What is Digg?79 Comments
- StarWarsFever, on 10/12/2007, -2/+23i can't even imagine what the Smug outpout on these are.... i mean, DAMN
- stoanhart, on 10/12/2007, -1/+14Yeah, but they are "carbon neutral." That means you are releasing carbon that is currently in circuilation. Those plants would have died and decomposed anyways. Oil on the other hand has been under ground for millions of years. It has effectively been removed from the eco-system and is being added back in, affecting the balance.
- bitswapper, on 10/12/2007, -2/+10If this this hits the streets, it could be a smug storm of unprecedented magnitude. It has to be stopped, for all our sakes.
- jrhass, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8We have all got to be people now
People-driving-hybrid people now
People now, people now, hybrid now
Hybrid-people-driving people now.
Come on, people, let's be people now
Hybrid-people-driving people now
Come on, everybody be people now
...such a great episode! - MetalRemains, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8it's coming right for us!!!
- jeremy66158, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9There are biodiesel hybrids which is of course also fossil free! Been around for at least a year.
- valkraider, on 10/12/2007, -3/+9Isn't anyone paying attention? Biodiesel is just as "fossil free" as ethanol. In fact, biodiesel has a higher energy yeild than ethanol.
So the deisel electric hybrids that have been around for a while, when run on 100% biodiesel, will be just as "fossil free" as this ethanol one. Only biodiesel has more energy gain both during production AND during use than ethanol.
Biodiesel is diesel fuel made from vegitable oil. Ethanol is alcohol fuel made from vegitable starches (sugars).
Any diesel engine can use Biodiesel in any blend (up to 100% B100). Ethanol requires special engines to go above 10% ethanol (E10).
There is nothing more to see here. Please move along. - gandre, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7Can't wait to get one and be able to smell my own farts
- dlvolk, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Actually its E100 that it runs on, not bio-diesel. But other than the gas burned by the tractor that harvests the crop that makes the ethanol, it is from a carbon neutral fossil free source.
- jonnyeh, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4I feel very bad for anyone that hasn't seen this week's episode of Southpark (Season 10, episode 2). This thread would make 0 sense to them. And that makes me feel smug!
- bcdowell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4has anyone ever seen those commercials talking about making ethanol from corn?
one thing you don't hear very often is the fact that hemp would yeild at least 3x more ethanol per acre than corn, but unfortunately it's illegal to grow in the US because of our ridiculous drug laws (hemp == cannabis == marijuana).
If i were more studious (and if this were /.) i would come up with some numbers, but i'm not and it isn't. However, a bit of googling would reveal that hemp is at least a viable solution, and at most ideal (in addition, hempseed is one of the healthiest foods in existence, rich in omega3&5 fatty acids in particular... and unlike flax seed, it tastes good ;).
Also, it's probably worth pointing out that the diesel engine was originally designed to run on hempseed oil. - http://www.hempcar.org/diesel.shtml - synthesist, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Cars powered on ethanol are the worst idea to be ever concieved.
Is everyone forgeting how we would find a way to produce enormous ammounts of ethanol to power the billions of vehicles in the world.
We would need about 7 times the land area available to grow enough plants to produce enough fuel for a day. CO2 emmisions may be better off than subjecting every square inch of land to incredible ammounts of chemicals in order to increase crop yield.
*EDIT*
Tanuki also has an excelent point. - SuperBeast, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5I of course will be getting one of these! I'm going to be part of the solution instead of the problem!
- koheed, on 10/12/2007, -2/+6Holy crap!!! This is the epitome of smug!! Look out for the cloud!!!
- infra172, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4So instead of just running our cars on petroleum diesel we're using more petroleum as fertilizer to grow corn to make biodiesel. The only reason why people are pushing this is to give farmers more subsidies. Its a scam.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Last time I checked biodiesel still exhausts harmful gases like carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, and nitrogen oxides, to name a few.
- neozeed, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4hurray, now the more you e-x-t-e-n-d the fuel supply the more H2's Ill see on the road. I know it sounds crazzy but like any crack addict the sooner we hit rock bottom the better. This crack-lite stuff just prolongs the pain.
- CorpT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3What's cool is that making the car produced zero emissions too..... oh wait.
- SoundScape, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Maybe I'm ignorant or have just misread something, but last time I checked, CO2 wasn't the only emission from gasoline engines - plain ol' CO for example is actually toxic.
The article only mentions the fact that there are zero CO2 emissions - what about the dozens of other emissions usually generated by gasoline powered vehicles? - valkraider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Which shows you didn't go to the link I posted, or at least not and read it.
http://journeytoforever.org/ethanol_energy.html
Down at the bottom in the section "Ethanol under fire" there are no less than 8 links to people throuroughly debunking the Cornell study.
