Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey there, everyone, and welcome to
Speaker 1: tech Stuff. I'm Jonathan Strickland and i'm and Today we
Speaker 1: are going to tackle part one of a two part
Speaker 1: series about alternative fuels. Yes, we can technically do like
Speaker 1: a seven part series on this, but we decided to
Speaker 1: kind of condense it the way that you would perhaps
Speaker 1: a natural guests or yeah, hey, looks the only one
Speaker 1: who can. Really basically, we are compressing these subjects into
Speaker 1: two parts. The first part is going to be kind
Speaker 1: of an overview of the different alternatives that we think
Speaker 1: of with alternative fuel, keeping in mind that, you know,
Speaker 1: the ones that we're talking about today are the major players,
Speaker 1: and that there could be an alternative fuel right around
Speaker 1: the corner that is completely different from the ones we're
Speaker 1: chatting about. Now, uh, you know, that's a possibility, but
Speaker 1: these are the These are the ones that are currently
Speaker 1: in some form of production and use in various places
Speaker 1: around the world. It also will behoove us to mention
Speaker 1: the fact that Lauren and I come from the United
Speaker 1: States of America. That is where we live, that is
Speaker 1: our frame of reference UM and a lot of the
Speaker 1: information available to us immediately centered around that kind of experience,
Speaker 1: so we know more about the laws, the prices, and
Speaker 1: the general availability exactly right, right, what's the infrastructure status
Speaker 1: in the US. Now, keep in mind that some of
Speaker 1: these alternative fuels have a lot of support in other
Speaker 1: nations around the world. Uh, some nations have have invested
Speaker 1: a great deal in say propane for example, as a
Speaker 1: possible fuel source. And we're really talking about fuel for
Speaker 1: the most part as vehicle fuel and specifically vehicle fuel
Speaker 1: for you guys as in consumers. Yes, we will mention
Speaker 1: a couple of places where some of these fuels have
Speaker 1: been used commercially or in a government fleet vehicles right,
Speaker 1: or in industrial vehicles that are used in factories or
Speaker 1: or construction yards or whatever. But for the most part,
Speaker 1: we're really looking at this is the alternative to the
Speaker 1: stuff what you put in your gas tank or diesel
Speaker 1: tank as the case maybe, or hydrogen fuel cell or etcetera, etcetera. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: so you can look at these in lots of different ways.
Speaker 1: You can divide them up into all sorts of different categories.
Speaker 1: And so we kind of arbitrarily made these into our
Speaker 1: own categories based upon my whim not not completely arbitrary.
Speaker 1: We're first going to cover I think of biodiesel and ethanol. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and and the idea here is that these are two
Speaker 1: fuels that we get from uh organic sources, and then
Speaker 1: we process it to make it into fuel. Also, these
Speaker 1: two different fuels, they are different. Ethanol and biodesel are
Speaker 1: not the same thing. Uh. These two fuels also, besides
Speaker 1: requiring some processing, have some other stuff in common. For instance,
Speaker 1: both of them you will frequently see in blended form,
Speaker 1: meaning that we actually blend these with petroleum based fuels.
Speaker 1: In the case of ethanol, we're talking gasoline, and with
Speaker 1: bio diesel we're talking yeah. But anyway, in both cases,
Speaker 1: we're talking about mixing uh this this biologically uh created
Speaker 1: fuel with stuff that is petroleum based. Keeping in mind,
Speaker 1: of course, if we want to go all the way back,
Speaker 1: even petroleum based stuff was organic at one point. But sure, sure,
Speaker 1: but but there's a difference between a between man made,
Speaker 1: processed organics and stuff that took millions and millions and
Speaker 1: millions of years to form the way it did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there's a tiny difference there. Uh So So let's let's
Speaker 1: start with um, Well, let's start with ethanol, I think,
Speaker 1: because that one is probably the one that that a
Speaker 1: lot of people who may not be aware of it
Speaker 1: are using already. Right, um, I think that in American
Speaker 1: most places in America use a blend of gasoline to
Speaker 1: about ethanol. Yeah, it's called E ten. That's the the
Speaker 1: general term for that blend or gasohol. That's also what
Speaker 1: it's often referred to, although, which sounds so goofy and
Speaker 1: it's it's it's I've seen it increasing, or rather I
Speaker 1: should say there's a decreasing trend to call it that.
Speaker 1: I think it almost has a stigma against it because
Speaker 1: people realize that uh ethanol, which by the way, is
Speaker 1: ethyl alcohol, you know, it's it's just another name for
Speaker 1: ethyl alcohol. Um that ethyl alcohol could be pretty hard
Speaker 1: on some engine parts, depending upon what you know, what
Speaker 1: your engine had in it, like various tubes and connectors
Speaker 1: and things like that. Al Right, it is a solvent
Speaker 1: so um So one of the problems and using some
Speaker 1: of the higher blends and in normal engines is that
Speaker 1: it can um a start start knocking some some extra
Speaker 1: stuff loose um and clogging fuel filters that way, and
Speaker 1: be can start eating away at some of the rubber
Speaker 1: components fuel exactly exactly. And so what's what's kind of
Speaker 1: funny is that when it's eating away at that that
Speaker 1: stuff that's built up in an engine. Let's say that
Speaker 1: you've been using regular gasoline in an engine for a while,
Speaker 1: but the engine can also accept ethanol of various blends,
Speaker 1: like even a even a high concentration of of um
Speaker 1: ethanol to actual gasoline. Well, the nice thing is that
Speaker 1: it's actually going to start cleaning your system. But the
Speaker 1: problem is all that stuff that's built up has to
Speaker 1: go somewhere, and that's when you get into that problem
Speaker 1: of it clogging up filters and things like that. Right,
Speaker 1: which is why should you Should you have a vehicle
Speaker 1: that can accept both, and you start using higher blends
Speaker 1: of ethanol um, it's recommended to replace your fuel pumps
Speaker 1: with something that is more capable of dealing with that, right, Right,
Speaker 1: And then once you've got everything you know cleaned out
Speaker 1: that first run through, just have a basic maintenance and
Speaker 1: replacement schedule, just as you would your normal vehicle. The
Speaker 1: way most of us ignore UH and UH. I say
Speaker 1: that because I know a lot of car owners, and
Speaker 1: I think regular maintenance is something that just happens to
Speaker 1: other people. Uh, I've been I've been that guy once
Speaker 1: or twice. I I take the train, so what do
Speaker 1: I know. But anyway, so it's it's very common in
Speaker 1: the United States. Uh. In fact, I think something like
Speaker 1: cent of gas stations have used some blend of ethanol.
