Re: Imagine: 500 Miles Per Gallon

sts3234@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
Imagine: 500 Miles Per Gallon
There have been many calls for programs to fund research. Beneath the
din lies a little-noticed reality-the solution is already with us

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http://groups.google.ca/group/electricvehicle
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By Fareed Zakaria
Newsweek
March 7 issue - The most important statement made last week came not
from Vladimir Putin or George W. Bush but from Ali Naimi, Saudi
Arabia's shrewd oil minister. Naimi predicted that crude prices would
stay between $40 and $50 throughout 2005. For the last two years OPEC's
official target price has been $25. Naimi's statement signals that
Saudi Arabia now believes that current high prices are not a momentary
thing. An Asian oil-industry executive told me that he expects oil to
hit $75 this decade.

We are actually very close to a solution to the petroleum problem.
Tomorrow, President Bush could make the following speech: "We are all
concerned that the industrialized world, and increasingly the
developing world, draw too much of their energy from one product,
petroleum, which comes disproportionately from one volatile region, the
Middle East. This dependence has significant political and
environmental dangers for all of us. But there is now a solution, one
that the United States will pursue actively.

"It is now possible to build cars that are powered by a combination of
electricity and alcohol-based fuels, with petroleum as only one element
among many. My administration is going to put in place a series of
policies that will ensure that in four years, the average new American
car will get 300 miles per gallon of petroleum. And I fully expect in
this period to see cars in the United States that get 500 miles per
gallon. This revolution in energy use will reduce dramatically our
dependence on foreign oil and achieve pathbreaking reductions in
carbon-dioxide emissions, far below the targets mentioned in the Kyoto
accords."

Ever since September 11, 2001, there have been many calls for Manhattan
Projects and Marshall Plans for research on energy efficiency and
alternate fuels. Beneath the din lies a little-noticed reality-the
solution is already with us. Over the last five years, technology has
matured in various fields, most importantly in semiconductors, to make
possible cars that are as convenient and cheap as current ones, except
that they run on a combination of electricity and fuel. Hybrid
technology is the answer to the petroleum problem.

You can already buy a hybrid car that runs on a battery and petroleum.
The next step is "plug-in" hybrids, with powerful batteries that are
recharged at night like laptops, cell phones and iPods. Ford, Honda and
Toyota already make simple hybrids. Daimler Chrysler is introducing a
plug-in version soon. In many states in the American Middle West you
can buy a car that can use any petroleum, or ethanol, or methanol-in
any combination. Ford, for example, makes a number of its models with
"flexible-fuel tanks." (Forty percent of Brazil's new cars have
flexible-fuel tanks.) Put all this technology together and you get the
car of the future, a plug-in hybrid with a flexible-fuel tank.
Here's the math (thanks to Gal Luft, a tireless-and
independent-advocate of energy security). The current crop of hybrid
cars get around 50 miles per gallon. Make it a plug-in and you can get
75 miles. Replace the conventional fuel tank with a flexible-fuel tank
that can run on a combination of 15 percent petroleum and 85 percent
ethanol or methanol, and you get between 400 and 500 miles per gallon
of gasoline. (You don't get 500 miles per gallon of fuel, but the
crucial task is to lessen the use of petroleum. And ethanol and
methanol are much cheaper than gasoline, so fuel costs would drop
dramatically.)

If things are already moving, why does the government need to do
anything? Because this is not a pure free market. Large companies-in
the oil and automotive industry-have vested interests in not changing
much. There are transition costs-gas stations will need to be fitted
to pump methanol and ethanol (at a cost of $20,000 to $60,000 per
station). New technologies will empower new industries, few of which
have lobbies in Washington.

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Besides, the idea that the government should have nothing to do with
this problem is bizarre. It was military funding and spending that
produced much of the technology that makes hybrids possible. (The
military is actually leading the hybrid trend. All new naval surface
ships are now electric-powered, as are big diesel locomotives and
mining trucks.) And the West's reliance on foreign oil is not
cost-free. Luft estimates that a government plan that could accelerate
the move to a hybrid transport system would cost $12 billion dollars.
That is what we spend in Iraq in about three months.

Smart government intervention would include a combination of targeted
mandates, incentives and spending. And it does not have to all happen
at the federal level. New York City, for example, could require that
all its new taxis be hybrids with flexible-fuel tanks. Now that's a
Manhattan Project for the 21st century.


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http://groups.google.ca/group/electricvehicle
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http://www.calcars.org/bettah
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Go back to school. Study some chemistry and especially thermodynamics. When you have mastered these LAWS (they are not opinions but laws of nature) do the calculations. Even 100% efficiency (unobtainable) you can't get such fuel "mileages". Do not try to pull the wool over other people's eyes. The laws of nature cannot be legislated or prayed for or wished for change.
FK
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