|
There's an e85 station down the street from my apartment. Though, personally, I would be more interested in it if they were able to easily get it from waste products or something other than corn. I think there's companies out there that are working on ethanol production from things like sawdust from lumber mills and algae.
As far as alternative fuels go, I'm more interested in Hydrogen. I'm not talking about the scams that try to increase your MPG by making your engine create hydrogen out of water. Basic chemistry and physics will tell you that it doesn't work simply because it would take more energy to get the hydrogen than you would get out of it in a self contained system like that. A friend of mine works with a guy who converts engines to run on hydrogen, and he uses 2 separate tanks. a small one for gasoline which he uses just to start the car, and a separate tank for the hydrogen. From what I understand, he gets about 500 miles from a tank of hydrogen. And, the technology to get hydrogen from water is getting better all the time. I think there's a system in the works that uses a new type of photovoltaic cell to produce both hydrogen and electricity from sunlight and water. I'll dig around and see if I can find an article on it.
|