Speaker 1: And part of the reason for that is that ethanol
Speaker 1: will increase the octane of your gasoline. Now, octane is
Speaker 1: this this rating that we think of that can actually
Speaker 1: reduce what we call engine knocking. So if you've ever
Speaker 1: been in an old car running on you know, a
Speaker 1: low uh octane gasoline and you start hearing this weird
Speaker 1: knocking noise coming out of the engine, that's that's from
Speaker 1: this this octane issue. Adding an ethanol increases the octane.
Speaker 1: What it also does, however, is it it lowers the
Speaker 1: actual energy content of the gasoline, because ethanol does not
Speaker 1: have as much potential energy stored in it as gasoline, right,
Speaker 1: which in all practicality means that the gallon for gallon,
Speaker 1: you're going to get less mileage out of ethanol than
Speaker 1: you will out of gasoline, right, And the less mileage
Speaker 1: all depends upon that blend, Right, Like So if it's
Speaker 1: an E ten blend where you've got the ten percent
Speaker 1: ethanol and gasoline, you might get three to four percent
Speaker 1: fewer miles per gallon than you would if you were
Speaker 1: using just regular gasoline, if you were using eight five,
Speaker 1: which is kind of the flip side of that, it's
Speaker 1: ethanol and percent gasoline. This is something that flexible fuel
Speaker 1: vehicles or f f vs as we call them in
Speaker 1: the biz, can use. Then you're talking about a significant
Speaker 1: drop in miles per gallon. You're talking, right, that's a
Speaker 1: that's big, right. I mean, these are why we have
Speaker 1: these different considerations, and we'll do a full episode about why. Uh,
Speaker 1: there are a lot of challenges to switching to alternative fuel,
Speaker 1: So I'm not going to really get into it there,
Speaker 1: but you can kind of already see one of the
Speaker 1: issues here. Um, So it does have a lower energy
Speaker 1: content than gasoline. The cost of ethanol kind of varies
Speaker 1: in the Midwest, where you've got a lot of places
Speaker 1: that are actually growing the feedstocks. That's what we call
Speaker 1: the stuff what we turn into ethanol, right, right, Starch
Speaker 1: crops are what are used to ferment and distill um
Speaker 1: stuff into ethanol, and especially in the US. That is
Speaker 1: the stuff. Yes, and um so corn is here in
Speaker 1: the US is used mostly in Brazil. I think it's sugarcane,
Speaker 1: but you can also use wheat, barley, potatoes. Right. The
Speaker 1: starch based or sugar based stuff can be turned into this.
Speaker 1: You can also use cellulose based cellulosic ethanol, which would
Speaker 1: come from things like wood chips or switch grass. Uh. Now,
Speaker 1: this stuff has potentially a better return on investment when
Speaker 1: it comes to energy. There's this thing called e r
Speaker 1: o I that's energy return on investment. Whenever we're talking
Speaker 1: about producing any sort of fuel, producing the fuel requires
Speaker 1: you put energy into the production, and so it's really
Speaker 1: important that the energy you get out from that pot
Speaker 1: entol fuel, like whatever you're going to use that fuel for,
Speaker 1: the energy is greater than what you've put in, right
Speaker 1: because otherwise why are you doing it? Yees? Otherwise it
Speaker 1: would be an energy sink. Because let's say, let's say
Speaker 1: that you know, for the most part, the energy you're
Speaker 1: going to be getting to produce the stuff is still
Speaker 1: coming from fossil fuels, because that's what we really depend
Speaker 1: upon right now. So if you would actually consume more
Speaker 1: fossil fuel producing this alternative fuel than you would if
Speaker 1: you had used the fossil fuel in the first place.
Speaker 1: Then it's an energy sink and you're playing a losing game.
Speaker 1: You want that energy to be greater the same the
Speaker 1: same way that that fusion reactors are not popular yet
Speaker 1: because they use more energy to start up than they
Speaker 1: put out exactly. Yeah, if you've got an energy sink,
Speaker 1: then really you've just got a thing what goes deep.
Speaker 1: It's just what a lot in this. I apologize that
Speaker 1: I don't know what it was that got into my head.
Speaker 1: I shot a video today cackled insanely and then got
Speaker 1: called on it on Twitter. Lauren, Hey, I that was
Speaker 1: not Lauren. That was your humble narrator. That was completely different.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, that's true. You can talk to her right so.
Speaker 1: But some other things about ethanol, uh, they do. Ethanol
Speaker 1: does tend to put out fewer greenhouse gas emissions than
Speaker 1: gasoline combustion does, which is important. You know. One of
Speaker 1: the questions we have to ask ourselves about moving to
Speaker 1: an alternative fuel is why are you doing it right?
Speaker 1: Because there are a lot of different potential answers you
Speaker 1: could give, and if one of those answers is I'm
Speaker 1: concerned about the environmental impact of gasoline consumption, then something
Speaker 1: like this where you're talking about fewer greenhouse gas emissions,
Speaker 1: is important. Uh, you know, so that's that's something to
Speaker 1: keep in mind. Ethanol, of course, is also produced domestically.
Speaker 1: That's also important because in the United States, you know,
Speaker 1: some of our oil a great deal roil. Around half
Speaker 1: of it really is brought in from it. Yeah, important,
Speaker 1: and some of that's imported from places in the world
Speaker 1: where that it would be perhaps better for us to
Speaker 1: not be supporting economically and politically, right the money that
Speaker 1: we are are putting out could be funding things that
Speaker 1: could be harmful to either that region's stability or to
Speaker 1: the United States. Is stability in general role and so
Speaker 1: anything you can produce domestically removes that that or at
Speaker 1: least reduces that issue. So that's another reason why ethanol
Speaker 1: is considered to be a nice alternative, is because it's
Speaker 1: something that we can produce domestically. However, Uh, there's also
Speaker 1: an issue about how much ethanol we produce versus um
Speaker 1: how much gasoline we produce. But again, I'll save that
Speaker 1: for the next show. I don't want to spoil everything
Speaker 1: in this one. But anyway, um, yeah, I mean that's
Speaker 1: that's generally the big picture on ethanol now for ethanol,
Speaker 1: for like things like that E a D five blend
Speaker 1: where you have the ethanol. Again, that's something that's only
Speaker 1: really useful in specific vehicles that have been tooled to
Speaker 1: accept that as a fuel, so called that flexible fuel vehicles,
Speaker 1: right exactly. So you don't want to fill up your
Speaker 1: your right off the lot car that normally runs on
Speaker 1: gasoline with E eighty five because that's not a good
Speaker 1: fuel for it. It could eat through those rubber hoses
Speaker 1: like you were talking about, Lauren. So this is you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's one of those things where you're really looking
Speaker 1: at offsetting gasoline consumption, not completely replacing it. All right,
Speaker 1: So let's talk about biodiesel, which is the other sort
Speaker 1: of biological fuel source that we wanted to mention. Biodiesel,
Speaker 1: of course, as the name suggests, is not a replacement
Speaker 1: for gasoline. It's more like a substitute for diesel, which
Speaker 1: is again a petroleum based fuel, but it's different from gasoline.
