Why We're Still Stuck with Gasoline

I appreciate your comment. Allow me to elaborate.

LNG is shipped nationwide by rail and road, but providing it in retail mass is more difficult than petroleum products, which have more extensive pipeline infrastructure. Large quantities are often reduced to tanker transport--but no, not exclusively.

And while LPG is available at nearly 3,000 retailers nationwide, it's a pale comparison to the 110,000 gas stations in the U.S. I'm not skeptical of LPG's future, but for now finding LPG stations is about an extra 20 minutes drive for me--too much to take it seriously. And I can't order LPG through my local fuel company.

I have no doubt that we will become increasing reliant on these gas alternatives, but for now even "tree hugging half wits" are powered by petrol, and rarely alternative fuels.

I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

To buy LPG or CNG locally is also a 20 minute drive for me as well but then I live 18 minutes drive from the nearest town too and everything is a 20 minute drive away which does not bother me one bit. If anything it helps being I make and active effort to plan my trips to town to be the most productive while I am there unlike my wife who will drive to town three times in one day burning up $40 in gas to go and get less than $10 in cooking supplies she knew she was going to need the last time she went shopping two days ago.

The point is... well I have no point other than if a person is to lazy or unorganized to spend the time to go a bit further or organize themselves to save money then that's their business but that does not mean the infrastructure or products are not there to begin with let alone should be chastised for not being right across the street on every single block of urban America.

What's your time and money and connivance worth to you is what it comes down to.

HUSH,

The article is still ridiculously slanted, almost as if trying to convince people they are stuck with what they have and to just give up.

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'...Liquefying and shipping LNG is expensive, and LNG can only be transported by sea, reducing its usage to coastal areas where other gas resources are even more expensive. Building fueling stations is equally cost prohibitive....'

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That portion doesn't need your 'elaboration'. It needs retraction. It is patently untrue.

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Furthermore, it is a little insulting to try to support your case with comments like:

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'...LPG is available at nearly 3,000 retailers nationwide, it's a pale comparison to the 110,000 gas stations in the U.S....'

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There was a time in the 90's when a similar comparison could have been made about house phones and cell phones....with a similar degree of relevance.

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The fact that most currently 'are powered by petrol' in no way established that we are 'stuck with Gasoline'.

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TCMTech did an excellent job detailing the inaccuracies and problems with the post. I find it disingenuous to pretend as if an 'elaboration' was all that was needed to put that post right.

fill the gas reservoir with the murky byproduct of dead dinosaurs

That's an interesting theory about the origins of petroleum. Completely wrong, but interesting. On the plus side, it's easy enough to imagine Griswold getting embroiled with a dinosaur gassing his tank.

Bring them back to live and we have an unlimited resource of fuel!

Relating to that the concept that when oil gets too expensive for whatever reasons we will run out of petroleum based fuels is highly over rated.

All of the fuels made from crude oil are hydrocarbon chains which can and have been proven to be able to be produced from any practical sources of hydrogen and carbon renewable or otherwise

At this point in time the use of oil is mostly driven by the present infrastructure and tolerable cost of getting it but that does not mean that the processes of refining it can't be redesigned to use other sources for the needed hydrogen and carbon.

It's here and its going to stay.

I'd been trying so hard to avoid that one - it has hot potato written all over it ! Now I'm almost compelled to go remark how long DNA lasts before falling into itty litte bits.

Everyone is joking, right?

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No one seriously believes crude oil is composed, to any significant degree, of material that was previously dinosaurs...right?

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Dinosaur petrol, really?

What, you didn't know ? Oh, yes, it all comes from T-Rex farts. Where on earth did you thing the slogan 'put a tiger in your tank' came from ?

Na, we are dinosaur-dead serious!

