Weaning the World
By: Clayton Kern
The world has slowly
become wholly dependent on gasoline since the invention of the internal
combustion engine. Becoming independent
of gasoline is no small feat under any circumstance, contrary to the belief of many
radical environmentalists, who think we can just switch in a few years. The task must be taken slowly so we can find
a proper fuel source that will serve us for many years to come and not harm the
environment as much as gasoline has.
There are many different alternatives to gasoline available nowadays,
from widely available diesel, to widely forgotten alcohol, to extremely
expensive hydrogen fuel cells. Which one
will become our next universal fuel is hard to foresee, but we must decide and
move on it before it is too late.
Hydrogen
has caught the media’s attention widely in the past few years. I believe this is due to the fact of people’s
misunderstanding of hydrogen and where it comes from. The public is told that hydrogen is
environmentally friendly because its combustion yields only water vapor. What people look past is the current source
of hydrogen. It is currently being
obtained from natural gas, another primarily non-renewable resource. Hydrogen can also be obtained from
electrolysis, but requires large amounts of electricity which is obtained
primarily from coal, gas, and other power plants. Hydrogen is also the most flammable gaseous
element known to man, and requires large compressed tanks of it to go anywhere.
The biggest downfall of hydrogen fuel cell technology is the price of a fuel
cell; they can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then you have to find hydrogen stations which
are next to non-existent as well.
Biodiesel is a good cheap renewable resource, but it does
little to help the environment. It’s
made primarily from vegetable oil, and can be made from recycled restaurant greases,
making it cheap and reliable. There are
unfortunately a few problems with it; first you need a diesel vehicle to use
it. Secondly, its exhaust products are
more harmful to the environment, including increased Nitrogen oxides which
eventually lead to nitric acid (Acid rain).
It is also not economically viable, meaning that there will doubtfully
ever be enough produced to supply an entire nation.
Natural
gas isn’t a terribly bad alternative except for the fact that it also is a
non-renewable resource, unless you consider the small quantity that can be
produced from decomposition of biological materials. Natural gas exhaust emissions are very clean,
containing no smog producing hydrocarbons.
The only problem once again with Natural gas is finding a good renewable
source.
Alcohol
is one of the best solutions to our problem in my opinion. First it can be produced domestically at all
the farms that are barely getting by as it is.
This fact alone is extremely important.
Our farmers are having trouble making ends meet as is, but by jump
starting farmers to produce alcohol we will solve their economical problem and
our fuel dilemma. Alcohol can be produced
with just about any plant material that contains starch, fiber, or sugar. The only exhaust emissions would be carbon
dioxide which in turn is used by the increased percentage of plants farmed
across the country. The cost of
converting a gasoline engine into an alcohol engine is minimal, usually only
$100 or less. You can also make a
vehicle that can run on alcohol or gasoline or even a combination of both. It requires such small adjustments in the carburetor
and timing that any mechanic will have no problem at all performing it. The country of
Whatever
we decide something must be done soon, since there is a severely limited amount
of oil left. We can see the effects of
global warming across the country. I
think we will start to see alternative fuel vehicles taking over in the near
future, and even now they are making an appearance. We can only wait to see what happens.