Speaker 1: So a gasoline engine will not burn diesel fuel efficiently.
Speaker 1: You have to have a diesel engine to do that now.
Speaker 1: I actually remember when diesel cars were more popular than
Speaker 1: they are now, because that's how old I am. I
Speaker 1: was about to say, I don't remember that at all, Jonathan,
Speaker 1: and I'm not even making fun of you right now. Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: I remember it because, uh I was alive in the
Speaker 1: seventies and nine, I saw diesel engine cars. Uh, you know,
Speaker 1: because they're still very common in industrial use large vehicles
Speaker 1: like buses or trucks. But and there are still cars
Speaker 1: that are diesel engine cars. They're just not as common. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of And I did want to mention a
Speaker 1: lot of the changes that have been made to how
Speaker 1: we consume fossil fuels started out in the nineteen seventies
Speaker 1: with them a the here in America, the the Clean
Speaker 1: Air Act being passed by the Environmental Protection Agency, and
Speaker 1: also the Arab oil Embargo from seventy three to seventy four,
Speaker 1: and then the Iranian Revolution from seventy seventy nine. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we had some major fuel crises in the United States
Speaker 1: and the seventies which really started the ball rolling. Things
Speaker 1: that have kept the ball rolling are everything from the
Speaker 1: domestic safety issue that I referred to earlier and the
Speaker 1: environmental issue as well as just people concerned with trying
Speaker 1: to find a way that would uh some sort of
Speaker 1: fuel that could be less expensive, less volatile in price
Speaker 1: than gasoline, right because between say seventy eight and one UM,
Speaker 1: the cost of oil per barrel skyrocketed from fourteen dollars
Speaker 1: to over thirty five. Well, I remember when I first
Speaker 1: moved to Atlanta, gasoline was eighty five cents a gallon.
Speaker 1: I I love watching things like a like die Hard
Speaker 1: where suddenly it pans past a gas station and you
Speaker 1: know that it's that it was before our time, because
Speaker 1: it's like seventy nine cents a gallon. Yeah, now it's
Speaker 1: over you know, three dollars a gallon easily in most
Speaker 1: of the United States. And now that we should complain
Speaker 1: about that because in Europe it's much much much higher,
Speaker 1: right right, But again, but anyway, sign of the times.
Speaker 1: So so biodiesel is interesting and that this is diesel
Speaker 1: fuel that's manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats, and even
Speaker 1: recycled restaurant grease. I remember reading a news report a
Speaker 1: few years ago, uh, an article in Creative Loafing, which
Speaker 1: is a local weekly paper here in Atlanta, and it
Speaker 1: was a feature on a guy out in Athens who
Speaker 1: had had tinkered with his car so that it could
Speaker 1: accept a form of restaurant grease with minimum amount of processing.
Speaker 1: So he was actually using biodiesel and kind of the
Speaker 1: issues he was running into on the official end because
Speaker 1: this was all kind of um from a tinkerer's perspective
Speaker 1: as opposed to this is something that was fully supported
Speaker 1: by an infrastructure. But the idea here is that you're
Speaker 1: using this stuff, this renewable resource, because there's you know,
Speaker 1: we can keep growing more vegetables or animals or McDonald's,
Speaker 1: and then we get the stuff from it, this grease
Speaker 1: or or fat or oil and process it and in
Speaker 1: that processing we then end up with this biodiesel. It's
Speaker 1: a biodegradable fuel. Uh, it's non toxic, so less toxic
Speaker 1: than say table salt, which is great, you know, right,
Speaker 1: you know, you have a massive biodegrade or biodesel fuel spill.
Speaker 1: It is biodegradable, it's non toxic, and it makes the
Speaker 1: highway small like French fries. So really, I mean who
Speaker 1: loses which which isn't to say that that a giant
Speaker 1: oil spill of this stuff would be happy for the environment.
Speaker 1: It's not going to like moisturize all of the seal's
Speaker 1: faces or anything like that, but it's just you know,
Speaker 1: but but it's a little bit less scary and easier
Speaker 1: to clean up. Yeah, it's considered to have a lower
Speaker 1: environmental impact from that perspective, and you still have to
Speaker 1: have processes stuff, so you still have to put energy
Speaker 1: into the system, just like you do with ethanol. So
Speaker 1: don't don't think that this takes fossil fuels out entirely,
Speaker 1: and in fact, just like ethanol, biodiesel is something that
Speaker 1: is frequently blended with petroleum based diesel, so they're different blends. Um,
Speaker 1: there's uh, there's B two which is only two percent
Speaker 1: biodiesel and percent petroleum based diesel, B five which is
Speaker 1: five percent biodiesel, and B twenty, which is biodiesel. You
Speaker 1: can get B one hundred, although I don't think there
Speaker 1: are any consumer vehicles that are that run on B
Speaker 1: one hundred, but B one hundred would be one percent
Speaker 1: pure biodiesel. Most vehicles in the United States don't go
Speaker 1: over B five as the the recommended blend for running
Speaker 1: into the engine. The engines that you know, the manufacturers
Speaker 1: say this engine was not designed to run anything with
Speaker 1: a greater than B five blend for biodiesel to diesel.
Speaker 1: But but even even those very small concentrations can make
Speaker 1: a very large difference in the way that the fuel burns. Right.
Speaker 1: In fact, again just like with ethanol, the biodiesel has
Speaker 1: a lower fuel economy than than pure diesel does. So
Speaker 1: for example, if you go with B one hundred, it's
Speaker 1: something like a ten percent lower fuel economy, right, which
Speaker 1: which means that it would take about one point one
Speaker 1: gallons of biodiesel to equal one gallon of standard right,
Speaker 1: whereas B twenty is more like just a two percent
Speaker 1: deficit in fuel economy. So obviously, when you're getting close
Speaker 1: to B five or B two, the change is negligible
Speaker 1: to the point where you probably wouldn't notice it that
Speaker 1: much unless you're really min maxing era. You're driving experience,
Speaker 1: and hardly anyone, I mean, there are people who do that.
Speaker 1: There's some people who go to some pretty extreme links
Speaker 1: to try and maximize fuel economy. My programmer friends sometimes
Speaker 1: get bored in their hybrid vehicles and do that. Also
Speaker 1: they're really tracking it. I think of the people who
Speaker 1: are drafting behind massive trucks. That's not a safe thing
Speaker 1: to do, by the way, But it does actually fuel economy,
Speaker 1: but it decreases your life expectancy, so uh. It does
Speaker 1: in general have fewer greenhouse gas and UH and pollutant
Speaker 1: emissions than diesel, although there is the possibility of an
Speaker 1: increase in nitrous oxide emissions. So it's not like this
Speaker 1: is across the board cleaner than petroleum based diesel. But
Speaker 1: for most of the types of emissions that we would
Speaker 1: consider harmful, it's better than the petroleum based one. It's
Speaker 1: just not hands down or runaway wins. So you can't
Speaker 1: just point it bio diesel and say this is this,
Speaker 1: this is the cure for our environmental problem, right right.
