Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with text stuff from how
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Hey, they're and welcome to tech Stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm Jonathan Strickland and I'm Lauren, and we're going to
Speaker 1: have part two of our discussion on alternative fuels. Yes,
Speaker 1: in our in our first part, we went over some
Speaker 1: of the commons alternates that are or the common alternates
Speaker 1: really that are going on, which are bio diesel, ethanol, hydrogen,
Speaker 1: natural gas, propane, and electricity. Wow you row them off? Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's exactly what we talked about. And now in this episode,
Speaker 1: we really want to focus on what are the challenges
Speaker 1: of getting away from a gasoline based fuel and really
Speaker 1: focusing on one of these alternatives to make the alternative
Speaker 1: actually the primary as opposed to just an alternative, right,
Speaker 1: because a lot of these seem like really good ideas
Speaker 1: in theory kind of sort of you know, it's they
Speaker 1: they burned cleaner and are it's some of them are renewable,
Speaker 1: which is great, right, But there's some challenges, I mean,
Speaker 1: some major challenges, and such is why they haven't taken
Speaker 1: every yet. Yeah, that's that's one of the many reasons.
Speaker 1: And and it's we think it's important to keep in
Speaker 1: mind what those challenges are, because it gives you a
Speaker 1: more realistic view of what you need to do in
Speaker 1: order to to make this happen. It's not that I
Speaker 1: think that we shouldn't switch from gasoline to something else.
Speaker 1: It's just that I think that it's important that we
Speaker 1: are honest with ourselves so that way we can come
Speaker 1: to the right decision when it comes to figuring out
Speaker 1: what the alternative should be for everybody. Now, from an
Speaker 1: individual basis, this is a much easier decision if you
Speaker 1: have the means to to buy the sort of vehicle
Speaker 1: you want to sure as as a single consumer. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, with with these options available to you can
Speaker 1: make you can make any number of decisions. Right. You
Speaker 1: could get one of those f f vs we talked
Speaker 1: about and use a higher blend of ethanol. You might
Speaker 1: be able to get a car that can run bio
Speaker 1: diesel with a decent be blend. Or you might get
Speaker 1: an electric vehicle. You know, there are a lot of
Speaker 1: different options open to you. But if we're talking about
Speaker 1: rolling this out to a wide yeah, but that countrywider
Speaker 1: or globally. Um. You know, the reason that gasoline caught
Speaker 1: on was that it was the cheapest and most efficient
Speaker 1: fuel available at the time, and that hasn't changed enough.
Speaker 1: And it's had more than a century to become a
Speaker 1: a an institutionalized infrastructure, something that is so established and
Speaker 1: so central to the way we do everything from transportation
Speaker 1: to UH to other kinds of commerce, that it's no
Speaker 1: surprise that it will be very difficult to displace gasoline.
Speaker 1: It's just we We've invested countless billions of dollars around
Speaker 1: the globe, not just here in the United States, in
Speaker 1: this infrastructure, and it's it's got a lot of momentum
Speaker 1: behind it. So how do how do we replace it?
Speaker 1: And why would we even want to? So I think
Speaker 1: first we should probably look at the WISE and then
Speaker 1: look at how because and I put the big question
Speaker 1: mark because it's it's a it's a tough question. So
Speaker 1: we kind of divided up the WISE into three major categories,
Speaker 1: and um, you know, you have to ask yourself this question,
Speaker 1: why do you want to get off gasoline? Because the
Speaker 1: answer to that will determine in part which alternative fuels
Speaker 1: with right right, Because one alternative fuel might be great
Speaker 1: for one part of this answer, but not so great
Speaker 1: for another. So one of the ones I think leaps
Speaker 1: to mind for a lot of people is the environmental
Speaker 1: impact of petroleum based products and how using a combustible
Speaker 1: engine and burning this stuff means we create a lot
Speaker 1: of emissions that are pollutants that are toxic, that are
Speaker 1: greenhouse gases that can affect client change. These are all
Speaker 1: things that a lot of people keep in mind when
Speaker 1: they're talking about we need an alternative fuel source. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and a lot of these alternative fuel sources are really
Speaker 1: good about that. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, we remember we
Speaker 1: divided these up in the previous episode in large categories.
Speaker 1: So for example, we had biofuels, and biofuels are things
Speaker 1: like biodiesel, which is made out of animal fats or
Speaker 1: vegetable oils or even recycled restaurant grease and then process
Speaker 1: to become a diesel fuel. Most often it is blended
Speaker 1: with actual petroleum based diesel uh, and it tends to
Speaker 1: emit fewer pollutants. The higher the concentration of biodiesel, the
Speaker 1: fewer pollutants it tends to emit, And the downside is
Speaker 1: the less energy dense it tends to be. So, in
Speaker 1: other words, honestly true, for I think everything that we
Speaker 1: were talking about in the last episode. Everything everything tends
Speaker 1: to be if it's if it's something that's mixed with
Speaker 1: gasoline or diesel, then it tends to be have have
Speaker 1: higher energy density. The more the petroleum based product is
Speaker 1: mixed in, the less of it. That's they're the less
Speaker 1: uh dense as far as energy is concerned. The fuel
Speaker 1: is so you don't go as far on a full
Speaker 1: tank if you're using pure biodiesel as you would if
Speaker 1: you were used a blend that only had a small
Speaker 1: amount of biodiesel in it. Same thing is true of ethanol,
Speaker 1: which is with gasoline. This is ethyl alcohol that you
Speaker 1: would mix with gasoline. Increases the octane, lowers the energy density. Um.
Speaker 1: So they both tend to emit fewer pollutants than pure
Speaker 1: gasoline or pure diesel. Are a few fewer carbon dioxide, yeah,
Speaker 1: I fewer carbon dioxide emissions. You do have to keep
Speaker 1: in mind that some of these could emit completely different
Speaker 1: chemicals that could be you know, toxic in their own way.
Speaker 1: But biodiesel, for example, is non toxic. It's biodegradable. Uh.
