Authored by Geoff Vaughan in Automotive, Energy
Published on 04-01-2009
Whatever one’s political persuasion, most people can agree that we can’t go on forever running our cars on non-renewable fossil fuels. The internal combustion engine which powers most vehicles on the road today runs on gasoline, which is made from petroleum, a byproduct of the decomposition of organic matter millions of years ago. One day in the future this supply will run out, and when it does we’d better be ready for it or we’ll be walking everywhere. Plus, the countries which were lucky enough to be situated on top of huge petroleum reserves have exploited this natural resource to great political and monetary gain, and have the ability to hold the rest of the world hostage if they really want to, thanks to the limited supply of this substance they call “black gold”.
Fortunately, there are several alternative solutions that are currently in the running to replace petroleum as the fuel of choice for automakers. Hybrid cars use a combination of gasoline and a rechargeable battery to cut down on the use of fossil fuels. While this is a good first step in the move away from petroleum and increases the miles per gallon of the cars that are equipped with this technology, it’s only a halfway measure. Another solution in the works today is the electric car, which one can literally plug in to an electric current to recharge the battery, just like with a cell phone or laptop computer. Although great strides have been made in this area in recent years, electric cars have a range of only a few hundred miles. That’s great for a commuter car, but Americans love their road trips and will need some other solution that will allow travel over much greater distances. Hopefully once filling stations equip themselves with electric charging facilities, the electric car will take hold.
Hydrogen technology is another solution that has been studied in the search for a replacement for petroleum in our cars. While many auto manufacturers are already producing hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles, the truth is that these vehicles are not yet available to the general public. The automakers that advertise their hydrogen vehicles as available to lease customers are hand-picking their customers for a limited release and it will be years before these models will be mass produced.
In the meantime, several companies are offering hydrogen generators for cars, and claim to increase the gas mileage of internal combustion engines. To be honest, this is a controversial subject as there are many that claim to have built contraptions such as these and swear they work exactly as advertised, and there is another camp that doesn’t believe a word of it. These devices can be either bought fully assembled, or made out of commonly found materials, and searching on the internet will bring up many different plans for building these generators.
Proponents of hydrogen generators claim to by mixing hydrogen into the gasoline and air mixture in the engine, fuel consumption and pollutants are both reduced. While the jury is still out on this technology, there is a ton of information out there about it, and for a relatively small amount of money the mechanically inclined among us can give it a shot. Who knows? This may be the best kept secret out there and could be the key to finally ridding our world of its dependence on fossil fuels.