I've looked at the algael blooms considered problematic in say china,the red tides off the east coasts seasonally etc that affect clam fisheries and then marveled at how algae are being grown to produce raw materials for biodiesel...etc,..Seems to me cost effective means could be found to produce biofuels with similar properties to current fuels almost anywhere.As well harvesting those algael blooms on a regular basis when they happen could be an excellent business proposition for some fishermen hankering to get on the water...Utilizing sewage treatment plants as a starting medium for vast algael farms in concert with a refinery appropriate to the raw materials generated by those same farms would cut all our local taxes in time.Transportation over long distances of LNG etc could be muted by local production hubs etc.Negativity is so passe these days isn't it ?

There is no waste only opportunity..me i think

Why We're Still Stuck with Gasoline

"Why We're Still Stuck with Gasoline". That statement is said like there is a problem with it. There isn't any problem. There is fossil fuel, which is a misnomer, for many, many years to come and we are in no danger of running out. In the meantime, we will continue to do research on alternative, viable forms of energy that can power us personally and drive the industrial engine.

Mankind is intuitive, inventive, adaptable, intelligent, flexible and will come up with alternatives; either in fuel, generation of power or in engines which move industry.

It is only the naysaying, negative, close-minded, one-track-minded, "the sky is falling" people who think unless we adopt a renewable fuel source we're sunk and will burn up because of "global warming" or some other falsely promoted premise.

I think the answers already exist, and will only be built upon by further technology.

I also think that the reason that things aren't moving faster, is because of the incestuous relationship between government and the corporations that control the technology, along with the perpetual lust for money and control that they share.

Everything is somewhere else, and you get there in a car.

A CR4 member converted his van to run on ordinary salvaged LA batteries. (with little effort I could find out who...I think he was Czech...but that is beside the point.) He drove it to work every day and kept records of all costs involved. I would have thought that heavy lead acid batteries would have been the most difficult, least efficient way possible to run a home made electric vehicle.

The result of his experiment was that even considering the cost of lead acid batteries, and without any government subsidies, a guy in his own backyard built a vehicle which reduced the cost of running his car to a quarter of the cost of gasoline.

I remember at the time being very sceptical...monetary cost is not necessarily comparable to true costs. Many people have wondered why I point out that it is comparing apples to oranges to discuss costs but there are always factors overlooked in any endeavor which tend to get glossed over in the effort to put a positive spin on the latest idea. like.... Did you figure in the cost of recyling those batteries, did you figure in the cost of containing the acid in a collision, did you figure in the problems of war metals...that sort of thing.

The solid numbers and fearless answers to my hard questions convinced me that his retrofit autos were not only viable, but quite do-able. For rather less than the cost of a state of the art lithium ion battery powered Tesla. A LOT less.

The tech is here, it is mature, it is in place. Why is it not common? Well, I have a radical answer. Our kids don't want to tinker! WE don't want to tinker!

This could be a whole new topic or thread. But I'll leave it at that. There is a future.

I don't think it is off topic at all.

And have marked it as such.

However with respect, there is no over riding industry "thing" (is conspiracy too strong a word?) which is suppressing alternate fuels. I think that ordinary boring old "supply and demand" economics are at work, as well as the inertia which has left us with QWERTY keyboards and 19th century public transit. Who forsaw that gasohol stations would be burned by angry mobs complaining about the high price of corn just as a for instance? But yet, even so, there are now E85 stations in many places, and 10% alcohol is becoming the norm. As anybody who has followed my posts over the last couple of years will see, the complexity of the energy stream is a common thread.

I tend to agree that there is a limited amount of low cost fossil fuel available...the "peak oil" is not so much a mountain peak but an increasingly expensive slope, gasoline will become unavailable or too expensive sooner rather than later. A chart of fuel prices in the last 50 years illlustrates this clearly, and is ignored and rejected only by the delusional.

But I would like to be more positive...because out of this mess will emerge the smart plans, the "plans of the future" and these plans will be driven by smart people. Many of whom are engineers.

