I find it impossible to think about the viability of one technology without seeing what the alternatives are.
After all if one source of technology eg. electric cars is far more expensive either in dollars or damage than say diesel cars - then that makes electric viably a dead duck.
For a long time I have thought this was at least the stop gap answer -------------
"Hajji, the car I ran on waste vegetable oil was technically zero emissions, as the CO2 it produced was already a result of carbon capture by the plants that supplied the oil....."
Now I am not saying from waste oil --------- but oil from algae --------- not hydrogen --------- just plain diesel.
I met the bloke who started this technology - I can probably dredge up the contact if necessary. I haven't kept up with the technology recently and I know there is a lot of movement to make these algae plants work on a massive scale - I have no idea why it is such a big problem.
These are some of the things (if my memory is correct) that made me think it is the way to go.
A large pond - can't remember how big but it isn't that big - several 10's of kilometers square - not a big ask in Australia in sunny areas -- would produce enough fuel to power our entire motor fleet.
Algae seems to be the most productive of all vegetable production diesel fuels - it leaves the others in the dust.
Of course it is a fully renewable resource - all it needs is water, sunlight and a small bit of food.
The co2 issue doesn't seem to be an issue as jantimot has stated.
I am unsure of other emissions - other particles. There must be some as I have heard of fish and chip cars going down the road followed by the smell of fish. This doesn't mean much though because the smell of fish is a very strange thing and may come from a very very small discharge (see note at bottom, which has absolutely noting at all to do with energy or cars).
Anyway, if one researches algae based fuels - just the oils, to me it leaves all else at present in the dust and I am sure that if there are some emission problems they could be fixed in car - just like we do now - except for co2, but that isn't a problem.
have a great day all
Pinto
Fishy business -- way back I had an opal mine about an hour or so out of lightning ridge. This field, as are most, if not all was originally on the shallow shores of a lake - now desert like of course.
In this operation we used jackhammers. Sometimes when digging out the opal dirt - which is often soft, we would hit a very hard - well, maybe not hard but tough bit - the hammers had a hell of a time breaking it. One time, I had the point of the hammer wacking away for a hell of a long time on the one spot - don't know how long but probably 30 sec or more ---------- and all of a sudden I was surrounded by the aroma of cooking fish - very strong.
I reckoned I was whacking on some sort of fossil or similar. End of day to the pub and of course I got what sort of reception I should have expected ------- "arrh, you're a wanker ------- that's not possible from 100 million years back" etc. etc.
Luckily I had enough cred to entice a few of the boys down the mine the next day - and even luckier I had left some areas where the fishy smell was. And thank god it worked as planned. So, I wasn't a wanker anymore - and it was fascinating to know that however it happened and whatever substance the point of that chisel was hitting - heated it up enough to drench the air with the smell of cooking fish - fish that died god knows how long back - but at least around 100 million years.
just a yarn - but a true one ---------- again, have a great saturday.