That *one* seriously flawed study is all opponents ever bring up... Read some of the responses to that "study" and also take note that that "study" was funded by the petroleum industry... - foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3i'm sure we can get away from fossil fuels. energy is EVERYWHERE we look. in the air we breath. in the water we drink. in the sun that produces magic rays of sunshine that come down when you feelin' blue.
although, when it comes to the sun... ultraviolet rays bad, lotion good SMILEY! :) - Tanuki, on 10/12/2007, -6/+8Biomass fuels require a lot of petroleum-based fertilizers and are harvested and processed using machines that also burn fossil fuels. Electricity is generated using fossil fuels (except when it's from a nuclear power plant). Manufacturing the car itself is a fossil fuel expenditure. There is nothing fossil-free about this vehicle.
And everyone knows Ethanol is just a pork-barrel project for the midwest farm states panhandling for the coasts' tax dollars. It's a net energy loser: it costs more conventional fuel to make a gallon of ethanol than the ethanol replaces in your gas tank. It also won't save the atmosphere because even if it burns cleaner than unleaded gasoline, the farming process unleashes massive amounts of methane (fertilizers and decaying plant matter). Methane is a greenhouse gas. - mrhaines, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Agree, this is just for publicity. Biodiesel = more smog, and high levels of petroleum needed to grow plants. Can't get away from fossil fuels, we can only hope they don't run out in our lifetime, or start riding our bikes more.
- Tanuki, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@valkraider
I acknowledge there are the sources cited from your link. Then there are other studies that disagree. I'll point to the one that convinced me of my above opinion, which is Patzek's 104 page study...
Thermodynamics of the Corn-Ethanol Biofuel Cycle, by Tad Patzek, professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkley -- in which he concludes that "It appears that if the corn ethanol exergy is used to power a car engine, the minimum restoration work is about 7 times the maximum useful work from the cycle." In other words, the energy invested to produce the ethanol is 700% what you get out of it in the end.
http://petroleum.berkeley.edu/papers/patzek/thermodynmaics%20of%20cornethanol.htm
In his paper he cites the other studies on the topic (that both agree and disagree with his):
"Professor David Pimentel of Cornell is the world-famous agricultural expert from Cornell University, author of the CRC Handbook of Energy Utilization in Agriculture (Pimentel, 1990), the book Food, Energy, and Society (Pimentel,
1996), and dozens of publications on the subjects of ethics and energy efficiency of agriculture, e.g., (Pimentel et al., 1988; Pimentel and Dazhong, 1990; Pimentel, 1991; Pimentel et al., 1994; Pimentel, 2001). Here I will use only his most recent analysis of production of corn-ethanol (Pimentel, 2003).
Doctor Michael Wang, Christopher Saricks, and May Wu are the authors of the 1997 Argonne National Laboratory Report, Fuel-Cycle Fossil Energy Use and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Fuel Ethanol Produced from the U.S. Midwestern Corn (Wang et al., 1997), which told quite a different version of the corn-ethanol story.
Doctor Hosein Shapouri, James Duffield, and Michael Wang co-wrote the most recent 2002 USDA Report: The Energy Balance of Corn Ethanol: An Update (Shapouri et al., 2002a), which was less rosy than the Argonne Report, but considerably more optimistic than Professor Pimentel’s analysis."
In his paper, Patzek is highly critical of the Argonne Report, and also of the 2002 USDA Report.
So you have Patzek at UC Berkley and Pimentel at Cornell saying "ethanol is an energy loser" and you've got the USDA scientists and Argonne National Laboratory (US Department of Energy) scientists saying "ethanol is a net positive energy source". There are other studies if you want to keep reading but those seem like the big ones.
Wikipedia covers the debate here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel#Net_fuel_energy_balance - gdog05, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2brrrrrrgggh.....{sniff}.....ahhhhhhh
- Jeebugorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2EXACTLY!!! which is why goat said that THIS ISNT THE 80s!! american cars NOW are just as reliable as any foreign car
- beret9987, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sweet.... Now if it came in an 9-5 Body with an Aero Package and a manual....
- csprech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Finally a hybrid that doesnt look like a hybrid. Me likey :)
- Jeebugorn, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2how about all the saturn cars on the road that have over 100,000 miles on them. i went with a friend to a saturn dealership because he was getting his oil changed, and they had a wall of pictures from people who bought their cars from this dealership and had 100,000-300,000 miles and still going. but i guess that's not reliable.
- JigsawFalcon, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2So where would we even refuel these vehicles?
- jeremy66158, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Here it is in full on two lines: www.state.sd.us/puc/pucevents/Energy%20Conf%20Presentations/Terry%20Goerger-%20Biodiesel%20Bas
ics.pdf - earlycj5, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Switchgrass? Don't have to be tropical to grow that. Does well with few inputs as well.
- jeremy66158, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I don't understand how there can be so much misunderstanding about what I wrote:
1)Do we all agree the title for this digg item is: "World's First Fossil-free Hybrid Vehicle"?
2) Can we all agree the author of the title was referring to non-crude oil derived fuels?
If you can't agree with these two numbed statements go argue on another planet where you can be understood better...If this is agreed upon then move on to what follows...