When I was a kid, we all had motorycles and hot rods. Our heroes would be the guys who would pull the engine out of a car, and put the racing engine into it for the weekend, then on Sunday night, put the regular engine in for a work week. The only reason we had to develop fuel efficiency was to see if we could skip one pit stop. But there were people who studied the problem, and came up with solutions for just those reasons. This excellent "attitude" is now mostly lost. The radar speed gun, the 55 mile per hour speed limits, the seat belts and emissions controls all combined to make tinkering with cars less attractive. A car is increasingly just a mode of transportation instead of a gleaming product of Detroit engineering. Auto shows are just as popular as ever, but they have a bit of desperation about them which is indicative of change. (don't look at our performance...look at our luxury)

Nowadays, the "tinkerers" are the ones who overclock and provide water cooling for their computers. But there is plenty of "tinkering" which could be done with vehicles, but it tends to be done with programmable microchips. When I watched my friend sit back, relax, and proceed to pass the muscle cars as he entered the Washington Beltway in his performance chip modified Chevy Cavalier, I took notice. I felt a thrill which I had not felt since I was a teenager boring out my first carb jet! This was the way of the future I thought! But no body seems to know about this stuff any more! You ask the old guys, and they shake their head and say things like "well, I could work on the old stuff, but this new stuff is beyond me". These are not the heroes of my youth!

I am encouraged by some things...and would like to see more of them. Perhaps I should sponsor an electric race car! Well, why not! Thats putting my money where my mouth is! An electric car at Sonoma Speedway clocked 4 kilometers in 1 minute thirty nine point nine nine seconds. That was a top speed of 210 Km/hr. On a tight track, that's significant. Hooolllllleeeeyyyyy Over-Power Batman! Thats quicker than any motorcycle I ever built back in the day! I understand the only thing holding e-racers back is the excessive torque it can deliver to the wheels.

So, things are more positive than a lot of people think! I personally am stoked at "inductive battery charging technology". This is the missing link, the one which will blow gasoline back to the ice age! This is the technology which will take over!

http://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/25010

Sorry Gavalin, I missed that discussion when you first posted it. Must have been on vacation...grin!

The original question of course, is why are we still stuck with gasoline! I think it is simply inertia. Henry Ford himself thought gasoline was only a stop gap fuel...the future according to him was in alcohol. Gasoline carries a LOT of energy in it for its volume though, lots more than alcohol. The oil companies already have expensive filling stations in place, and they are now gradually converting to alcohol. What would make this conversion happen more quickly? Um...demand...

Inductance coupling to charge electric vehicles has been discussed here before. The results of a fair amount of good natured jostling about was that some felt it was inefficient, and most felt that the expense of ripping up roads to install power supplies was simply too great. Few discussions on CR4 were as negative as that one...and it wasn't even an over-unity debate!

Firstly, we aint a gonna tear up all the roads to put in buried wires. Exposed wires would simply get torn up by snow plows, so you can forget about exposed wires. This business about the "air gap" makes it too "inefficient" is a bogus claim. The air gap makes it more difficult to transfer energy, but you don't lose the untransferred energy into the air...those kwh just don't get delivered.

There, that pretty much puts the naysayers in their place. Now, what WOULD work well? Lets look at the problem and see if we can find the solution instead of looking at the solution and finding a problem shall we?

the problem:

We want to replace our gasoline or alcohol engine with an electric motor. This requires batteries. Batteries require charging. Batteries have a limited charge, and periodically need to be recharged. Really long lasting and powerful batteries are sensitive, expensive, and contain rare earths and chemicals which may be difficult to obtain. They don't call 'em "rare" earths because they are common... many most are controlled by hostile governments. Existing battery technology is mature, recyling systems are in place to handle used batteries, and they are cheap. Their downside is that they don't hold a lot of charge , so you need more of them to get the job done. And you need to charge them often.

The solution:

It would be fairly easy to manufacture a rubber mat with coils in it, which you could slide under your car, and plug it into the wall. You could roll such a mat up, and put it into your trunk and take it with you wherever you go. When you get to where you are going, if they don't have a charge mat in your parking space, you can simply unroll it and slide it under your car, and plug it into the electrical outlet at your parking space.* Then let down the charging head to rest on the mat to let it charge away all the time you are at work.