Speaker 1: It does. It does reduce carbon dioxide emissions, but that's
Speaker 1: a big one. I mean CEO two emissions, that's a
Speaker 1: big problem. And also they point out that really the
Speaker 1: CEO two emissions, the way that it quote unquote reduces them,
Speaker 1: in part is because you are you are creating feedstocks
Speaker 1: again in order to create the biodiesel, and by creating
Speaker 1: the feed stocks, you're creating carbon dioxide sinks, right right,
Speaker 1: you're offsetting some of that some of what's going to
Speaker 1: be burned later, right, Yeah, the stuff that's going to
Speaker 1: be released in the atmosphere is actually getting pulled in
Speaker 1: by the stuff that is turning into growing. So in
Speaker 1: this case, it's it's almost deceptive in a way to
Speaker 1: say lower carbon dioxide emissions, because part of that is
Speaker 1: due to the fact that they're saying, well, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: lower because this stuff is taking carbon dioxide in. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean you have to That's That's one of
Speaker 1: the other things that we'll be talking about in this
Speaker 1: podcast is you really have to look at the big picture.
Speaker 1: There's so many factors involved of you know, how how
Speaker 1: you create something, how you process it, and what ship it,
Speaker 1: how you ship it, oh yeah, yeah, and and what
Speaker 1: it does natural gas. It's going to be big on
Speaker 1: that one. And and and what it does to the
Speaker 1: environment overall. Um. Another benefit of biodiesel is that it acts.
Speaker 1: It's another thing that acts as a solvent in your engine,
Speaker 1: which which can again create some problems initially initially if
Speaker 1: you if you aren't um, watching out for your fuel
Speaker 1: pump and rubber rubber bits, right, and then once uh,
Speaker 1: once you do get all that cleaned out, all that gunk,
Speaker 1: that's in there, then it's it should run much more
Speaker 1: cleanly than a typical diesel engine would. And um, I
Speaker 1: mean a lot of people point out that this is
Speaker 1: one of those things that if we can figure out
Speaker 1: a way to make it work, it's a huge benefit
Speaker 1: because first of all, you're taking stuff that nobody wants
Speaker 1: used restaurant grease, you know, stuff that would you know,
Speaker 1: we we already have to figure out a way of
Speaker 1: disposing of that so it doesn't clog up drains or
Speaker 1: cause problems. If we can then take what would normally
Speaker 1: be a waste product and turn it into a few
Speaker 1: fuel product, then that's a win win in that scenario.
Speaker 1: Once you start looking outside that, that's when you're like,
Speaker 1: all right, but you have to take these other things
Speaker 1: into consideration. Well, yeah, you know, both both biodiesel and
Speaker 1: ethanol can be created from what we would normally be
Speaker 1: considered as waste crops um, you know, extra bits that
Speaker 1: we wouldn't really be using that would either you know,
Speaker 1: go into multure, a landfill or something. Although the ethanol argument,
Speaker 1: people get really up in arms about that because if
Speaker 1: you're talking about growing corn just for fuel, and then
Speaker 1: you take into account other things like starvation issues or
Speaker 1: you know, good or effective land use. Then that brings
Speaker 1: up another debate. But again I think that actually fits
Speaker 1: in our second episode, probably a little more. So we'll
Speaker 1: we'll say that, we'll we'll get on the soapbox for
Speaker 1: the second one. Will spare you that for right now.
Speaker 1: So that that's the biological stuff. Um, let's see, do
Speaker 1: you want to go right into the more fossil fuel
Speaker 1: oriented ones or do you want to do hydrogen next?
Speaker 1: Let's let's do I've got natural gas next on my paper.
Speaker 1: Let's do that. Then it so natural gas. We're primarily
Speaker 1: talking about methane here. Methane is one of those greenhouse
Speaker 1: gases that you hear about a lot. It actually has
Speaker 1: the capacity to do far more harm than carbon dioxide,
Speaker 1: but on a shorter time scale. So uh, it's greenhouse
Speaker 1: effect is greater than c O two. It does not
Speaker 1: stay in the atmosphere as long as c O two.
Speaker 1: But um, but that's one of those things that people
Speaker 1: will point out. But methane is a clear and odorless
Speaker 1: gas that might surprise you when you think of all
Speaker 1: the things that methane is said to be generated by. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: it on pure methane is it's clear and it's odorless.
Speaker 1: It's only gets odors from other things that are mixed
Speaker 1: in with it. Uh. It is normally sold in one
Speaker 1: of two forms, either compressed natural gas where you actually
Speaker 1: have it in compressed canisters in gas form YEP, or
Speaker 1: liquefied natural gas, which means that it's really compressed yeah,
Speaker 1: to the point where it's actually liquefied. Now we all
Speaker 1: know that, or if we don't, we will soon that
Speaker 1: when you compress gas enough, assuming that you've got the
Speaker 1: right uh set up here, you are actually pushing those
Speaker 1: gas atoms closer and closer together, and if you are
Speaker 1: in the right conditions, you can then eventually get add
Speaker 1: enough pressure where you can liquefy something. Now, once it
Speaker 1: is released from that pressure, assuming that the temperature outside
Speaker 1: of the pressurized compartment is greater than it's boiling point,
Speaker 1: it will then immediately boil off into gas. Uh. We
Speaker 1: see this with lots of different stuff. So, for example,
Speaker 1: liquid nitrogen, if it once it's removed from being pressurized,
Speaker 1: starts to boil off and it becomes a gaseous nitrogen,
Speaker 1: which is why why you know you you see that
Speaker 1: whenever you see any of those liquid nitrogen demonstrations. You
Speaker 1: just see this this pour of Yeah, that's that's UM
Speaker 1: part of this whole process. Well, anyway, methane is one
Speaker 1: of those that at room temperature is a gas. It's
Speaker 1: essentially carbon and four hydrogen atoms. That's your basic building
Speaker 1: block for methane and UM. It can be used either
Speaker 1: in vehicles that are dedicated to using natural gas, or
Speaker 1: it can be used in what is called a a
Speaker 1: duel or by fuel vehicle, which means they can use
Speaker 1: both um methane or gasoline or diesel, depending upon what
Speaker 1: the engine is. So. Uh, one of the reasons we
Speaker 1: could look at natural gas as being an alternative fuel
Speaker 1: is we produce a lot of it in the United States.
