"End the Ethanol Insanity"

[GoCougs]

Energy has myriad sources and mechanisms. The esoterics of entropy, laws of thermodynamics (ESPECIALLY conservation) and classical, quantum and relatistic physics is the fundamental boilerplate of how this all works. There is nowhere else energy can come from. Are there refinements? Sure. Is there some magical unicorn yet undiscovered? No.

Chasing magic is what leads governments to such insanity as wind farms, ethanol, hybrids, et al. The current body of energy "research" is mostly either private industry trying to be out in front of whatever insanity governments will subsidize/mandate/dictate next or governments catering to voting blocks and special interests.

And ChrisV, you're simply going to have to buck up to the fact that I know more about you on many/most technical and engineering topics, automotive or other otherwise. The more you fight it the more bitter, angry, arrogant and ignorant you will become. FFT.

[93JC]

Is there some way we can convert hydrocarbon bonds directly into electricity w/o having to harvest the energy indirectly in the form of heat?

Hydrogen reformers split the hydrogen from carbon in hydrocarbon fuels; it's the world's primary method of producing hydrogen. Hypothetically you could put a small reformer in a car and use it to create hydrogen in situ for a fuel cell, but then a byproduct of the process is carbon dioxide so... no real advantage (as far as CO2 emissions go) over simply burning the fuel to being with.


Some solid-oxide fuel cells can run on light hydrocarbons like methane, ethane and propane, but they also produce carbon dioxide as a byproduct.

[hounddog]

Energy has myriad sources and mechanisms. The esoterics of entropy, laws of thermodynamics (ESPECIALLY conservation) and classical, quantum and relatistic physics is the fundamental boilerplate of how this all works. There is nowhere else energy can come from. Are there refinements? Sure. Is there some magical unicorn yet undiscovered? No.

Chasing magic is what leads governments to such insanity as wind farms, ethanol, hybrids, et al. The current body of energy "research" is mostly either private industry trying to be out in front of whatever insanity governments will subsidize/mandate/dictate next or governments catering to voting blocks and special interests.

And ChrisV, you're simply going to have to buck up to the fact that I know more about you on many/most technical and engineering topics, automotive or other otherwise. The more you fight it the more bitter, angry, arrogant and ignorant you will become. FFT.

Fail.