Would this work? Of course it would.

*I know...seemed dumb even as I wrote it...if you have a plug in for a charging mat, you have a plug in for an on board battery charger...grin! Why go to the trouble of using a mat? Well, two reasons come to mind.

1. you can leave it plugged in. You come back from the store with groceries, park over your mat, and you don't have to juggle keys and plugs. This won't happen... "Johnny, did you plug in the car when you came home last night? Oh, sorry dad, no I didn't!"

2. Damn...that useless neighbor of mine just parked in my parking spot again! He knows I need that particular spot to charge my car. Oh well, I'll just slide the mat out from under his gas powered car, and slide it under mine...no harm, no foul.

I described a portable mat. Less portable "under the pavement" mats might be installed in garage floors, or along side highways. I especially like the "along side highways". When you are in stop and go traffic, and the "low batt warning" beep sounds, you can look for a safe place to pull over and park for a few minutes on the public induction pads installed every kilometer or so on the shoulder. A short rest, close your eyes, and relax a bit instead of the panic of calling for a tow truck "way out here". Don't get out of the car, stay inside out of the rain. Charge your vehicle up, and have the bill automatically sent to your account. Don't bump into the emergency warning sign up ahead, which is also parked on a convenient induction pad.

Anyway, is this on topic? I think so. It is a rehash of a thread I hashed over a year or two ago, so there are no new ideas in it. However will it replace gasoline? Probably not, at least not all at once! Not even Henry Ford could do that, though of course, he tried! (of course, he wanted to build cars out of hemp and run it on hemp oil! And less stridently and with more success, on alcohol...)

But such "electric pad" infrastructure is a lot less expensive than embedded wires the length and breadth of the land, its non-intrusive, transportable, its theft resistant, and unlike overhead wires it is pretty much invisible. It is also a gateway technology to the future...one can imagine your car seeking its "dock", and then coming when you call it on your cell phone.

In some aspects the tinker and modify concept is rather frowned upon or those that do are given a negative image because what they are doing may in fact give them a measurable and braggable edge or gain over Joe Public and what her perceives as to be the accepted norms of society and Joe public never likes feeling inferior to anyone.

As someone who has experimented and tinkered with AE fuels and modifying my vehicles engines openly I can attest to how much negative criticism a person will and does get for going to the efforts to question and deliberately find alternatives to what the rest of the public has blindly accepted as good or the only and best option.

Please elaborate. Sound interesting!

I have made dozens of posts on the forum about my knowledge, experiences, and experiments, and regular used alternative fuels and vehicle modifications since I joined a few years ago.

So what would you like to know?

What negative critisism did you receive from here? Or was it from elsewhere?

I wondered at your statement that your efforts had been belittled. I failed somehow to observe such activity, but it clearly ticked you off.

Mostly elsewhere but yes there has been a bit here as well but I don't mind it so much. My skin is not that thin!

It not so much that my efforts ever get belittled but more that its always an uphill battle against ignorance and unfounded beliefs.

My propane fueled vehicles are a good example. I could write a book if I documented every horror story I got from some half wit about how its going to do this or that or worse and destroy my vehicle the first time an X Y or Z event happens based on I heard it from a friend who heard it from a neighbor who had an uncle that .... so on and so forth.

Or that the first time I ever get pulled over and they see I am running on a fuel that is not road taxed they are going to take all my life possessions away and toss me in jail for 20 years.

Or that modifying my vehicles will ruin their resale value so I should never do anything to them. BTW the next owner of my vehicles is usually the scrap yard.

Then there is the tree hugging crowd that just goes ape poo over my disabling and outright removing emissions systems components and what not from my vehicles to improve their fuel efficiency. Some of those people are full of more ignorance and BS than the politicians they follow.

To be honest I am not really all that upset by any of it. I know what works and why and I am always willing to share any knowledge and experiences I can for both good or bad.

If someone is willing to learn I am willing to teach and if someone is willing to judge me I am willing to give them far more than they can handle!