Speaker 1: The emissions tend to be much less severe than the
Speaker 1: petroleum based ones. It still does emit some toxins and
Speaker 1: some pollutants, just not nearly as much as the petroleum
Speaker 1: based kind. Same thing as is more or less true
Speaker 1: of ethanol. The higher concentration of ethanol you go anyway,
Speaker 1: lower concentrations means that there's enough gasoline there for uh
Speaker 1: for you to emit fewer but not zero emissions. And
Speaker 1: then you've got the fossil fuels. So you've got the
Speaker 1: biofuels with biodiesel and ethanol. You have the fossil fuels
Speaker 1: that includes natural gas and propane also known as liquid
Speaker 1: petroleum gas. Both of these are well natural gas we
Speaker 1: find when we're also mining for crude oil, and propane
Speaker 1: is something we get through the whole processing of natural
Speaker 1: gas and crude oil, the refining of crude oil. So
Speaker 1: both of these are in a way kind of like
Speaker 1: byproducts of going after oil. And although you couldn't have
Speaker 1: a mind that's just for natural gas as well, you can. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so these could still produce pollutants. They do tend to
Speaker 1: produce fewer pollutants than gasoline or d easel, but they
Speaker 1: still do produce pollutants, and sometimes again the shift is
Speaker 1: on different pollutants than it would be with a gasoline
Speaker 1: based engine or a diesel based engine. So environmentally, uh,
Speaker 1: it goes uh, it's it's still I think favorable, but
Speaker 1: it's not a great solution. In other words, you're slowing
Speaker 1: down the amount of emissions you are putting out into
Speaker 1: the environment, but you're not eliminating and so you're still right,
Speaker 1: um and and also you know, the the other trade
Speaker 1: off is that you're getting less energy out of it.
Speaker 1: Again again the same sort of thing where you you
Speaker 1: cannot go as far, so you have to use more
Speaker 1: fuel to go the same distance as you would with
Speaker 1: a gasoline or diesel powered vehicle. Then you have hydrogen.
Speaker 1: If you're using it in an internal combustion engine, you
Speaker 1: are emitting nitrous or nitrogen oxide I should say not
Speaker 1: nitrous oxide a little bit different, but nitrogen oxide. And
Speaker 1: it's a uh that you know, that's a pollutant. So
Speaker 1: that's a problem. But if you are using it as
Speaker 1: a fuel cell, the only real emissions you have are
Speaker 1: heat and water. Yeah, so water vapor is a greenhouse gas,
Speaker 1: but it can be incorporated into the water cycle a
Speaker 1: little more readily than say anything else. So anyway, carbon monoxide,
Speaker 1: carbon monoxide not not, so it's much better than carbon monoxide. Um,
Speaker 1: so you've got uh that as a benefit. But then
Speaker 1: the downside that we've mentioned before is that in order
Speaker 1: to get hydrogen, you have to pour energy into stuff
Speaker 1: to break molecular bonds to free up the hydrogen in
Speaker 1: the first place, because it doesn't really appear unbonded to
Speaker 1: stuff in any great amount on Earth right right once
Speaker 1: you once you're burning it, it's fairly efficient. But but
Speaker 1: to get it to the state where you can, yeah,
Speaker 1: you have to use a lot of energy. So if
Speaker 1: that energy is coming from fossil fuels, this is true
Speaker 1: by the way of all of the different ones we're
Speaker 1: talking about biofuels, uh, the natural gas or propane, we
Speaker 1: have to use energy to get at this fuel and
Speaker 1: process this fuel before we can use it in any
Speaker 1: sort of vehicle. Right. That The thing is with with
Speaker 1: gasoline is that all of that work was done by
Speaker 1: the Earth of the course of billions and billions of years.
Speaker 1: Although we do have to process oil to make it, guess,
Speaker 1: but a lot less than we do for for for
Speaker 1: bio fuels or ethanol. So it's it's one of those
Speaker 1: things where uh, if that energy to do the processing
Speaker 1: is also coming from fossil fuels, then you have to
Speaker 1: worry about the environmental environmental impact of the processing part
Speaker 1: of this as opposed to the fuel part, which is
Speaker 1: the direct effect of electricity. Because electric electrically run vehicles. Um,
Speaker 1: you know you're plugging them into a wall. Where is
Speaker 1: the electricity coming to you from that wall? Right? Um,
Speaker 1: if it's a coal processing plant, then you're not really
Speaker 1: doing anything. Yeah, you're just uh, the pollution has just
Speaker 1: been shift. But if it's if it's one of those things,
Speaker 1: like you know, you're getting it from solar power or
Speaker 1: wind power or whatever, then the electric car is a
Speaker 1: great choice because you are not really putting out any
Speaker 1: appreciable amount of pollutants or emissions from that vehicle. So uh,
Speaker 1: if the if the energy source that's creating the electricity
Speaker 1: is renewable and clean, then that's the best option for
Speaker 1: an individual I think personally. Um. That being said, if
Speaker 1: you can't guarantee that if you are getting your electricity
Speaker 1: from a coal powered plant or something else that is
Speaker 1: producing a lot of pollutants, then it could just be
Speaker 1: that again, the problem has shifted to a different part
Speaker 1: of the equation, Right, and and some of this is
Speaker 1: a little bit arguable. Um. For example, with ethanol, there's
Speaker 1: been a bunch of conflicting studies. The two major ones
Speaker 1: that I've seen were one from a Cornell University that
Speaker 1: was saying that that considering all of the energy cost
Speaker 1: it takes to grow corn and convert it to ethanol,
Speaker 1: it's a lot more energy production than you actually get
Speaker 1: out at the end. Right. Um, Well, we'll really look
Speaker 1: into energy return on investment towards the end of this podcast.