Speaker 1: A lot of nations produce a great deal of natural gas. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The thing about natural gases that it occurs naturally in
Speaker 1: association with crude oil. Usually when you tap into a
Speaker 1: into a well, you're going to get both crude oil
Speaker 1: and natural gas. Right, So it's a byproduct in that sense. So,
Speaker 1: but it's a byproduct that's useful. It's you know, it
Speaker 1: means that you get two things for one process. Right.
Speaker 1: We only started being able to use it, and I
Speaker 1: think about the nineties, which is when they started figuring
Speaker 1: out how to to basically bottle and transport it. Right,
Speaker 1: it's efficiently the whole process well processing natural gas so
Speaker 1: that you can actually draw it off of everything else
Speaker 1: and make it into a usable fuel. Um. About natural
Speaker 1: gas in the United States is domestically produced, so only
Speaker 1: six percent or so is imported from outside the US.
Speaker 1: Other nations produce all the natural gas they want, or
Speaker 1: some of them have to import quite a bit of it.
Speaker 1: And mostly in the US we use it for heating
Speaker 1: and cooking. Uh, there's it's used for electric power production
Speaker 1: and also in industrial uses. Very little of it is
Speaker 1: being used in transportation outside of a few notable instances
Speaker 1: like here in Atlanta, we have a public transportation system
Speaker 1: called Marta and a lot of the buses actually just
Speaker 1: I think just the buses, but yeah, I was about
Speaker 1: to say trains, and I was trying to catch myself,
Speaker 1: but yeah, the buses in mark on Marta for the
Speaker 1: most part are natural gas buses, so they are using
Speaker 1: this as their fuel. Uh. It tends to produce fewer
Speaker 1: smog producing pollutants by about depending upon the vehicle's calibration
Speaker 1: and the specific type of natural gas you're using, whether
Speaker 1: it's that compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas, as
Speaker 1: well as a few other variables. It also is about um, well,
Speaker 1: it produces five to nine percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions,
Speaker 1: so it's cleaner than gasoline. Um although you're still producing
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases. It's not like it's eliminating them all right, Right,
Speaker 1: It is still a fossil fuel, so even though it's
Speaker 1: an alternate, it's yeah, and that's another thing to remember.
Speaker 1: It is a fossil fuel. It's not it's not a
Speaker 1: renewable resource the way that that for example ethanol and
Speaker 1: bio diesel. Right exactly. It does tend to be cheaper
Speaker 1: than gasoline, so that's good. It does have lower energy
Speaker 1: content than gasoline, so just like the other ones we've mentioned.
Speaker 1: In fact, you're gonna see a runing theme here where
Speaker 1: the energy content of the fuel when you when you
Speaker 1: compare it to a comparable amount of gasoline is lower.
Speaker 1: One of the many reasons that gasoline became popular in
Speaker 1: the first place was that it was so so efficient. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I had a lot of it had a high energy
Speaker 1: density compared to other fuels, and uh, you know, it's
Speaker 1: another thing to keep in mind is that it's really
Speaker 1: hard to compare some of these fuels against gasoline because
Speaker 1: they are in different formats. Right, so, right, right, how
Speaker 1: do you how do you compare a gallon of air
Speaker 1: versus a gallon of liquid And you have to look
Speaker 1: at cubic feet of gas versus a gallon of liquid.
Speaker 1: It's it becomes very difficult to make a meaningful comparison.
Speaker 1: Same sort of thing will come true in in hydrogen,
Speaker 1: but I'll talk about that when we get there. Right,
Speaker 1: the real measure that we can figure out is um
Speaker 1: and just kind of how many how many miles per
Speaker 1: gallon you get off of it? And and even then
Speaker 1: you start to be affected by things like the fact
Speaker 1: that natural gas tanks can be very heavy um and
Speaker 1: and drag down the efficiency would be a you might,
Speaker 1: you might. I think for me, the best measurement I
Speaker 1: would be able to say is if you had two
Speaker 1: vehicles that were of comparable weight and design, and they
Speaker 1: were both fully fueled with whatever fuel they had, how
Speaker 1: far could they get before you had to call Mom
Speaker 1: to come pick you up? And if that number is
Speaker 1: greater with gasoline. Than then you say, all right, well,
Speaker 1: if you're talking about a fully fueled vehicle, whatever, the
Speaker 1: definition of that is, whatever kind of tank it is
Speaker 1: is filled up right, and that and that tank the
Speaker 1: two exactly our fuel cell. The two the two vehicles
Speaker 1: are of equivalent weight and design because you have to
Speaker 1: figure the design too. I mean, if one of them
Speaker 1: is if they both weigh the same, but one of
Speaker 1: them is essentially a wall and the other one is
Speaker 1: a super sleek car, then obviously that's going to play
Speaker 1: a part. It's one if one way is like a
Speaker 1: best spun, the other is a STV, right right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: these are these are This just just shows you how
Speaker 1: complex this problem is. It really is one of those
Speaker 1: things where if you look at it just on the
Speaker 1: surface and you say, oh, this has fewer greenhouse gas
Speaker 1: emissions and uh and and it's not nearly as many
Speaker 1: particulars that we should use this all the time, and
Speaker 1: then you look at all the factors. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: complicated problem. I'm glad that this I'm glad I just
Speaker 1: get to pay to talk about it as opposed to
Speaker 1: have to make the decisions. All right. Before the break,
Speaker 1: we talked about natural gas. Let's talk about another type
Speaker 1: of fossil fuel, propane, which is also called liquefied petroleum
Speaker 1: gas UM. You know, we talked about how natural gas
Speaker 1: we we can find that in the same places that
Speaker 1: we find oil. Propane is actually something that is truly
Speaker 1: a byproduct of natural gas, processing of yeah, or or
Speaker 1: even of crude oil. So we can get it from
Speaker 1: processing natural gas or crude oil. Propane is h is
Speaker 1: this colorless and odorless fuel very much, you know, just
Speaker 1: as methane is colorless and odorless. By the way, if
Speaker 1: you if you're wondering how is this possible? Because I
Speaker 1: know the smell of things like natural gas, that's because uh,
Speaker 1: odorance are actually mixed in with that that fuel. So
Speaker 1: they're so dangerous that if if they weren't, then if
Speaker 1: you got a leak, it's a lot easier to send
Speaker 1: detect a leak than to die of overexposure. You would
Speaker 1: want there to be some way of detecting it apart
Speaker 1: from a spark ends up igniting a huge explosion obviously,
Speaker 1: so by mixing odorance, and it's really just to alert
Speaker 1: safety measure to its presence. Um. Right, So propane and
Speaker 1: butane um, which you know, is used in in lighter
Speaker 1: fluid are both collected during the production of natural gas
Speaker 1: and oil refinery in order to prevent them from condensing
Speaker 1: and causing processing difficulties. Right, so we can actually use
Speaker 1: this in other formats as well, other other uses. So
Speaker 1: in the United States, for example, propanes used in home
Speaker 1: and water heating. It's used in cooking as a strickland,
Speaker 1: I am very well aware of propane and propane accessories.