I wish they would get the smiley faces working again.

So your mods still enable you to pass an E test? Some of the bio diesel stuff just burns too dirty to pass an emissions test.

Sounds good to me. I worked on propane vehicles back in the early eighties...we found the only problems with them was that the propane gas filled grease pits. That was the official reason for getting rid of grease pits. Personally, I never saw evidence of it, but everybody was nervous as hell of pooling propane gas.

They were propane and propane-gasoline vehicles. The great propane experiment was canned in the mid nineties for the simple reason that these were military vehicles and propane limited their deployability. The rule then was "if you cannot deploy we cannot employ". But the military contracts helped the technology become mature, so the experiment was a good thing. Winter use around the base here in Ottawa was kind of sucky as well...sometimes it was too cold to use it. But Ottawa is balmy compared to the Yukon.

But I always liked propane. Clean, didn't foul the plugs. Engines lasted for years because the oil didn't get washed off the cylinder walls. Perfect for a warm environment.

We don't have emissions tests for private vehicles here. Our state government is still ran by common folks that spend most of their time working normal jobs along side normal people and thus vote like normal people regarding our states laws and how they are enforced.

At any one time when our state government is in session at our capital you will see far more full sized 1/2 3/4 and 1 ton pickups, SUV's, and sedans in the parking lot than you will ever see econo cars.

The more I hear about North Dakota from you, the more it sounds like paradise...

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...well except when you talk about how cold it gets.

You guys have to wear the shorts that go all the way down to your ankles and the t-shirts that have sleeves long enough to touch your wrists, most of the year right? Is it true you even wear multiple shirts and shorts at one time?

Hard to imagine from someone living in Florida... and it IS cold here right now... I can see my breath!!!

Well, e tests were mostly in response to California smog. I grew up in Winnipeg where the idea of smog was kind of silly...it blows away into the trees. But if you get enough of it, the trees won't be enough...we have noted that the air quality even in Southern Ontario is pretty low. Studies have blamed it on our bad neighbours. Since we can't do squat about their bad habits, we have tried to clean our own air up as much as possible with emmissions controls on vehicles. Seems to help, a bit. The creation of e-testing resulted in pressure to make more efficient vehicles, whether powered by gasoline or diesel, so it isn't all bad. But it isn't all good either!

Some people think that Diesel engines produce less smog. This has been refuted by studies, but they still spit out nitrous oxides. Alcohol is a bit funny...since it get mixed with gasoline a lot and is very prone to contamination which produces its own set of pollution. The bottom line seems to be that if you increase the cylinder pressure to efficiently burn alcohol, you get increased nitrous oxide pollution which is hard to scrub out of the air. Such details are why bio alcohol has not been a hit. That and the fact that you can't start your car in the winter without a little gasoline to get and keep it going. E-85 is useless north of the 49th parallel as a result! (And I have been to North Dakota...Minot is no warmer than Winnipeg! grin!) Both bio-diesel and bio-alcohol have the potential to replace gasoline, and even with the problems (easily solved) they both replace fossil fuel in the environment. You don't hear a lot about alcohol in diesel...

LPG and LNG are wonderful fuels....both of which produce less smog. The low sulphur contaminants produce less acid rain, and all in all, is a superior fuel. Its high octane allows it to be tuned to a VERY efficient level. And it doesn't need to be brought in from countries which don't like us. Although some States demand emissions equipment even on LPG, tcmtech is correct that the usefulness of emission controls are of less use on LPG and LNG powered engines. Its only real downside is that it is made from fossil fuel but that even can be changed as well at need.

Ah well, no new information here. I dunno why we still stick to gasoline! Seems like a dumb choice all in all. I think we are sticking to gasoline for the same reason as we are sticking with QWERTY keyboards, sheer bloody inertia. As long as we are addicted to cars, we are stuck with choosing between a myriad of bad choices.

Here are some quotes which help describe what you laid out; about people being deragatory and denigrating toward new ideas.

"Most people would rather die than think: many do.'