Speaker 1: But that does mean that you're talking about land used
Speaker 1: to and land use could mean that instead of using
Speaker 1: that land to grow things that could be big carbon
Speaker 1: sinks or grow food for people, uh, you are growing
Speaker 1: stuff that's going to be used in fuel. And that
Speaker 1: also means that you have to use things like fertilizer
Speaker 1: requires a lot of nitrogen. Uh, And that could mean
Speaker 1: that you are using a lot of energy in order
Speaker 1: to create the fertilizer. And if the energy you're using
Speaker 1: to grow the crops that are eventually going to be
Speaker 1: turned to fuel, if all the energy is more than
Speaker 1: what you are getting out of the whole fuel equation,
Speaker 1: then you're not only causing environmental damage, it may just
Speaker 1: not make sense from a big picture perspective, keeping in
Speaker 1: mind that it all kind of depends on what crop
Speaker 1: you're growing in the first place. In the United States,
Speaker 1: it's it's chiefly corn that we use to create for ethanol,
Speaker 1: and chiefly soybeans, I believe, for biodiesel, and then if
Speaker 1: you are in Brazil, then sugarcane for ethanol. But you know,
Speaker 1: we've also talked about the possibility of using switch grass
Speaker 1: and other types of cellulose based stuff to create ethanol,
Speaker 1: which would require a much lower investment and therefore, at
Speaker 1: least ideal ideally, would mean a smaller environmental impact on
Speaker 1: land use and other issues. You know, you can get
Speaker 1: into lots of complicated things with land use, you know,
Speaker 1: even things like erosion and flooding problems. And you know,
Speaker 1: if you've altered the landscape to an appreciable amounts that
Speaker 1: you can grow the stuff that's going to fuel the
Speaker 1: nation's vehicles, that can have unintended consequences. And that's why this, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, in an ideal world, you would
Speaker 1: be um, you know, share sharing crop land to rotate
Speaker 1: crops out and and plant something that's really going to
Speaker 1: help the environment around it, use that for biofuels, and
Speaker 1: then let it get switched out with something else, right, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: crop rotation is one of those basic farming techniques that
Speaker 1: can really save the soil a lot of wear and
Speaker 1: tear and make it easier to grow healthy crops for
Speaker 1: longer um. But unfortunately, yeah, there's there's not and and farming.
Speaker 1: Farming is is a technology that actually I think would
Speaker 1: be really interesting to do a whole episode on because
Speaker 1: we've got a lot of really interesting new research coming out. Sure. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so not only is it the just the technology behind farming,
Speaker 1: but just the techniques that are being used, some of
Speaker 1: which are centuries old. So anyway, that's kind of the
Speaker 1: overview of the environmental concern is the idea that this
Speaker 1: is a very complex issue. If you're talking about the
Speaker 1: biological stuff, you have to say, all right, well, what's
Speaker 1: the environmental impact of growing the stuff that's going to
Speaker 1: make this fuel. Then once the environmental impact of actually
Speaker 1: burning that fuel with the fossil fuels, it's it's sort
Speaker 1: of saying, well, this is assuming that we're going to
Speaker 1: continue producing petroleum based fuels in the first place, Because
Speaker 1: both of these are kind of byproducts of that. Um So,
Speaker 1: really it's just saying, how do we offset our gasoline
Speaker 1: consumption so that we're using something that's less harmful to
Speaker 1: the environment. And then with hydrogen, you're talking about how
Speaker 1: do you get the hydrogen in a way that doesn't
Speaker 1: involve pouring a lot of more energy than it takes
Speaker 1: to yeah, and burning fossil fuels just so that you
Speaker 1: can get at some hydrogen. And then of course electricity
Speaker 1: is how do you get the electricity buddy? And uh So,
Speaker 1: like I said, it's very complex. This is one of
Speaker 1: those conversations that the more the longer you have the conversation,
Speaker 1: the more you realize this is not a simple solution.
Speaker 1: There's no easy switch we can flip. Now, let's talk
Speaker 1: about the second of the three things we identified as
Speaker 1: reasons you might want to switch to gasoline, and that
Speaker 1: is economic reasons. So let's talk about economic from the
Speaker 1: point of view of the average consumer's wallet. So, in
Speaker 1: that sense, some of these fuels at right now are
Speaker 1: less expensive than an equivalent amount of gasoline. And when
Speaker 1: I say equivalent amount, I really mean equivalent and distance,
Speaker 1: because because you can't really compare, it's like comparing apples
Speaker 1: to hydrogen gas. It's um hard to do because gasoline
Speaker 1: comes in liquid forms. Some of these fuels come in
Speaker 1: gas forms. Some of them are in liquid forms, some
Speaker 1: of them are in fuel cells, which make it, you know, complex,
Speaker 1: some of them you plug into a wall. It's really
Speaker 1: hard to to easily compare them, right, But in general,
Speaker 1: things like electric vehicles are still still more expensive, at
Speaker 1: least in the Nine States, still more expensive than UH
Speaker 1: than gas powered cars. Like I think it kind of
Speaker 1: goes like gas powered hybrid and an electric UM and
Speaker 1: UH and and supposedly at this point, the the amount
Speaker 1: from even a hybrid car, the amount of money that
Speaker 1: you'll save by using electricity versus gasoline in the end
Speaker 1: will pay off over the lifetime of vehicle, assuming that
Speaker 1: you're keeping that vehicle for a good amount of time.
Speaker 1: It's it. I've seen different studies on this where there's
Speaker 1: been some debate about how long you would have to
Speaker 1: maintain and keep that vehicle. And of course maintenance costs
Speaker 1: fold into that too, And the maintenance cost for a
Speaker 1: hybrid vehicle or an electric vehicle maybe higher than it
Speaker 1: would be for a traditional gasoline or diesel powered vehicle.
Speaker 1: So then you know, you have to take just like
Speaker 1: with the environmental issue, it gets more complex than just
Speaker 1: saying how expensive is this for me on a day
Speaker 1: to day basis. You have to look at the lifetime
Speaker 1: of the vehicle, and especially since um, since things like
Speaker 1: hybrid vehicles are a little bit more costly to maintain,
Speaker 1: just because you can't take it in to any old
Speaker 1: shop anywhere, as a lot of the parts are specialist
Speaker 1: parts that take a little bit more time and money
Speaker 1: to get ahold of right, and and also the idea
Speaker 1: that these are kind of still seen as specialty cars.