Speaker 1: That joke was never funny. And then it's also used
Speaker 1: in refrigerating and clothes drying and farm in industrial equipment,
Speaker 1: and even in drying corn. That's mainly what we use
Speaker 1: it for here in the United States. The propane here
Speaker 1: in the US comes from domestic sources, so again we've
Speaker 1: mostly we've produce it ourselves here in the US, and
Speaker 1: we don't import that much compared to the stuff we produce. UH.
Speaker 1: As a fuel, it does have lower carbon dioxide emissions
Speaker 1: than gasoline, but it also has a lower energy content. Yes,
Speaker 1: so again if you're if you're talking about a fully
Speaker 1: fueled vehicle with propane versus a fully fueled vehicle with gasoline,
Speaker 1: you may not be able to go as far in
Speaker 1: the propane vehicle. Uh. It also can emit fewer carbon
Speaker 1: monoxide and non methane hydrocarbon emissions, so it's also cleaner
Speaker 1: in that respect. It tends to be less expensive than gasoline,
Speaker 1: although that price can fluctuate over time, right, right, even
Speaker 1: even for the course of a year, especially here in
Speaker 1: the U S where we use it a lot for heating,
Speaker 1: it can be very much mar pensive than gasoline in
Speaker 1: the winter, and then very much cheaper in the summer. Yep.
Speaker 1: All depends on on when and where you're you're picking
Speaker 1: it up. Uh. And it's um, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: got a higher octane than gasoline does, but like you said,
Speaker 1: has a lower fuel economy, so it does have a
Speaker 1: trade off. And it's a fossil fuel, you know, just
Speaker 1: like natural gas is a fossil fuel. So it is
Speaker 1: technically non renewable, right, So renewable over the course of
Speaker 1: billions of years, right right, It's it's not renewable on
Speaker 1: any kind of time frame that does us any good
Speaker 1: whatsoever until we hit that fancy singularity thing that's coming
Speaker 1: in twenty to forty years, right. And and like like
Speaker 1: the compressed natural gas, you have to worry about how
Speaker 1: you're going to actually store this stuff. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not the same as the liquid gasoline that we can
Speaker 1: pump into a car, right right, It has to be
Speaker 1: pressurized and compressed essentially. So yeah, it's it's you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's usually under when you get a propane it's
Speaker 1: usually a propane tank that's under a big, heavy tanks. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So so refueling be an issue, just as it would
Speaker 1: be with some of the other alternatives we talked about.
Speaker 1: Ethanol and biodiesel are again the most like gasoline, so
Speaker 1: that you're the most compatible with current engine designs and
Speaker 1: infrastructure infrastructure, right yeah. So so in this case, if
Speaker 1: we were to make a switch to propane, then it
Speaker 1: would require us to rethink how we package and deliver
Speaker 1: and and consume this stuff, and how how would you
Speaker 1: refuel your vehicle? Would it require you to get the
Speaker 1: assistance of a couple of burly dudes? Probably would for me,
Speaker 1: I don't have a large lifting capacity, so uh. But
Speaker 1: that that's kind of the low down on propane. And
Speaker 1: now we're going to talk a little bit about one
Speaker 1: of my favorite elements of all time, which is good
Speaker 1: because it's also one of the It is the most
Speaker 1: abundant in the universe. Hydrogen. Hydrogen, yes, hydrogen, of course
Speaker 1: is the fuel that we think about when we think
Speaker 1: about what the sun is doing, where it's taking hydrogen
Speaker 1: and fusing it into helium millions of degrees doom. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't, I can't not do that. We've done that
Speaker 1: before in the podcast. I know. Don't write in and
Speaker 1: tell us that we did that joke already. We know
Speaker 1: we did. They might they might be. Giants are awesome,
Speaker 1: and we're not sorry. No, we're not even a little sorry.
Speaker 1: So and we'll probably do it again in a future episode,
Speaker 1: maybe even in the next one, who knows. But at
Speaker 1: any rate, hydrogen can be used as a fuel in
Speaker 1: a couple of different ways. You could just burn it
Speaker 1: in an internal combustion engine. It is combustible. Uh, if
Speaker 1: you were to do that, it would actually produce some
Speaker 1: nitrous ox side as an as one of the things
Speaker 1: that would emit a pollutant. But another way you could
Speaker 1: use hydrogen is in a fuel cell. Hydrogen and a
Speaker 1: fuel cells are really cool idea. It's not practical, but
Speaker 1: at the moment, but we'll talk about that in a
Speaker 1: little bit. First of all, the ideas that with a
Speaker 1: fuel cell, you've got essentially a membrane and you have
Speaker 1: hydrogen on one side of this membrane and oxygen on
Speaker 1: the other side the membrane, and that membrane allows ions
Speaker 1: to pass through but not electrons. So the hydrogen really
Speaker 1: wants to get over to where the oxygen is. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a catalyst that's on this membrane, there's an
Speaker 1: electro light on the membrane. It's all going to facilitate
Speaker 1: this this chemical reaction that's going to happen. Actually, this
Speaker 1: this physical reaction really that happens. So since the hydrogen
Speaker 1: wants to go and party with the oxygen and the
Speaker 1: the electrons are being a total pill about it, they
Speaker 1: ditch the electrons and then they go right on through
Speaker 1: that that member membrane, which is kind of like the
Speaker 1: bouncer at a club, right. You know, you want to
Speaker 1: get in the club, but you brought your you know,
Speaker 1: dorky friend who is totally not club material. So your
Speaker 1: choice is either leave the club or ditch the dorky friend.