Failure is not fatal, but failure to change might be. Wooden, John

"The man who follows the crowd will usually get no further than the crowd. The man who walks alone is likely to find himself in places no one has ever been."

The value of an idea lies in the using of it. Edison, Thomas A.

One secret of leadership is that the mind of a leader never turns off.

Leaders even when they are sightseers or spectators, are active; not passive observers. One must be a "prodigious noticer". Mark Twain

The purpose of the quotes is to encourage us to think differently than we always have because what we have is a result of how we have thought in the past. Many times people aren't open to new ideas because they may feel threatened by having to adapt a bit with their thinking, habits, processes, etc. That certainly doesn't mean every new idea that comes along needs to be accepted or even given credence. One has to look at the person and their past record of thinking, accomplishment, credibility, etc. We certainly want to listen to people with "fruit on the tree."

I came across this earlier. It doesn't say a whole lot, but at least its somewhat on topic.

Thanks for the very current article ..Apparently we are only partially stuck on oil derived gasoline these days and the Standford U study re New York States capacity to produce enough power from renewables to run not just normal electricity needs but with enough residual power to fuel electric vehicles in the state is telling..Oil co's should probably begin lowering the cost of gasoline fuels soon or the wave of development will not wipe you out but make you less relevent as an engine of money printing for yourselves and your shareholders.

The real reason; and why it isn't going anywhere...

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=401

What, you don't think they can figure out a way to tax gasoline's replacement? Come on mate..pull the other one, its got balls on it! Governments of ALL nations are past masters at figuring out ways to soak their tax payers, why should they suddenly get a conscience now?

Sure they are masters, but they've got a very nice system of collection already in place.

Personally, I think it's the same reason that government sponsored solar and wind projects are usually huge farms that tie into the grid, when the grid itself is pretty inefficient.

My point was, that regardless of how great something may be, the government isn't going to cut off it's nose to spite it's face. Any advances in fuel, energy, or anything else, will necessarily have to be set up to be taxed in a manner that government isn't losing tax revenue. It won't necessarily be the best way; at least from an engineering perspective.

The Government has an easy way to tax non-gasoline or diesel powered cars. At the yearly registration renewal, they check your odometer and calculate how many miles you've driven. Then they charge per mile. Overall, might be a more efficient system for them - once per year collections instead of keeping up with it on the fly.

Maybe so, but the way it's set up now, the government isn't associated with gas prices.

All price increases can be blamed on evil big oil companies. Very few are even aware of the government's cut, much less that their policies are behind many of the reasons for high prices.

Where I live, 34 cents per gallon is State tax. I'd say that's government involvment.

Right, but in the mind of the typical driver, they don't separate out the taxes they are paying. They only see $3.60 per gallon. That's intentional.

People would freak out if they did gas taxes like at the grocery store. One price on the pump, and then taxes added at checkout.

http://www.gaspricewatch.com/web_gas_taxes.php

Kramarat:

I'm curious about your idea about price contribution (of things like taxes) and how that works with your ideas about price determination (by 'evil big oil companies').

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Just so that we are on the same page here, if current price were $3.60 at the pump, and the government added an additional tax of $1.00 per gallon; all other things being equal, roughly how much do you think the price new price at the pump would be after the new tax?

Big evil oil companies don't set gasoline prices; it's another myth that is perpetuated.

Gas prices will always be the sum of the price of a gallon of gas, plus federal, state and local taxes.

I'm glad to read you first sentence.

Just to be clear on your second.... Adding an additional $1 per gallon tax on gas when prices without that tax would be $3.60 would probably result in a new price of ....______?

$4.60

So you don't think you or anyone else is likely to change their driving habits should gas prices increase by more than 80 cents per gallon?

Or do you believe that the people deciding where to set the retail price lack theory of mind when considering the public's reaction?

The answer to your first question, is that everything is relative; some will change habits, others not.

Here's a pretty good piece on your second question.

http://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/fuel-consumption/gas-price.htm

This is no fun. You are being far to reasonable. Are you ok?

