UK-based Cella Energy has developed a synthetic fuel that could lead to US$1.50 per gallon gasoline. Apart from promising a future transportation fuel with a stable price regardless of oil prices, the fuel is hydrogen based and produces no carbon emissions when burned. The technology is based on complex hydrides, and has been developed over a four year top secret program at the prestigious Rutherford Appleton Laboratory near Oxford. Early indications are that the fuel can be used in existing internal combustion engined vehicles without engine modification.
Add to that Volkswagen's development of a car that can get over 235 miles per gallon, and advancements in carbon fiber technology that lets lightweight cars take the advantage back with consumers. They are also able to learn how to make them more affordable, a bonus for the automobile industry that has struggled to turn a reliable profit.
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3 comments:
Yeah, but Al Gore is still fat!
Stupid thing is, these very things could have been developed as easily here, and implemented here, and used to create a new style of car and revitalized an entire industry, instead of half assed measures like the Prius and full assed measures like 'drill baby drill'. Once again, we pass the torch to another nation in scientific advancements, because science is icky.
From whence does the hydrogen in those complex hydrides come? Hydrocarbons such as coal, oil or natural gas? Electrical hydrolysis of water into H and 02, and a subsequent synthesis?
No carbon emissions when burned, perhaps, but what about carbon emissions when created?
'Future energy storage technology' rather than 'future transportation fuel' I think, and so a possible step forward, rather than a breakthrough.
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