Speaker 1: Hydrogen ditches the dorky electron friend and goes into the
Speaker 1: club and parties with the oxygen. The electrons are thinking, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not having none of that. I will get into
Speaker 1: that club. I'm just using the back door. The back
Speaker 1: door in this case is going through some form of circuit,
Speaker 1: and then once it goes to the circuit, it comes
Speaker 1: to the other side of the fuel cell rejoins the
Speaker 1: hydrogen and oxygen says, didn't get rid of me after all,
Speaker 1: did you? And then they all have a big water
Speaker 1: party because at that point you have H two O. Right. Yes,
Speaker 1: this is called electrochemical conversion. I like my version where
Speaker 1: it's a club. I like that better too. Okay, at
Speaker 1: any rate, so the output here is really interesting. You
Speaker 1: get electricity, you get water, and you get heat. Heat
Speaker 1: is a byproduct as well. So a lot of people
Speaker 1: have said fuel cells, that's gotta be the way to
Speaker 1: the future, because think about it, you don't have to
Speaker 1: worry about any greenhouse gas emissions except for water vapor,
Speaker 1: which is a greenhouse gas, but it can easily be
Speaker 1: incorporated into the water cycle, um, whereas you know other
Speaker 1: ones can't. Uh. And the idea that it's a contained cell,
Speaker 1: you're you're using the same product over and over again. Well, yeah, essentially,
Speaker 1: what happens is you get the water in the fuel cell,
Speaker 1: and then you have to refuel the fuel cell with
Speaker 1: more hydrogen. Uh. And then the question is, all right,
Speaker 1: where do you get the hydrogen? Uh Huh. There's the
Speaker 1: rub because it turns out hydrogen, while plentiful, tends to
Speaker 1: buddy up with just about everything which is which which
Speaker 1: is a how you get the water. But but you
Speaker 1: know you can extract hydrogen from water, but you have
Speaker 1: to expel energy to do that. So the question then
Speaker 1: is like, is it more efficient for you to free
Speaker 1: up that hydrogen so that you can get that pure
Speaker 1: hydrogen you need for the fuel cell. Is the energy
Speaker 1: that you're pouring in to get the hydrogen more than
Speaker 1: the benefit you're getting from the fuel cell. If it is,
Speaker 1: then it's an energy sink, like we talked about at
Speaker 1: the top of the podcast. And with hydrogen that tends
Speaker 1: to be the problem is that how do you get
Speaker 1: lots of pure hydrogen? It doesn't occur that that often
Speaker 1: here on on Earth. Yeah, not in its unbound form.
Speaker 1: It's almost always bound with something else. So you have
Speaker 1: to find a way of breaking those molecular bonds to
Speaker 1: free up that hydrogen that that requires you to put
Speaker 1: forth a little effort, and that's that's where the that's
Speaker 1: where the problem is, all right. I think the other
Speaker 1: big problem with high rygen is is a perception concept
Speaker 1: because you know, people think hydrogen and sometimes they think
Speaker 1: Hindenburg and then they think oh the humanity and yeah,
Speaker 1: and that's and you know it's I mean, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: the Hindenburg was filled with hydrogen, but but really the
Speaker 1: problem there was the aluminum powder coating and yeah, and
Speaker 1: various other explosive properties that they weren't really thinking about
Speaker 1: too hard. Right. It also depends on whether it's an
Speaker 1: internal combustion engine use of hydrogen or fuel cell use
Speaker 1: of hydrogen, but it still does have you know issues.
Speaker 1: Procity totten really fast. How do you store it and
Speaker 1: how do you make sure it gets to the fuel
Speaker 1: cell safely? Or do you just replace fuel cells? Is
Speaker 1: that the way you refuel your fuel cell vehicle? And
Speaker 1: if so, do you need to get those burly guys
Speaker 1: back over at the refueling station because you know, these
Speaker 1: things get heavy. Remember, you know, when we're talking about
Speaker 1: a fuel cell, that's one unit of what would be
Speaker 1: essentially a huge stack of these things that yeah, because
Speaker 1: if you just if you just plug one and it's
Speaker 1: not going to get you very far, but you have
Speaker 1: very much juice at all. Yeah yeah, um and and
Speaker 1: and it would require something like like a giant steel
Speaker 1: tank in order to create something sturdy enough to house
Speaker 1: this kind of this kind of gas now hydrogen. And
Speaker 1: of course, and the heavier you make the vehicle, the
Speaker 1: more power you need to move the vehicle. So it
Speaker 1: becomes this kind of this that you're chasing, this constant
Speaker 1: problem that just shifts where the problem actually is. Right,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, I solve this, but oh now this
Speaker 1: is the issue. Uh, this is something engineer struggle with
Speaker 1: all the time, not just in vehicle design or alternative fuels,
Speaker 1: but all sorts of applications. Now, hydrogen does contain less
Speaker 1: energy than gasoline if you're talking about by volume, if
Speaker 1: you're talking about by weight, hydrogen has the highest energy
Speaker 1: content of any fuel. But here's the thing. Hydrogen's really, really,
Speaker 1: really light. It's the lightest element. So when you're talking
Speaker 1: about getting a lot of hydrogen together before it makes
Speaker 1: a weight of any appreciable amount, that's a lot of hydrogen.
Speaker 1: So that's why you talk about it being a low
Speaker 1: energy by volume as opposed to a high energy by weight.
Speaker 1: When you when you get enough for you to compare
Speaker 1: the hydrogen versus the gasoline, it doesn't bigger than the car.
Speaker 1: Probably it's it's that's the big issue, or one of
Speaker 1: the many issues really in high In the United States,
Speaker 1: hydrogen is mostly used to refine petroleum, to treat metals,
Speaker 1: and also to produce fertilizer. So, um, that's the other
Speaker 1: thing is that you always have to think about how
Speaker 1: we're what we are using this stuff for currently and uh,
Speaker 1: then thinking about the added stress we would put on them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about more than in the in the
Speaker 1: next episode. So this leaves us with our final alternative fuel,
Speaker 1: which is not it's not really a fuel, not in
Speaker 1: the sense of the others, and we've already kind of
Speaker 1: touched on it with hydrogen fuel cells, but it's electricity.
Speaker 1: And electricity is just another are alternative to making your
Speaker 1: cars go. And the interesting thing here is, of course,
Speaker 1: for those of you who know your history with cars,
Speaker 1: some of the first vehicles were electrical. Yeah, electric cars
Speaker 1: actually pre date the gasoline powered cars. Uh, but electric
Speaker 1: cars were while they were early versions of personal vehicles
Speaker 1: they were a little limited. You were limited pretty much
Speaker 1: by the area that you could drive in, and that
Speaker 1: was mostly in cities, because they had the capacity to
Speaker 1: generate and distribute the electricity that you would need to
Speaker 1: to recharge your vehicle. Um once people got it into
Speaker 1: their heads, this crazy notion of hey, this vehicle would
Speaker 1: actually allow me to go and explore beyond just getting
Speaker 1: from point A to point B in my city, but
Speaker 1: out somewhere, maybe not across the wild beyond. Right, I've
Speaker 1: always I've always wanted to drive from New York to
Speaker 1: you know, uh to Chicago. Then you would need some
Speaker 1: thing that would allow you to uh to get further
Speaker 1: than that, or you would have to have some sort
Speaker 1: of infrastructure in place that could allow you to refuel.
Speaker 1: And that's kind of how gasoline took over. Now these
Speaker 1: these days, of course, there are lots of hybrid vehicles
Speaker 1: and a few all electric vehicles, and we are creating
Speaker 1: more of an infrastructure around those for charging stations in between,
Speaker 1: you know, so that if you don't happen to have
Speaker 1: a house once every thirty miles along your route, right, yeah,
Speaker 1: you can't just you know, sneakily plug in your vehicle
Speaker 1: to whatever outlet happens to be nearby. Uh, yeah, you can.