Speaker 1: They're they're becoming more popular. I mean it's especially in
Speaker 1: the United States. Hybrid vehicles and electric vehicles are both
Speaker 1: becoming more popular. You're in Atlanta there kind of everywhere. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I see smart cars everywhere, but uh I see you know,
Speaker 1: like the Prius is just about everywhere too. So it's
Speaker 1: you know, the popularity is rising. But the as as
Speaker 1: popularity rises, the nice thing about that is demand goes up.
Speaker 1: Companies find more efficient means of manufacturing these vehicles, which
Speaker 1: then allows the cost to come down. But it's a
Speaker 1: process that takes time, so it's not like, you know,
Speaker 1: year one vehicles are going to be sixty dollars and
Speaker 1: you're too, they're going to be fifteen thousand, and your
Speaker 1: three they're gonna be twelve thousand. That's not the way
Speaker 1: it works, all right. And also, as as this cost
Speaker 1: is dry ropping, part of that is because the infrastructure
Speaker 1: that allows them to be popular is developing, and so
Speaker 1: you're really um, you're you know, for the consumer, it
Speaker 1: might become less expensive, but the cost of building up
Speaker 1: that infrastructure is enormous, right, And and that's a huge
Speaker 1: issue with hydrogen based UH cars, whether it's fuel cells
Speaker 1: or hydrogen used as a fuel and an internal combustion engine.
Speaker 1: There's no real existing infrastructure to get that hydrogen everywhere,
Speaker 1: So it would mean building that out and creating hydrogen
Speaker 1: fuel stations. And there are a few, I know, there
Speaker 1: are some. California's got a few, but they are few
Speaker 1: and far between, and if you were to drive anywhere
Speaker 1: outside of that region, you would quickly realize that you
Speaker 1: were stranded and you had to call mom. So the
Speaker 1: assuming mom has giant tanks of hydrogen line around, and
Speaker 1: Mom always has a giant mom Mom's purse holds a
Speaker 1: myriad of amazing things in it Mary Poppins bags essentially
Speaker 1: a bag of holding. It's from a D and D
Speaker 1: buddies out there rill a D twenty to save against
Speaker 1: being nerdy. You lost. Um. So, yeah, infrastructure is really expensive.
Speaker 1: It can be, which then can mean that it would
Speaker 1: be more expensive to the end consumer. Right that cost
Speaker 1: has to be for taxpayers or Yeah, because some of
Speaker 1: these are programs that the governments is encouraging through tax incentives.
Speaker 1: But again that tends to mean that those incentives are
Speaker 1: are are paid off from the by the tax payer.
Speaker 1: So uh, and in different countries do this in different ways.
Speaker 1: You know, there's some that just they that's they allocate
Speaker 1: a certain percentage of the tax income towards things like, uh,
Speaker 1: encouraging these sort of industries so that they grow faster
Speaker 1: or that they take hold. But that's a big issue.
Speaker 1: Economic is complicated, just like environmental. Now that brings us
Speaker 1: to the third of our reasons why we might want
Speaker 1: to switch from guest Lean, and that is national security.
Speaker 1: Now Here in the United States, and we said this
Speaker 1: in the last podcast, in the United States, we import
Speaker 1: a lot of our oil from other nations, and some
Speaker 1: of those nations are nations that it would mean that
Speaker 1: the money we are spending to get to that oil
Speaker 1: maybe going to fuel instability and regions of the world.
Speaker 1: It could mean that we are inadvertently giving more power
Speaker 1: to parties that are going to cause lots of trouble
Speaker 1: in different parts of the world, either directly to the
Speaker 1: United States or to our allies, or just create instability
Speaker 1: in general, which is not good for anybody really and uh,
Speaker 1: and so there really is it really isn't the interests
Speaker 1: of the United States and really any country to find
Speaker 1: a way of being as self sufficient as possible so
Speaker 1: that you can create as much of your energy domestically.
Speaker 1: And when I say create energy, obviously I don't think
Speaker 1: you can create or destroy fuel. Yeah, yeah, domestically as
Speaker 1: opposed to to internation. Really, so here here in the here,
Speaker 1: in the United States, Um, we do produce each of
Speaker 1: the six each each of the six fuels that we're
Speaker 1: talking about here. Um, but we also produce gasoline. So yeah,
Speaker 1: so if you look at the fuels that we produce,
Speaker 1: the alternatives we mentioned, most of them, we produce the
Speaker 1: vast majority of what we use here domestically in the
Speaker 1: United States. Uh. Even so we do import some stuff, Uh,
Speaker 1: specifically within natural gas and propane. We import a little
Speaker 1: bit of that, although we produce quite a bit, we
Speaker 1: also export some. So it's kind of interesting that we
Speaker 1: export some and then import others. Um uh. And that's
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of that has to do with
Speaker 1: infrastructure and uh and transportation as well as just logistics
Speaker 1: and you know, when where we can get the most
Speaker 1: money out of the resources that we have available. So uh.
Speaker 1: One of the things that a lot of people have
Speaker 1: pointed at is alternative fuels would allow us to remove
Speaker 1: our dependency on four in oil. That's usually how it's worded,
Speaker 1: and it's really it's really decreased, I think, because we
Speaker 1: are so far off from But yeah, that's that that
Speaker 1: we're going to cover in our next section because because
Speaker 1: that's the that's that's where we're gonna really look at
Speaker 1: some of the huge challenges besides the ones we've already mentioned.
