Biofuels Are A Green Energy Source

Biofuels are also a green energy source. It has been around for a quite long time and lately, people are starting to consider notice.

Liquid biofuel that is the one applied in cars is a natural and renewable home fuel which can solely be utilized for diesel engines. This can be made from vegetable oils mainly soy and corn. The great thing regarding it is that it includes no petroleum, is nontoxic and biodegradable.

By fueling up with biofuel, you lessen the pollutants in the air because it does not release anything. Right now, it is the solely fuel authorized by the Enviromentally friendly Safety Agency (EPA), handed every Heath-Effects Test of the Clean Air Act and complies with the needs of the Ca Air Resources Board (CARB).

One example of this is biodiesel which is produced from booze enjoy methanol and a substance procedure that separates glycerine and methyl esters (biodiesel) from fats or vegetable oils. Aside from methanol, some international locations possess additionally experimented using corn and sugarcane to create their own method of biofuel.

Glycerine is a common products and doing so is used in producing toothpaste and soap. Because it is relatively new, the course of action of targeted it is quite high-priced and correct now, doing so is still considerably much more overpriced per gallon in contrast to petroleum.

But if you look at what you pay for it, the earnings are huge because you get to do your give to preserve a scraper environment, an remodeling in air quality and a decrease of cancer-causing agents.

A less expensive and primitive way to make bio-diesel is by gathering cooking oil and after that processing it. Doing so may not excellent your vehicle’s engine so be cautious if you decide to use it.

If you are skeptic on biodiesels, studies have shown which its performance on the road is simply as excellent as petroleum concerning supremacy to efficiency, hauling and climbing. You can use doing so in its genuine form or blend with petroleum gas. The a lot common mix in the marketplace is 20/80 and is referred to as “B20.” Doing so means which 20% is biodiesel and the remainder is 80%. A different version is the E85 which is fuel composed of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline.

The ideal aspect regarding using biodiesel is that you only need to make a couple of transforms in the engine to be capable to use it. Alongside making the car run, it also assists clean the engine. If you are concerned that this will void the warranty of your truck should there be a problem, don’t fear simply because it doesn’t. In the US, B20 is the most typical one readily available but there are solely a couple of gas stations that take it.

When car’s initially rolled out in the beginning of the twentieth century, Henry Ford planned to make these vehicles particularly the Model T’s run utilizing ethanol. Exams possess also proven that these may also run employing peanut oil.

Doing so certainly not materialized simply because massive oil deposits have been discovered and diesel was cheap. It was solely when our desire for oil elevated in the 1970&key;s, 1980&primary;s, 1990&leading;s and at the beginning of component of doing so year that individuals started to understand which to reduce our desire for foreign oil which we could try employing biodiesels and other forms of alternative energy.

Is it too late? Not yet simply because there is outstanding time to use biofuels and other folks as inexperienced power sources.

hydrogen only generators

Historically whenever gas prices have gone up, charlatans have come out of the woodwork offering drivers all manner of devices that are claimed to provide dramatic reductions in fuel consumption. From magnets that are clamped to fuel lines, to assorted vacuum advance devices, and intake vortex generators and magical carburetors none of these have actually been demonstrated to work. Many of these old school devices can still be found, but one of the most popular new devices is the on-board hydrogen generator and injection system.

The basic premise is that injecting hydrogen into the intake stream will displace some of the gasoline required, reducing both gasoline consumption and emissions. Just have hydrogen and injecting it will actually achieve this result since the hydrogen burns and produces only water and trace amounts of NOx (although much lower than gasoline or diesel engines). Burning more hydrogen means less gasoline is consumed. Easy right? Not so fast there buddy! Where does that hydrogen come from? The marketers out there are selling on-board hydrogen generators which are claimed to provide enough hydrogen to reduce gas consumption by 30-40 percent or more. Is this plausible? Not even close. Read on after the jump to find out why.

[Sources: Wikipedia, Hypertextbook.com, answers.com]Electrolysis of water is a process that’s been known for over two centuries. It’s not complicated, just stick a pair of electrodes into water and pass a current through them. Oxygen bubbles will be produced on one electrode and hydrogen on the other. Unfortunately as with all such processes it isn’t 100 percent efficient. Some of the electrical energy put into the system is lost as heat. The process has gotten better over the years but it is still about 70 percent efficient at best.

If you convert 1 US gallon of water to hydrogen by electrolysis it will yield 420.6 g of hydrogen (H2 gas). If the electrolysis is 100% efficient it will take 16.821 kWh of electricity to crack 1 gallon of water. That 420 g of H2 only has an energy density of 14 kWh (33.3 kWh/kg * .4206). That’s 16% more energy to crack the water than you get out of it. At 70 percent efficiency that means it would take about 24 kWh of input energy to produce hydrogen with 14 kWh of energy output.

To electrolyze water on the fly means the energy has to come from the engine via the alternator. Whatever electricity the alternator produces has to come from mechanical energy to drive it via the belt from the engine. That means the 24 kWh of energy will ultimately come from the engine while only 14 kWh will get put back in. As a result of this parasitic loss, on board hydrogen generation is an energy negative process that will actually reduce the total fuel efficiency of the vehicle because the load on the engine will be increased.

The only way that the fuel consumption of the vehicle can be reduced by hydrogen injection is to produce the hydrogen outside of the vehicle and store it as a gas on board. The total energy requirement doesn’t change but off board generation opens up the possibility of using renewable sources like solar and wind to power the electrolysis.

With all of those companies selling on board electrolysis systems claiming to reduce fuel consumption there have even been news reports claiming these systems work. The answer to this is cheating. Ask any veteran NASCAR mechanic about places to store extra fuel on board a car. The same thing is being done by these scam artists. They are using stored hydrogen somewhere on board to make it seem as though their systems are beneficial.

Hydrogen injection is fine as a stop-gap but the hydrogen must be produced outside the vehicle. If home electrolysis systems or hydrogen filling stations are readily available, existing cars could fairly easily be retro-fitted with injection systems to reduce gasoline consumption. In India they are already experimenting with vehicles fueled by hythane (a blend of natural gas and hydrogen) but that is produced and sold that way.

The bottom line is don’t waste your money on these devices. Want to save money and use less fuel? Drive less, consolidate trips, drive less aggressively.

How Hydrogen Engines Work

hydrogen car
Craig F Stevens asked:


As gasoline and diesel prices at the pump continue to soar, automobile manufacturers are working tirelessly to produce vehicles that are capable of utilizing alternative fuel sources for power. One such alternative is hydrogen powered vehicles.

Although very few hydrogen powered vehicles are currently available, many car companies have plans to release them in the very near future. With the prospect of creating higher fuel efficiency and thus realizing consumer savings, it is interesting to understand how hydrogen cars operate and will be a viable option in the future.

Hydrogen engines depend upon a chemical reaction to create power to operate a vehicle. It’s actually a very simple process – what happens when two particles of hydrogen combine with one particle of oxygen? H20 equals water! In fact, in a hydrogen engine, hydrogen and air are continuously fed through, combining to produce both the electricity necessary to propel a vehicle as well as the water that will be the vehicle’s emission.

So in addition to hydrogen becoming an alternative fuel source, it also helps avoid dependence on fossil fuels, it is also a clean fuel source, where the emission is simply water instead of the far more harmful carbon dioxide produced by gasoline or diesel engines. Hydrogen technology so far is advancing at a much slower rate than ethanol, electric and natural gas engines but still has a very good outlook as a viable power source for the future.

You can find out more information about Hybrid Cars at www.prohybrid.com along with video news, reviews, and tools such as price quotes and an automotive loan calculator.



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