Speaker 1: You can support it through these official infrastructure utilities that
Speaker 1: are out there. Also, there's uh, there are other innovations
Speaker 1: like regenerative breaking, where you've get some which you save
Speaker 1: up some the kinetic energy that you create from breaking
Speaker 1: or from and normally you would just you would just
Speaker 1: lose that energy. That energy would normally just be converted
Speaker 1: into heat and you would lose it. But with regenerative breaking,
Speaker 1: you're actually capturing some of that energy that otherwise would
Speaker 1: just go into heat, and you can put that back
Speaker 1: into the battery. Now, of course there's no way to
Speaker 1: completely eliminate heat. If we could, we'd have the perfect
Speaker 1: closed system and every time we use the brakes, we
Speaker 1: would capture all of that energy and put it right
Speaker 1: back into the battery. Doesn't mean that you would even
Speaker 1: you would never have to recharge the battery, but it
Speaker 1: would mean that you could do it. We could go
Speaker 1: for a really long time. Yeah, but it turns out,
Speaker 1: you know, we can't do that. We can't press you.
Speaker 1: Oh your thermodynamics. Um, I blame Newton. Really, it's his fault.
Speaker 1: If that apple had not hit his head. And he
Speaker 1: had just stuck with figs, we would have been I
Speaker 1: think I'm mixing things up anyway. So, uh So, getting
Speaker 1: back into electricity, the nice thing about an electrical car
Speaker 1: is that you really have no appreciable emissions to speak of. Right,
Speaker 1: you know, you do have to worry about whatever the
Speaker 1: battery is made out of, if that stuff is toxic
Speaker 1: or dangerous, and how do you dispose of that once
Speaker 1: you need to eventually replace it and keeping in my
Speaker 1: and you can charge and drain a battery a lot
Speaker 1: of several times, but eventually you will need to replace it. Um.
Speaker 1: So there that's a concern on top of that. Just
Speaker 1: because your car is clean, like the the electricity isn't
Speaker 1: producing any sort of appreciable emissions, doesn't mean that there
Speaker 1: were no emissions created during the processing of that battery, yeah,
Speaker 1: or of the electricity that you put into that battery,
Speaker 1: right yeah, because because how does you know, how does
Speaker 1: power get to your house? Yeah? If you if your
Speaker 1: power is coming from a coal powered plant, then the
Speaker 1: fact that your car is not emitting greenhouse gases or
Speaker 1: pollutants is nice, but it's still getting its energy from
Speaker 1: a source that really is producing a lot of greenhouse
Speaker 1: gases and pollutants. So in a way, the way I
Speaker 1: like to say is that it kind of shifts the
Speaker 1: burden the responsibility to a different party. But it's all
Speaker 1: dull part of this overall system. So again, if your goal,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't necessarily mean that your goal to switch
Speaker 1: from one fuel to an alternative, it doesn't necessarily have
Speaker 1: to be environmental. But if it is environmental, switching all
Speaker 1: of this other stuff into consider it. You can't just
Speaker 1: switch to electrical and think I am now saving the world.
Speaker 1: It all depends on how the energy is produced. Now,
Speaker 1: if your energy is being produced by plants that are
Speaker 1: mainly using hydro power or geothermal power, or solar or
Speaker 1: wind power. First of all, I'm amazed, uh, not so
Speaker 1: much with the hydro power. There are quite a few
Speaker 1: facilities that use that. But but you know, if most
Speaker 1: people aren't off the grid enough and most people, yeah,
Speaker 1: but most areas are not in the US anyway, are
Speaker 1: not using that kind of power for yeah, I mean generation.
Speaker 1: Not everyone has access to the kind of stuff. Like
Speaker 1: you know, if you're using hydro power, you've got to
Speaker 1: have access to a great amount of water that's in motion.
Speaker 1: If you happen to be in a part of the
Speaker 1: United States or the world in general that is not
Speaker 1: close to any sort of major river or or title
Speaker 1: motion or anything like that where you can harness this,
Speaker 1: then you have to find something else to create your electricity.
Speaker 1: It's not even that you're necessarily you know, uh, part
Speaker 1: of the what what some people think of as a
Speaker 1: giant conspiracy among car companies and oil companies and that
Speaker 1: sort of thing. Personally, I don't believe that conspiracy really exists.
Speaker 1: I believe that there are a lot of companies out
Speaker 1: there that have interests and they will lobby to have
Speaker 1: those interests protected. But I don't think it goes so
Speaker 1: far as to let us suppress all innovation. They don't
Speaker 1: need to, and we'll talk about more about that in
Speaker 1: the next podcast. But but at any rate, so, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's a lack of availability of um of of
Speaker 1: a rare earth elements to to help things like photovoltaics
Speaker 1: and and be um just just access to the natural
Speaker 1: resources needed to to really collect wind on a wind
Speaker 1: farm or solar energy exactly. Yeah, you may not be
Speaker 1: in a part of the world that is conducive to
Speaker 1: any of that, so you have to get it somehow. So, yeah,
Speaker 1: electricity is good in theory, but again it all depends
Speaker 1: on how that electricity was generated, whether or not you
Speaker 1: are net doing a service to the environment. And again
Speaker 1: if if that's not your concern, if the environment isn't
Speaker 1: the reason you're switching to an alternative fuel, this is
Speaker 1: a moot discussion in the first place, because, like we said,
Speaker 1: there are lots of different reasons. All right, So that
Speaker 1: is the overview. Do you have anything else about electricity
Speaker 1: you wanted to add? Excellent? Alright, So we have covered
Speaker 1: the various alternatives that are typically talked about when we
Speaker 1: talk about alternative fuel. In our next episode, we're really
Speaker 1: going to cover why is gasoline something that we really
Speaker 1: depend on? We've touched on a lot of it already,
Speaker 1: and talk about what are the big challenges to moving
Speaker 1: to a gasoline free fuel system? And there are quite
Speaker 1: a few challenges, as it turns out, but we'll cover
Speaker 1: that in our next episode. If you guys have any
Speaker 1: suggestions for future episodes that we should cover here on
Speaker 1: Tech Stuff, please let us know. A lot of you
Speaker 1: been writing in and giving us some great suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics. Thank you so much for all of your
Speaker 1: all of your letters. Yeah, we really appreciate it. We've
Speaker 1: been adding to the list, and trust us, that list
Speaker 1: is very important to us because it means that we
Speaker 1: don't have to sit there and invent stuff. We already
Speaker 1: know what you want to hear, and when we know
Speaker 1: what you want to hear, it makes it better for everybody.
Speaker 1: So keep that up. Let us know, send us an email,
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Speaker 1: is text stuff H. S. W and Lauren and I
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