auto transmissions, etc. so...

 

The husband of our very own "galaxee," here on PriusChat, drives a grease car. You can read all about it on this thread. There is also a growing trade in used fry oil to feed the demand for SVO. And theft of used fry oil from restaurants is a growing problem, as reported in another thread.

 

The critical benefit of biodiesel vs ethanol is the efficiency of its production.

Ethanol takes a terrific amount of COAL and ELECTRICITY to make, and requires far more land to produce than biodiesel. In many early studies of the industry, the amount of fertilizer, agricultural input and processing energy required to produce ethanol actually made it worse overall than simply using gasoline. More recent studies show that for around 3 units of fossil energy input to corn ethanol, you get only 4 units of energy out. For biodiesel it's around 3 units out per 1 input unit for the old-skool canola oilseeds etc. Algae, of course, can produce up to 10,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre per year, which is about 50 times the productivity of an acre of corn for ethanol.

PS I use SVO in the summer too, with no modifications whatsoever (as do tens of thousands of German drivers too), although I am completely opposed to using palm-oil for this purpose so use local canola oil instead.