It's only temporary; I'm looking for my next windmill to slay.

"178 million gallons of gasoline is consumed every day." ?????

Here it shows as 367,000,000 gallons per day - Http://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.cfm?id=23&t=10

That's a very significant variation.

When extrapolating the numbers form total oil consumtion based on Gov figures the second number comes much closer.

It pays to multi-source information.

I wonder what it really is?

Here is a blurb on Price Elasticity of Demand for gasoline.

http://economics.about.com/od/priceelasticityofdemand/a/gasoline_elast.htm

I just took a look at your link. We have to remember that it's the government, therefore there will always be mistakes. Look at the footnote in your link. They say "gasoline" in the above statement, but in the footnote, they say that they are referring to all petroleum products, which brings the numbers in line.

²EIA uses Product Supplied to approximately represent consumption of petroleum products; it measures the disappearance of these products from primary sources, i.e., refineries, natural gas-processing plants, blending plants, pipelines, and bulk terminals.

Is it possible you are misinterpreting the foot note? It states that EIA uses Product Supplied to approximate consumption of petroleum products; that's all that it says.

I multi-sourced the information from both government and industry sources.

I have a high level of confidence in my gasoline consumption figures, its relationship to consumer discretionary spending, overall economic impact, and relatively low short term demand elasticity.

No changes for me at another 80 cent a gallon increase.

...and do you consider yourself to be typical/ a close representation of the average consumer?

I don't consider myself typical of anything!

What you are considering is "Elasticity of Demand." For transportation fuels the EOD is very low in the short term - meaning that increasing price has little effect on short term demand.

Although the demand for transportation fuels has low short term EOD; it has a very dramatic and quick effect on overall economic activity.

In the US a 50 cent move in gasoline prices translates to about $180,000,000 a day in consumer discretionary spending. That's really quite significant; nearly as much as the entire US Department of Education Budget.

This 5.4 Billion Dollar per Month change in discretionary spending impacts the entire span of demand for consumer goods and services - from food to durable goods in the short term to, capital investment in the long term.

We are stuck with gasoline because of its high energy density, technology inertia, and monopolistic pricing; the latter of which can be manipulated to both optimize profit and shut down development of alternative technologies through various means including down pricing when completive technologies appear to be approaching breakeven; to out and out burying the technology through proprietary purchase and shut down - as in the case of the Verenium Cellulosic Ethanol process and British Petroleum.

This isn't some grand conspiracy - it is how monopolistic capitalism optimizes profit; and is the system we chose through our political lobby process, where government has become an extension of corporate interest, and reflecting the belief that what is good for the corporations is good for all of us

The arguments presented in this blog are seriously dated and wrong. Others have focused upon E85, LPG, LNG, and CNG, so I'll debunk some of the electric car comments. Note that my comments come from practical experience - I tinker with electric cars, not just sit back and form opinions from reading blogs.

First, although you entitle the electric section as "Tesla S and Chevy Volt" you do not mention the Volt (you mention the Nissan Leaf instead). But the Volt is a hybrid so it doesn't fit your category anyway.

"Oversized battery packs powered undersized vehicles, a shortcoming to drivers who crave large cars." You can put larger battery packs into larger cars. Half of the conversions we've built have used full sized pickup trucks. But as weight goes up performance (especially range) goes down, so you do hit a point where you're wasting money. Since today's batteries provide very limited range per fuel-up (compared to petroleum power) it makes more sense to build local econo-runners than luxury models.

"Recharging infrastructure is low…" untrue! The electric power grid is more pervasive than gasoline stations. There may not be lots of electric outlets mounted in parking lots, but those are cheaper and easier to install than building gasoline stations. Where engine block heaters are necessary, parking lot power outlets are already common. Also, companies like Better Place are trying to standardize battery swapping, so you wouldn't have to wait for a recharge.