Speaker 1: If you think it's been challenging already, we have not
Speaker 1: even scratched the surface. Uh. So Yeah, it's it's this
Speaker 1: idea that we can perhaps make the United States a
Speaker 1: safer place and hopefully the entire world a safer place
Speaker 1: by producing more of that energy or producing more that
Speaker 1: fuel rather domestically, and the same is true, like I said,
Speaker 1: for nations all around the world. Since Lauren and I
Speaker 1: are both from the United States, we work in the
Speaker 1: United States, we live in the United States. That's what
Speaker 1: our perspective is based on. Uh, we are aware that
Speaker 1: there are people all over the world who's who thought,
Speaker 1: So that that kind of covers the y and uh,
Speaker 1: well we'll tackle the how, but before we can, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break. So, yeah, we've we covered the
Speaker 1: why we might want to. So, Jonathan, I was wondering
Speaker 1: how much gasoline exactly do we use? Well here in
Speaker 1: the United States, Lauren, according to the the US government, specifically,
Speaker 1: according to the U S Energy Information Administration, in two
Speaker 1: thousand twelve, which if my calendar serves me correctly, is
Speaker 1: just last year, on an average day, the US went
Speaker 1: through three hundred and forty seven million gallons of gasoline
Speaker 1: per day per day. Yeah, if you want to talk
Speaker 1: about the whole year, that's about a hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: six billion with a B gallons. Uh, you know, that's
Speaker 1: just that's just me rounding it off to Now I
Speaker 1: should say that this isn't all bad news because Originally, Uh,
Speaker 1: people were projecting us to be up to about a
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty billion gallons of gas per year. We were,
Speaker 1: we were therepenty Yeah, we we cut out nearly twenty
Speaker 1: five billion gallons of gas. Um. It turns out that
Speaker 1: our our gas consumption maybe slightly decreasing due to people
Speaker 1: just being a little more conservative with their driving habits. Right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the the economy in general, and I mean it's it's
Speaker 1: easy to say the economy in general about anything, but um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, people aren't are cutting back on the amount
Speaker 1: of gas that they're using, right, so h so, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not all because people are concerned about saving the earth.
Speaker 1: Some of them are concerned about saving their their cash. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh not that that's not that I'm trying to cast dispersions.
Speaker 1: That's important to it's important to but yeah. So, so
Speaker 1: around a hundred twenty six billion gallons of gas in
Speaker 1: the United States every year. So in order to get
Speaker 1: off gasoline, so let's say that our goal is to
Speaker 1: eliminate using gasoline as our primary source for fuel, to
Speaker 1: make gasoline the alternative as opposed to one of these others. Uh,
Speaker 1: then what kind of numbers are we looking at and
Speaker 1: I've got a few, but um, it's it's not looking
Speaker 1: great right right. But you know, and keep keep in
Speaker 1: mind that a lot of this is because, as we
Speaker 1: have said earlier, um, most of these other most of
Speaker 1: these alternatives won't get you as far as gasoline will, right.
Speaker 1: So in other words, even the fuel economy is lesser,
Speaker 1: you would have to use more of the fuel to
Speaker 1: get the same amount of distance as you would with
Speaker 1: if you had the same kind of vehicle, but it
Speaker 1: was a gasolene powered vehicle. So, um, hundred and twenty
Speaker 1: six billion gallons of gas every year in the United States.
Speaker 1: Let's look at ethanol. So in two thousand eleven, the
Speaker 1: United States produced about thirteen point nine billion gallons of ethanol,
Speaker 1: so we'd need a hundred and ten extra billion well,
Speaker 1: and and also keep in mind that ethanol right now
Speaker 1: is being used as a blend, right, So it's stretching
Speaker 1: our gasoline a little, because we are blending ethanol with
Speaker 1: gasoline to increase octane. But fair, But from US vehicles,
Speaker 1: the highest that you go generally is e eighty five,
Speaker 1: which is only ethanol. Ethanol good, but gasoline, Yeah, if
Speaker 1: you want to go with pure ethanol. You would have
Speaker 1: to have a seriously retooled engine that could withstand that
Speaker 1: solvent kind of action. We could, Yeah, I guess we could.
Speaker 1: You know, ethanol was in fact one of the fuels
Speaker 1: that Henry Ford was looking at back when he was
Speaker 1: first designing the automobile, was expecting all vehicles, all of
Speaker 1: his vehicles to be using core and ethanol. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so you know this was This is not like it's
Speaker 1: a new idea by any stretch of the imagination. But
Speaker 1: the point is is that we had to produce a
Speaker 1: lot more of it if we really wanted ethanol to
Speaker 1: be a replacement for gasoline. And let's I just want
Speaker 1: to be fair. I'm not suggesting that any of these
Speaker 1: industries are saying that they are positioning themselves to replace
Speaker 1: gasoline entirely. That's not the message there they are trying
Speaker 1: to make. I'm just pointing out that if we did
Speaker 1: want to have everyone take this and not just be
Speaker 1: you know, an individual choice thing, but that we're trying
Speaker 1: to guide people into these kind of vehicles in the future,
Speaker 1: that we face some pretty serious production problems. Now. One
Speaker 1: of the nice things about ethanol is that the ethanol
Speaker 1: we're producing we're producing for fuel, and we're producing it
Speaker 1: for fuel four vehicles for the most part, So that
Speaker 1: means that it's not like we'd have to repurpose or
Speaker 1: redirect the stuff we are producing for one thing into
Speaker 1: something else, which is not the case when we get
Speaker 1: to the fossil fuels. But but for ethanol, again, big
Speaker 1: deficit there. And then with biodiesel, biodiesel tends to be
Speaker 1: measured in tons as opposed to gallons. So and I'm
Speaker 1: going to stick with gasoline. I know, technically I should
Speaker 1: compare biodiesel against diesel, but we're you know, my my,
Speaker 1: my hypothesis was how could we get off of you
Speaker 1: know what? So biodiesel production inn was about six million tons,
Speaker 1: and if you compare that to tons of gasoline, and
Speaker 1: this is not a direct comparison, but answer around four
Speaker 1: fifty million tons. So they're not not even not even
Speaker 1: getting into the billions. Yes, that's a lot of McDonald's
Speaker 1: that you'd be reading to get to get the grease
Speaker 1: that you would need to keep your your cars running.
