Hybrid car "hot rodders" hit 250 mpg

[agallag]

Whats so energy consuming about fermenation?

Sugar cane farmers commonly run their farm stuff on ethanol they get from the waste from sugar cane production, and I believe it is quite big in Brasil. I think ethanol will be good fuel once we have good ethanol fuel cells.

http://www.agriculture.com/ag/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ag/story/data/agNews_050719crETHANOL.xml&catref=ag1001

Okay, so the study I was referring to is not necessarily correct. I take it back for now, until I find more definitive facts...

[RichL]

As the internal combustion engine is unlikely to be completely replaced in the forseeable future, I'm an advocate of Biodiesel.

[KvHagedorn]

You know.. with ten billion people all wanting to fill their cars with biodiesel or ethanol, all the fertile soil on the planet will have its minerals and nutrients completely leached out of it in 20 years or so..

Too damned many people.. time for the supervolcano to save the planet by killing us all.

[Marshmallowman]

A (very)good mass transport system would be a step in the right direction

[Dr Mordrid]

I'm sure AQ is glad to hear your support for their new targeting system

That said: you don't need to use crops for biodiesel. Most any biomass can be converted, including the sewage sludge we're now burning/burying as well as the garbage & other organics that are going into landfills.

Dr. Mordrid

[RichL]

You know.. with ten billion people all wanting to fill their cars with biodiesel or ethanol, all the fertile soil on the planet will have its minerals and nutrients completely leached out of it in 20 years or so..

If you read the Wikipedia article I linked to above, one of the studies/estimates used Algae as a source for the oil.
How does 10-20,000 gallons of biodiesel for an acre of algae grab you?

More recent studies using a species of algae that has oil contents of as high as 50% have concluded that as little as 28,000 km² or 0.3% of the land area of the US could be utilized to produce enough biodiesel to replace all transportation fuel the country currently utilizes. Further encouragement comes from the fact that the land that could be most effective in growing the algae is desert land with high solar irradiation, but lower economic value for other uses and that the algae could utilize farm waste and excess CO2 from factories to help speed the growth of the algae.

This study does have the pre-requesite that everyone in the USA switches to diesel engined vehicles which are considerably more fuel efficient than petrol, but it just shows you what could be done.