"…no standard charging style or method has been set." Actually, there are several charging standards. Just about all electric vehicles can charge from a 110 Vac / 20 a / 50 or 60 Hz source. Other standards allow faster charging using special equipment. Look up SAE J1772 or Combo charging system, the European Union Mennekes Type-2 charging plug or the Japanese CHAdeMo system. Granted the industry is young and evolving, but it's not the Wild West.

"…battery packs on electric-only vehicles will burn out, and manufacturers warranty these batteries as they would a powertrain." True, and those warrantees are long. Tesla gives a 5 year, 50,000 mile to 125,000 mile warranty, depending upon which pack you purchase. Nissan gives a 5 year, 60,000 mile warranty. Comparable to petroleum drivetrain warranties.

"Replacing one of these batteries would cost around $10,000." Today, true. Tomorrow? Chances are costs will come down after another 5 or 6 years of development and production. Your new battery pack could out-perform your old pack.

"Electric cars remain on the back-burner, at least until a breakthrough in battery size and cost occurs." Actually, electric car development is hotly pursued by every major automobile manufacturer, as well as several start-up companies. It is true that batteries are a major concern, but there is major development in that industry too. If you are talking about using electric cars for long trips then yes, today it is more practical to use a petroleum vehicle for long trips. But electric vehicles can be practical for everyday driving for many people.

For tinkerers using lead-acid batteries, even if you use industrial batteries intended for motive power you'll probably want to replace them after four years. Lead-acid is less than half the cost of Lithium-Ion, but with Lithium-Ion prices coming down and their much higher power density fewer people are bothering with lead-acid.

I'm not claiming that electric vehicles are ready to replace petroleum vehicles yet - far from that! But they don't deserve to be dismissed lightly. Warts and all, they've come a long ways during the past five years. Maybe they'll make more leaps forward during the next five years, maybe not. But I think you'll find them at least as common as hybrid cars well within the next ten years.

Sounds like the voice of experience.

The thread was not about electric cars...but rather "will we be stuck with gasoline for the forseeable future". Thats why folks were talking about E-85 and all that. Electrics are in all our future, and we need all the experience we can bring to the table to chart a good course. The reasons why electric vehicles are problematic is long, and contradictory.

My experience is with Ni-cad and lead acid energy storage systems. The suitability of choosing one battery over another seems to involve a lot of factors, some of which are not immediately obvious. But engineers are used to the tricky balancing act of getting variables to optimize. Important considerations (among others!) which are consistently over-looked are "how easy is it to re-cycle" and "how easy is it to get materials to build these things?" The more "war metals" you use in your battery system, the more expensive the battery storage system will be, and the more difficult it will be to replace when you need a new one.

Limited range and usefulness in temperature extremes are another two variables. Any Canadian will tell of stories of batteries which don't have the cranking amps to kick over a car on a January morning. Like all chemical reactions, the lower the temperature, the slower they occur, and batteries are little factories of chemical reactions. Aircraft companies will tell stories of the problems involved in fully discharging and then re-charging batteries every couple of hours. There was a recent CR4 topic on this very question. Charging times and lifetime amp hours are also considerations, often kind of glossed over by enthusiasts.

I personally prefer lead acid batteries for such heavy use....they have a long and mature history of being used in fork lifts and home energy systems, and are not as likely to explode as ni cad and lithium ion systems during heavy charge cycles. The cost is much less and the technology is getting more and more mature. Weight is high, but that is not as important for a wheeled vehicle as it is for an aeroplane. They are easily re-cycled when the time comes, and have a high value even in the scrap yard.

I am curious as to your declaration that lead acid batteries are not as useful for tinkerers of electric cars than the vastly more expensive systems the large auto companies seem to be failing to sell. I think electric and hybrid vehicles are failing to sell because they are so darned expensive. Is this not your experience as well?

This may not be the most appropriate forum thread to chat about this, it is after all, about alternate fuels rather than electricity. I note that in the "recent blog entries" to the right that there is great interest in the topic of electric storage systems for vehicles in general.

If you were to start another thread, detailing your experiences on electric vehicles and the no doubt agonizing choices you had to make, I for one would be delighted to drop in. Any body else want to see this?