Speaker 1: This this is not to say that the raw materials
Speaker 1: aren't there. They may very well be, but we're only
Speaker 1: processing about six million tons per year, and uh, and
Speaker 1: and again this is this is a bio diesel is
Speaker 1: something that very early on UM. In fact, Rudolph Diesel,
Speaker 1: who diesel is named for, UM, was in testing peanut
Speaker 1: oil driven engines. Interesting, now I want peanuts, boiled peanuts.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, you are Southern. I told you born and
Speaker 1: bread down here. So thank you? So so yeah. Biodiesel. Again,
Speaker 1: another problem is that we'd have to produce a lot
Speaker 1: more of it for it to actually replace gasoline. Not
Speaker 1: that the bio diesel industry is saying that that's what
Speaker 1: they're trying to do, but if we wanted to that,
Speaker 1: it would require a lot more work, lot a lot. Now,
Speaker 1: propane in nineteen nine, which was the year where I
Speaker 1: could find some some reliable, reliable statistics. There are lots
Speaker 1: of statistics that are out there, but when I start
Speaker 1: tracing back the main source, it eventually gets so cloudy
Speaker 1: that I'm thinking this might be an extrapolation. So I
Speaker 1: try to find the most reliable source I can. Uh.
Speaker 1: In this case, the source said nineteen point six billion
Speaker 1: gallons were produced in nine. Again, it's more than ethanol,
Speaker 1: and it's more than biodesel. Actually, view it's more than
Speaker 1: those combined, almost almost running combined. But it's right around
Speaker 1: the same amount as those combined. But you know, it's
Speaker 1: propane again, not as energy efficient as gasoline, so and
Speaker 1: a lot of it is still being used for other
Speaker 1: purposes such as home heating. Right, So if we wanted
Speaker 1: to make propane an alternative fuel that was much more
Speaker 1: widely adopted, we'd have to produce a lot more propane. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we we would either have to m to find a
Speaker 1: another fuel source for those other things that it's used for,
Speaker 1: or yea or like a bunch more than that, more
Speaker 1: than quadruple down. I mean, you're talking about producing an
Speaker 1: enormous amount of propane natural gas. This is where we
Speaker 1: kind of everything sort of breaks down because we're talk
Speaker 1: about natural gas. You're talking about volume, right, You're not
Speaker 1: talking about a liquid measurement like a gallon or a
Speaker 1: leak in liquid natural gas. But yeah, it's under pressure.
Speaker 1: We usually talk about in cubic feet. Yeah, so if
Speaker 1: you're talking about twenty five million cubic feet, it's kind
Speaker 1: of hard to compare that against gasoline. But again, natural gas,
Speaker 1: we're using a lot of that already for other purposes.
Speaker 1: So if we were to use natural gas as a
Speaker 1: primary fuel source for our vehicles. Propane. Yeah, we would
Speaker 1: have to keep that into keep that in mind, the
Speaker 1: fact that we already need some natural gas for we're
Speaker 1: already using it. Yea, yeah, if we if we ended
Speaker 1: up repurposing it, then we'd have to find some other
Speaker 1: means of heat our homes or providing a natural gas
Speaker 1: for cooking, or all those other applications we talked about
Speaker 1: in the previous episode. Hydrogen. There's been no appreciable amount
Speaker 1: of hydrogen that we've produced other than you know, we
Speaker 1: we've used it in again oil refining. It's funny how
Speaker 1: all these alternative fuels, many of them are used or
Speaker 1: are by products of the oil refinery process. Uh. So, uh,
Speaker 1: it's hydrogen. We would just have to create a whole
Speaker 1: new industry that would be all about breaking down molecular
Speaker 1: bonds so we could get at hydrogen to use it
Speaker 1: as a fuel source. Um. It's just uh, it would
Speaker 1: be almost like starting from scratch. And I think that
Speaker 1: once we figured that out, um, it would change the
Speaker 1: face of energy as we know it, because then we
Speaker 1: would be using fusion reactors for our our general power.
Speaker 1: And I think that a lot of bigger things would
Speaker 1: happen before commercial hydrogen vehicle if we if we got
Speaker 1: to the point where we could use fusion reactors, then
Speaker 1: this is a moots Just go with the sixth one,
Speaker 1: which is electricity, because we'd be generating so much electricity
Speaker 1: with our fusion generators that that would solve that issue.
Speaker 1: We would just you know, and and fusion generators create
Speaker 1: clean energy, especially or at least cleaner than than almost
Speaker 1: any other method that doesn't involve wind or solar. In fact,
Speaker 1: you could argued, based upon the rare earth materials that
Speaker 1: are needed for these that that could be cleaner. But uh,
Speaker 1: we haven't made a fusion reactor that puts out more
Speaker 1: energy than it requires to start, So until that happens,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a moot point. But anyway, electricities are
Speaker 1: sixth one. Uh An, Electricity is is a different type
Speaker 1: of thing, right, It's not like we can't produce more electricity,
Speaker 1: although depending upon where you are, like in the United States,
Speaker 1: the power grid might not be robust to handle the
Speaker 1: extra energy output. The load on the power grid might
Speaker 1: be so much as to overwhelm it. So there are
Speaker 1: a lot of countries out there that are investing heavily
Speaker 1: and creating things like smart grids which are much more
Speaker 1: adept at uh at moving dynamically so that balancing balancing
Speaker 1: different areas of usage exactly so that way not no
Speaker 1: one region gets overloaded and you don't have to worry
Speaker 1: about like rolling blackouts or something which lots of different
Speaker 1: parts of the world have experienced in cleaning the United States.
