Wouldn't converting ethanol to hydrogen ions still leave you with a carbon ion that would just love to get it's hands on the oxygen in the other side of the fuel cell? and still produce CO2?
Yep. You still get CO and CO2. Most of the CO is turned into CO2 in the super heated steam fuel reformer. The theory is that since you're consuming less fuel, your overall CO2 level should go down. Using a fuel cell in conjunction with solar and geotherm is the optimum arrangement. The fuel cell itself is very efficient, which means you should have to burn less fuel to heat your home, but it also means that you're putting less draw on the main power grid and they don't have to burn as much coal either. You're replacing the furnace, water heater, and power grid with one appliance so the overall fuel usage and emission output should go down. The fuel reformer has to operate at about 1500F in order to disassociate the hydrogen from the carbon atoms, so obviously some fuel will need to be burned here or an electrical element that can heat to 1500F will be used. However, the reformers are very small and the smaller the space you're trying to heat, the less fuel is needed to get it to the desired temp. That's the downside of not running a fuel cell directly off of hydrogen gas. We've got to make our hydrogen somehow. Other than steam reforming, we can also make hydrogen through electrolysis, but that uses lots of electricity which has to come from somewhere. Pure water is also a poor conductor, so you have to put something in the water and that normally comes out as some form of emission as well. IMO, the best way to make hydrogen is on the coast using tidal power to generate electricity and then running that through some sea water. You'll have to deal with the chlorine gas and hydrochloric acid, but that shouldn't be too hard. The biggest problem is what to do with the hydrogen. It's small enough that it can "evaporate" through most steel and plastic containers and pipes. It's also so light that you can't get enough gas in a tanker to make it worth the while to ship it anywhere. Compressing it into a liquid takes a lot of energy again, and it's still so light it's really not worth transporting it. The best ideas I've seen so far try to combine the hydrogen with an oxygen to form hydroxide and then later combine that with a metal such as lithium or sodium or any of those metals in the left two columns to form metal hydroxide and hydrogen gas. This makes a very dense and stable hydrogen storage medium. Luckily the OH molecule occurs naturally in water, and sodium is fairly abundant (NaCl or Na+ Cl- aqueous), then what what do you do with all the NaOH? I've also seen them use a carbon matrix that "absorbs" the hydrogen interstitially in the carbon and is then released later. The problem they're having with that is not all of the hydrogen can be recovered and eventually the carbon matrix is unable to absorb any more. I suppose you could also store it as a liquid in an acid, but then you run into the problem of having lots of corrosive acid around. Oh well, that's why those guys get paid the big bucks I guess.
Here ya go: http://www.e85fuel.com/database/locations.php?state=gaGeorgia Just three so far. We're up to four here now, but none close to me at all. http://www.e85fuel.com/database/locations.php?state=waWashington Here's how to find 'em: http://www.e85fuel.com/database/search.php
Lots of good imput on this subject. Another thing I would ask, could you run say half gasoline and half ethanol getting power from gas and the money savings and higher octane ratings from ethanol without damaging our engines etc??
Sure you can. The Fed already puts a lot of corn juice in the gasoline as it is. Winter gas is probably 10% ethanol or higher. If you just wanted an octane boost I'd go with a 30% mix and go up 2 jet sizes. That should get you close. At that mix you really won't have to worry about the ethanol drying out anything too bad.
You just have to be careful not to get any moisture in the fuel - impossible where I live. At ten percent the alcohol and gas won't separate if water is present but if you go higher than that then moisture from the air will get into the alcohol and it will separate from the gas - your car will go nowhere fast. It will just sputter and try to keep running but won't. It happened to me back in the early 70's and a few other folks too. The gas stations got just a bit too much alcohol in their gas shipment and the water in their tank or in our tanks made it come apart. I drained a little out and showed it to the guy who owned the station and we each got a new tank of fuel (the owner and me - I don't know what happened to all the others who had problems)
