|
dont yall find it very strange, that over 80yrs ago cars were capable of getting over 40mpg but today we can barely hold 26mpg.
and even 80yrs ago there was a electric car ,that is now in the smithsonian i think, but it would go for over 100miles b4 it needed charge, why cant the state of the art tech that we have now get more?
go to, i think youtube, and look up, Who Killed The Electric Car.
ither youtube or google it.
and they want to do ethanol, ethanol takes more energy to make than get out of it.
the btu rating of gas compared to ethanol is a whole lot more.
the btu of corn ethanol is around 7,000btu
the new found wonderful switchgrass, is around 6,400btu
crude gas is 18,400btu
coal is 10,450btu
a plant that would produce 80million gallons of ethanol anually, would take over 1million tons of corn, to be practicl ya would need to plant atleast half of the US in corn, just for fuel needs.
that much corn to transport would take, 67,000semi trucks, or 187 trucks per day, the plants output would be equevelent to 53million gallons of gas or just 0.04% of the US anual gas consumption.
and the other thing, alge they want to culture, it would take atleast 28.5 milliom acres to be halfway practical, and the cost would quickly go into the glazed over eye ammounts.
that being said, if you have a engine that is internal combusion, and are getting 30mpg on crude fuels, it would drop to around 10-15mpg on ethanol, it burns cooler meaning you need more to make the same power, meaning you have to fillup twice or 3 times more often, defeating the pourpose.
source.
Leland Teschler, Machine design magazine.
|