Speaker 1: We've seen rolling blackouts in the US before too, so
Speaker 1: um uh it would mean that we would have to
Speaker 1: have a pretty significant investment in that infrastructure, something that
Speaker 1: a lot of people argue we need anyway, whether we're
Speaker 1: using electric vehicles or not, we do need to uh
Speaker 1: invest in that infrastructure. I I agree with that. I
Speaker 1: think that that's important. And uh I know that there
Speaker 1: are people who work in power grid companies who probably
Speaker 1: lead very stressful lives because the company is always working
Speaker 1: at close to full capacity and if anything pops up,
Speaker 1: they have to be very, very deft in order to
Speaker 1: handle it. I can't imagine that life personally. I'm much
Speaker 1: happier being a podcaster. Yeah, it's it's tough enough when
Speaker 1: I get an email saying, hey, can you pick up
Speaker 1: lunch today? And I have my own little meltdown that's
Speaker 1: tiny in comparison. I realize this very very few emergencies,
Speaker 1: and it turns out, um so, yeah, these are this
Speaker 1: is all coming under the umbrella of scalability. Scaling one
Speaker 1: of these things to a point where you can you
Speaker 1: can effectively use it, yeah, across a country or across
Speaker 1: the world, and you know, and that's that's why a
Speaker 1: lot of these technologies are being used by governments or
Speaker 1: for for industry, yeah, or in you know, a municipality
Speaker 1: like a like a city government, not necessarily a nation's government.
Speaker 1: But we've talked about how there are a lot of
Speaker 1: cities out there, Atlanta as one of them that has
Speaker 1: a fleet of buses that use natural gases it's primary
Speaker 1: fuel source. So there are plenty of examples. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of there's a lot of farm equipment out
Speaker 1: there that runs on either propane or natural gas. Uh
Speaker 1: So there's a lot of stuff out there that can
Speaker 1: use this and take advantage of it. But when you're
Speaker 1: talking about consumer vehicles, it's a huge challenge to roll
Speaker 1: any of these out on any large, large scale. Um So,
Speaker 1: I'm not surprised that we're seeing people adopt this in
Speaker 1: individual cases. I mean that's as they can is as
Speaker 1: you can afford to, right as they can afford to,
Speaker 1: and as their region allows them to. Because right here
Speaker 1: in Georgia, it would be very difficult to get along
Speaker 1: on an electric car if you wanted to take it
Speaker 1: outside of you know, your your immediate neighborhood or your
Speaker 1: immediate city. M But in California it's a little bit
Speaker 1: more possible. Same thing with hydrogen vehicles. There are hydrogen
Speaker 1: refueling stations in certain parts of the United States, but
Speaker 1: not so many in Georgia, so you would not be
Speaker 1: able to go very far for very long with a
Speaker 1: hydrogen based vehicle here and uh and and part of
Speaker 1: the reason why we are not rolling into all of
Speaker 1: these alternatives is that is that we're really not getting
Speaker 1: the kind of energy return on investment that we're king for.
Speaker 1: Right So this is the idea, and we've kind of
Speaker 1: touched on it already, so we won't spend too much time.
Speaker 1: But this is the idea of the energy you're getting
Speaker 1: out in the form of fuel, the potential energy that
Speaker 1: that fuel can give you, if that's less than what
Speaker 1: you're pouring into create the energy or the fuel in
Speaker 1: the first place, then you really have an energy sink.
Speaker 1: You're losing energy overall in the deal. So a lot
Speaker 1: of these fuel sources require some processing, and a lot
Speaker 1: of that processing comes from energy that we ultimately are
Speaker 1: getting by burning fossil fuels right right, a lot of
Speaker 1: ethanol refineries right now are trying to cut costs by
Speaker 1: using coal as their energy source. So there we have it, right,
Speaker 1: You're just you've just shifted the fossil fuel from the
Speaker 1: fuel itself into the processing of that fuel. So if
Speaker 1: that's the case, then you could still be polluting. You're
Speaker 1: still showing a dependence upon fossil fuels. A lot of
Speaker 1: the problems that we talked about about why you would
Speaker 1: want to switch off a gasoline are still there. They're
Speaker 1: just there in a different part of the process us.
Speaker 1: And uh, if if it turns out that you could have,
Speaker 1: like if you're using fossil fuels to process a fuel
Speaker 1: a different type of fuel, an alternative fuel, and that
Speaker 1: alternative fuel does not have enough energy into in potential
Speaker 1: energy in that fuel form to measure out the amount
Speaker 1: that you poured into it, you might as well have
Speaker 1: just used the fossil fuel in the first place. Yeah,
Speaker 1: why why even bother creating an alternative fuel if you
Speaker 1: still have to burn using that much fossil fuel. Yeah, exactly,
Speaker 1: so you're not gaining anything, right, Ideally, you want your
Speaker 1: return to be greater, so that and you wanted to
Speaker 1: be a lot greater, Like if it can be a
Speaker 1: hundred times greater than the amount of energy it takes
Speaker 1: to make that fuel, Uh, to have that potential energy
Speaker 1: within that fuel, then that's a great deal. That's what
Speaker 1: you want. A lot of the alternative fuels, it's more
Speaker 1: like two to three times, which is not great. And uh,
Speaker 1: it's still better than a deficit, but it's it's it's
Speaker 1: not so great. And all of that ties back into
Speaker 1: some of the other yes that we were talking about earlier,
Speaker 1: like financial purposes. You know, it's going to cost more
Speaker 1: to create this than than sticking with gasoline, and it's
Speaker 1: it's a hard sell, you know. It's you know, not
Speaker 1: that we want to be so cynical as to say
Speaker 1: money makes the world go around. Some of you might say,
Speaker 1: kind of death, Well, it certainly it certainly matters. Right.
