cars

[jsstutu]

how could we fuel our cars when we run out of petrol and diesel

[jake-the-peg]

There are a number of alternatives - each with it's own particular difficulty.

You could use biofuels - diesel made from crops but there's not enough arable land to grow enough crops for our needs with existing crops. It might be possible to genetically engineer a crop like a fungus that could be grown fast enough but that's a way off yet.

Electric power - this suffers from 2 problems, firstly you have to generate the electricity in the first place and secondly battery technology's not up to the job, the range is limited to at best a couple of hundred miles with even the lightest vehicles before you have to recharge which is slow.

Personally I think hydrogen burning is the best alternative. You still have to generate the electricity to make the hydrogen but refueling is much easier and it's a very powerful fuel - a bit too powerful perhaps three are a number of safety issues about driving around with a fuel tank of explosive hydrogen gas.

Hydrogen fuel cells are another possibility but you're dragging around heavy electric motors and fuel cells and still have the hydrogen safety issues.

[rojash]

There's always the Tesla electric roadster:
0-60 under 4 secs
Range 245 miles
Recharge (full) 3.5 hours

http://www.teslamotors.com/

[Docsteve]

Brazil uses alcofuel, a mixture of methanol and ethanol as a fuel alternative. This is supported by a large raw material resource in sugar cane.

Of course all we really need is controllable source of expanding gas, like an explosive. So how long will it be before we load up caplets of stable explosive to fire our engines. Only kidding. But that's what people thought of internal combustion engines once.