[vdblnkr34 (OP)]

Hi Do you know that it is possible to make substitute to gasoline from sugar, east and water. There are three alcohols that can be used in the gasoline mixture. Methanol, Ethanol and tetra something, the rest you can get from petroleum, octane booster. With this prices going up for gasoline ,it is good idea to start think about it. Not particularly can be used sugar, east and water. Can turn methane into synthesis gas and than make more stuff for synthetic gasoline mixture.

[Bored chemist]

Do you know that it is possible to make substitute to gasoline

Yes

it is good idea to start think about it.

We have been doing it for years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_ethanol_fuel_mixtures#E25

[evan_au]

Methanol

In Brazil, they make engines that can take up to 100% ethanol, and automatically adjust to the mixture.
My car says that it can use up to 10% Ethanol.

The problem is that plastic fittings can be damaged by organic solvents like ethanol and methanol.
So buy a car from Brazil before you try this at home, and don't use Methanol (there are tax reasons for a small amount of Methanol).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

[vdblnkr34 (OP)]

Consumption is higher. Twice more than gasoline. Need to mix.

[Bored chemist]

If you want, you can use this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process
But it is rather inefficient.

biodiesel is another option.

All of these a re established technology and have been in use for decades.

[Petrochemicals]

Ethanol would be great, methanol too, but they all come from plants in current form. We have trouble feeding the world at present, which means cutting down the forests and exterminating all the biodiversity.

I would have thought a mixture of different chemicals will provide the greatest effi iency. The idea of an Ice engine is not an explosion but an expansion in a similar way to gunpowder and petrol which has various different molecules there in, different chemicals expand at different rates.

[bezoar]

Well, there’s always Stanley Meyer’s water powered car that as an added benefit, the engine exhausts oxygen.  However, if this were a reality, and all cars emitted an oxygen exhaust, then we might all die of oxygen toxicity.

[Bored chemist]

Well, there’s always Stanley Meyer’s water powered car

" Meyer's claims about his "Water Fuel Cell" and the car that it powered were found to be fraudulent by an Ohio court in 1996"
From
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Meyer%27s_water_fuel_cell

[alancalverd]

Or ignore the carbon aspect altogether. https://www.riversimple.com has a practical small hydrogen-powered car under development, with Kirkwall town council and Humberside airport already running vans and buses on hydrogen. 

[paul cotter]

Yea, Stanley meyer was a notorious hoaxer and fraudster. He died from coronary atherosclerosis but the looney conspiracy theorists claim he was murdered by the fossil fuel industry-nonsense. A bit off topic but when the germans ran short of fuel in ww2 they came up with a process to directly hydrogenate coal to produce synthetic hydrocarbons. I don't think it worked very well.

[alancalverd]

The best thing about the Lurgi process is its name!

That said, some London buses and taxis ran on producer gas during WWII, and if the Thatcher government hadn't destroyed the mines, there would be around 200 years-worth of convertible coal under the UK.

[Rodneyhhernandez]

Combining CO₂ and H₂ then results in the synthetic fuel, which can be gasoline, diesel, gas, or even kerosene.

[alancalverd]

Audi have made synthetic gasoline directly from atmospheric CO2 and H2O. Almost as efficiently as a tree.

[paul cotter]

Yes of course you can convert h2o+co2 to a suitable hydrocarbon fuel but energetically it's not a good move. All the energy going into the synthesis for a max 30% return.

[alancalverd]

As long as the input energy is free, that isn't a problem. It's a possible solution to  transport problems: you can use free wind power to make a fuel compatible with all existing vehicles including ships and planes, with no net carbon emission.

[paul cotter]

Problem solved, alancalverd has a source of free energy!.Sorry,  i'm just being a smart-ass.  On the subject of Margaret thatcher she sure was an abrasive cold character but she did make Britain great again in terms of the ECONOMY but not necessarily in societal terms(and that's coming from an Irishman). Prior to thatcher Britain was heading to becoming an economic basket case.

[Petrochemicals]

Problem solved, alancalverd has a source of free energy!.Sorry,  i'm just being a smart-ass.  On the subject of Margaret thatcher she sure was an abrasive cold character but she did make Britain great again in terms of the ECONOMY but not necessarily in societal terms(and that's coming from an Irishman). Prior to thatcher Britain was heading to becoming an economic basket case.

1987 crash? Recession of the early 1990s? Exchange rate mechanism?

[alancalverd]

Thanks in part to Margaret Thatcher, whose most significant political acts were to welcome General Pinochet to the UK, install gates across Downing Street, and assume the role of Head of State previously held by the Queen, one third of THE ECONOMY  is spent on mortgages.

If wind power isn't free, why are people so excited by it?

[paul cotter]

Personally I did not like thatcher at all and i'm not trying to beatify her. All those hiccups you mention I fully accept- they are the banana skins that all governments face at one time or another, ie there will always be crises and downturns. Pinochet was a scumbag(am I allowed such words?) and should not have been welcome. I am just saying the economy was going down the tubes in the seventies and she reversed that. I am not a neocon in economic matters, I am a confusing mix of both socialism and conservatism.

[SeanB]

Yea, Stanley meyer was a notorious hoaxer and fraudster. He died from coronary atherosclerosis but the looney conspiracy theorists claim he was murdered by the fossil fuel industry-nonsense. A bit off topic but when the germans ran short of fuel in ww2 they came up with a process to directly hydrogenate coal to produce synthetic hydrocarbons. I don't think it worked very well.

Well Fischer Troph process produces a pretty large volume of fuel base stock, along with a lot of other plastics precursor chemicals. Exported all over the world as a technology, even to the Gulf states as a way to improve the natural gas they have even more of than oil, and which is mostly used to generate power in turbines, or simply burnt off as flare gas. Turn into a usable fuel, or a plastic base means it appreciates in value considerably, and as a bonus the fuel or feedstock is no longer as dangerous to transport as liquefied gas.