Speaker 1: If it weren't for the fact that it matters, then
Speaker 1: maybe we could just very altruistically say oh, well, you
Speaker 1: know this is so, but the problem is that you're
Speaker 1: talking about paying a lot more. Again, You've you know,
Speaker 1: got gasoline that's had a century to establish itself, so
Speaker 1: to switch out to something else is going to require
Speaker 1: an enormous investment. Yeah, and and and even you know,
Speaker 1: we keep talking about how complicated these matters are, and
Speaker 1: they are so complicated that a lot of the research
Speaker 1: being done as contradictory, right, right, And again part of
Speaker 1: that also goes back to checking to see who it
Speaker 1: was that funded the research. Absolutely, because there's so many
Speaker 1: lobby systems which also relates to money in that are
Speaker 1: active players in various national governments. That. Yeah, while I
Speaker 1: would not go so far as to say there's a
Speaker 1: conspiracy out there that is is designed to to suppress innovation,
Speaker 1: if we're going to say that, we should really bring
Speaker 1: Ben and Matton here, right, but I will go so
Speaker 1: far as to say that if if there is an
Speaker 1: industry that has certain interests and they want to protect it,
Speaker 1: that could include everything from funding research that gives them
Speaker 1: a positive light. So that definitely does happen. I'm not
Speaker 1: a conspiracy theorist, but I do know, Yeah, yeah. And
Speaker 1: here here in the States, there's also a lot of
Speaker 1: big agriculture issues where you know, people people will talk
Speaker 1: about how how perhaps you know, corn and soybean production
Speaker 1: are being funded at the expense of other things, and
Speaker 1: that this is part of what's driving biodiesel or ethanol,
Speaker 1: or that small farmers are suffering because more and more
Speaker 1: land and and and resources are going towards producing fuel
Speaker 1: than it would be for food. And there are a
Speaker 1: lot of political issues here and social issues beyond just
Speaker 1: the fuel problem, which again makes us more complex. Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is kind of uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: big story here is that when you start opening up
Speaker 1: this can of worms, you realize there's more worms than
Speaker 1: dirt here that you have to really take into account.
Speaker 1: And but this does not mean that one we should
Speaker 1: give up the quest to try and find better fuels
Speaker 1: that are less environmentally harmful, or that are less expensive,
Speaker 1: or that that give us a boost in national security.
Speaker 1: We absolutely should continue to do those things. We should
Speaker 1: not expect some sort of miracle fuel right around the corner,
Speaker 1: because that's probably not gonna happen. But the more we
Speaker 1: can wean ourselves off of gasoline and I don't think
Speaker 1: we're going to get to a point where we completely
Speaker 1: eliminate that need any time in the near future. The better.
Speaker 1: But we can also do things ourselves, right that that
Speaker 1: helped this out and some of it. If we start
Speaker 1: implementing these behaviors now, it will make the transition easier
Speaker 1: when it does happen. Oh right, yeah, of course. I
Speaker 1: mean with with any of these environmental issues that you're
Speaker 1: looking at, UM, the way that you behave on a
Speaker 1: on a personal level and on a community level is
Speaker 1: really important. And part of that is, um you know,
Speaker 1: taking the bus or taking the train if you can,
Speaker 1: and uh or or or just just driving less or
Speaker 1: driving more responsibly, you know, not hitting the gas to
Speaker 1: run around someone who's going four miles an hour slower
Speaker 1: than than you really want them to write and car pooling,
Speaker 1: all these ideas of conserving fuel. That's a good habit
Speaker 1: to get into, because, like we've said multiple times, these
Speaker 1: alternative fuels, most of them don't have the same sort
Speaker 1: of energy density that gas lane does. So if we
Speaker 1: do get to a point, or if you choose to
Speaker 1: drive a vehicle that uses one of these other alternative fuels,
Speaker 1: you'll have to make sure that you're driving habits reflect that,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you're gonna be stopping for fuel way more
Speaker 1: frequently because paying way more for it. Yeah, because you're
Speaker 1: not you're not driving as efficiently as as you could.
Speaker 1: So a lot of this can you know, this transition
Speaker 1: can be made more um gentle on us the consumer
Speaker 1: if we start to adopt some of these behaviors and
Speaker 1: plus will just be environmentally and also the maintenance of
Speaker 1: your vehicle. I mean, there are a lot of reasons
Speaker 1: to do it, economic and environmental, a lot of good
Speaker 1: reasons to just be a responsible driver in in that respect.
Speaker 1: Not to mention the fact that just be a responsible
Speaker 1: driver people. If you're listening to this podcast where you're driving,
Speaker 1: that's fine. If you're reading the transcript while you're driving,
Speaker 1: please don't do that. That's that's not good. Unless you
Speaker 1: have one of those fancy, fancy automatic automobiles. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: if you if you're in one of those Google driverless
Speaker 1: car things, then first of all us, yes, swing by,
Speaker 1: I want to ride, um, but you know that that
Speaker 1: I think that's just the Google people right now. So
Speaker 1: uh hi. Anyway, So that's the that's kind of the
Speaker 1: wrap up on alternative fuels, and why it's so complex,
Speaker 1: and that it's not just so some easy solution of saying, hey,
Speaker 1: let's just switch this gas pump from gas to hydrogen
Speaker 1: and everything's cool. Yeah, it's unfortunately far more complicated than that.
Speaker 1: And it's not to say that these challenges are insurmountable.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that, because human beings are phenomenal when
Speaker 1: it comes to finding solutions to difficult problems. But it
Speaker 1: is important that we we acknowledge that it is a
Speaker 1: difficult problem and then we take it from there. I
Speaker 1: have complete faith that the human race is going to
Speaker 1: come up with some pretty awesome stuff in the next
Speaker 1: you know, twenty years, even to completely revolutionized. Definitely. Oh yes,
Speaker 1: when all the future comes isn't twenty or forty years.
Speaker 1: So I just gotta live to see it. So in
Speaker 1: the meantime, while I'm waiting, if you guys would like
Speaker 1: to send in suggestions for future episodes of tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: we would love that. We love reading your email, we
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Speaker 1: and someday, someday we'll bring back that that alarm Clackson
Speaker 1: and do some reader mail. Yeah yeah, who knows, Yeah
Speaker 1: that might that might happen. I Lauren, Lauren has not
Speaker 1: lived through the hate mail that I got back when
Speaker 1: I used to do the listener mail segment, but think
Speaker 1: it could be quiet Clackson. Yeah, yeah, that's exactly what
Speaker 1: a Clackson is. Alright, So guys, let us know. You
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