The title statement is wrong because there have been diesel hybrids prior to this saab which have used 100% plant based biodiesel.
If you don't know why I made the statement it was to correct the author...if you want to know about the pollution benefits of biodiesel and more read this pdf:
www.state.sd.us/puc/pucevents/Energy%20Conf%20Presentations/Terry%20Goerger-%20Biodiesel%20Basics.pdf - Clazor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1When are they ever going to come out with the Back to the Future engine which had the garbage disposal sticking out of the hood. That was sweet and totally "smug" free!
- slantyeyed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1in the US, we use E85 (85% ethanol)
- FishyJoe, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Unless you live in the tropics and can grow sugar cane, ethanol is not a very good fuel source. All the crops that grow in temperate climates have horrible ethanol yields.
- Darq1, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Not to mention the starvation from lack of food...
- hammerattack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Fear not. Volkswagon is coming out with a Jetta TDI hybrid in 2006-2007. The only downside? It'll be a wagon.
- SystemError, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2sounds like twice as much smug as regular hybrid cars
- WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2All the great ecological inventions are irrelevant, until and unless we tackle the real problem.....government officials don't work for the good of all the people, and the people really are too lazy to care about it beyond, maybe, just voting every few years...and many don't even do that!
Somehow, human populations have to overcome the coercive influences of corporate entities, that wield way more power than the larger population!
I don't know how we are going to do it. We need waaaay more awareness in the common man. - hammerattack, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@stoanhart - Carbon neutral not withstanding, they still emit harmful NOx emissions. They do not emit SOx emissions, and they have far fewer particulate emissions than petrol diesel. The irony is the particulates are what keeps the NOx emissions down in petrol diesel. The tradeoff is acceptable.
@valkraider - If you dump biodiesel into an engine that's been using dieself for years, it'll kill the engine. Biodiesel has strong solvent properties which loosen deposits left by petroleum diesel. These deposits will then clog fuel lines and injectors, and increase wear. You have ease into using biodieself by starting with a B50 blend, then moving towards B100 over the course of about a thousand miles or so. Also, you need to eliminate rubber from the fuel system of the vehicle, particularly fuel lines and O-rings.
@jeremy66158 (and everyone else) - 'Fossil fuel' is a misnomer. The belief that oil is dead dinosaur juice is based on the presumption that living organisms are the only source of fatty acid methyl esthers - a belief popular in the west. In the former soviet union, it was widely believed that petroleum develops when organic molecules react with alkali rock formations under heat and pressure. - Zaffel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Bravo!!! well put! WaterDragon for President!
- foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1really, waterdragon?
what did chef coming back have to do with eco-friendly cars? ;) - foxhoundadmin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1could you, uh, summarize that for us, please?
- WaterDragon, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2HAHA So this is a techie site, and apparently Southpark is the new Star Trek.
LMAO, Mofos!
They took ur jerbs! - jeremy66158, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Digg didn't let me put the whole pdf address:
www.state.sd.us/puc/pucevents/Energy%20Conf%20Presentations/Terry%20Goerger-%20Biodiesel%20Bas
ics.pdf - slantyeyed, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1that'd be funny . . . we have to purposely create even MORE garbage than we do now just to fuel our cars.
- thirdtenor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1while I agree ethanol is a terrible fuel source (it contains less energy than gasoline, less BTUs) Brazil is doing a good job coverting sugar cane into ethanol and reducing it's foreign oil imports.
- kiwininja, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like the fact that someone has finally tried making a hybrid that is two doors and more than 200hp. I want a hybrid, but I don't want a compact or an suv, I want a sports car.
- valkraider, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1"Biodiesel is the only alternative fuel to have fully completed the health effects testing requirements of the Clean Air Act. The use of biodiesel in a conventional diesel engine results in substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter compared to emissions from diesel fuel. In addition, the exhaust emissions of sulfur oxides and sulfates (major components of acid rain) from biodiesel are essentially eliminated compared to diesel.
Of the major exhaust pollutants, both unburned hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are ozone or smog forming precursors. The use of biodiesel results in a substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons. Emissions of nitrogen oxides are either slightly reduced or slightly increased depending on the duty cycle of the engine and testing methods used. Based on engine testing, using the most stringent emissions testing protocols
required by EPA for certification of fuels or fuel additives in the US, the overall ozone forming potential of the speciated hydrocarbon emissions from biodiesel was nearly 50 percent less than that measured for diesel fuel."
http://www.biodiesel.org/resources/faqs/
also
http://www.distributiondrive.com/Article16.html
In addition the new EPA requirements on diesel engines make them much cleaner than most people even know about. Most people think of the old 1970s GM diesels or big garbage trucks, belching soot.
The diesel engines that meet the 2007 requirements are cleaner than most gasoline engines on the road now, and biodiesel use reduces the emissions even further. There are things like articulate filters, EGR, Urea systems, Catalytic convertors, and more complete burn cycles which make the modern diesel much cleaner than most people think when they read "disesl". -
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