Shortly after the 1974 energy crisis caused gasoline prices to shoot toward 50 cents a gallon, Harold Bates gained fame for producing a car that ran on an alternative fuel.
He used manure.
The manure ripened, creating methane gas, which powered his small car up and down the narrow lanes that traverse the English landscape. Mother Earth News was so enraptured by the idea of using animal waste that it produced articles such as “Mother’s Anaerobic-Powered Automobiles,” touting the idea.
Today there is a new push to develop alternative-fueled cars, with natural gas one of the leading energy sources. The idea of methane has been replaced by compressed and propane gas.
But if the idea of using manure has soured, there are other alternatives around.
Some are basic garden variety, such as salad oil. Others are more exotic, such as hydrogen, which can power a fuel cell that generates the juice used by clean-running electric vehicles.
And they may not be headed for the same demise as manure.
Take hydrogen. Hydrogen fuel cells are still in the experimental stage in motor vehicles, homes and buildings, but excitement is building about their potential.
The same applies to salad oil, though proponents prefer the term biodiesel. A mixture of 20 percent diesel fuel and 80 percent soybean or a similar vegetable oil is safe enough to be used on mixed greens.
“I would not recommend this unless you want a laxative,” said Jeffrey M. Horvath of the National Biodiesel Board.
“But when a new fueling station is opened at a marina, it’s customary for everyone to take a shot to show how safe the stuff is. It’s less toxic than table salt.”
Biodiesel is sold at marinas and filling stations throughout central Europe, especially France, Germany, Italy and Austria.
It has a number of advantages. It is far cleaner than gasoline or diesel, and it can be used in any motor vehicle that uses diesel, said Horvath.
There is also a plentiful supply because most of biodiesel comes from renewable oils that undergo a simple refinery process. The main byproduct is glycerin, which has more than 1,600 commercial applications from cough syrup to toothpaste.
There is one minor problem–price. Biodiesel is not now competitive with other fuels, at least in the U.S. It is available in Europe because it can compete with petroleum prices there, which begin at $3 a gallon.
Generally, biodiesel costs 60 to 80 cents more a gallon than traditional fuels.
Still, with its cleaner emissions, it is being heavily promoted by the National Biodiesel Board, which gets much of its income from the soybean industry.
The National Biodiesel Board says the blend reduces particulate matter from engines by 31 percent, carbon monoxide by 21 percent and total hydrocarbons by 47 percent.
And there are some interesting experiments, such as the one by an oil and shortening manufacturer in Chicago who wants to buy back that cooking oil from his customers after they use it.
Columbus Food Co. of Chicago has received a $200,000 federal grant to help build a plant to convert the used cooking oil into biodiesel fuel. The owner, Michael Gagliardo, hopes to sell the fuel to Chicago bus and touring companies.
“It eliminates a waste product and produces a clean-burning fuel at the same time,” said Horvath.
Horvath believes geography may strongly dictate the fate of some alternative fuels.
“There is an alternate fuel frenzy right now but when the dust settles, it will be the demographics of the feedstock that will determine where those fuels are used,” he said.
That means soybean farmers in Iowa may rely on biodiesel while drivers in Texas, where natural gas is plentiful, may rely on that.
Following that reasoning, New England would rely on fuel cells, which may one day be a cheap way of producing electricity–very expensive in this region.
While still in the development phase, fuel cells are being looked at seriously by a range of automakers including Daimler-Benz, Volkswagen, Volvo and Toyota.
“There are very few fuel cells on the road in a finished configuration, but virtually every major automaker has a fuel-cell program under way,” said Robert Rose of Fuel Cell 2000, a Washington-based group that touts the concept.
Rose said the biggest questions revolve around where to store the fuel and in what type of chemical composition (gas, fluid, etc.) it should be stored.
Chrysler Corp. thinks it has the solution, one it says would hasten the coming of fuel-cell vehicles by 10 years: Use gasoline from the usual outlets and convert it to hydrogen onboard.
Fuel cells produce electricity, which drives the power train. Hydrogen, the primary fuel, can be supplied from the vehicle’s “fuel” tanks or from an onboard conversion. Electrons from the hydrogen, when passed through an electrolyte membrane, produce an electric current that is fed to the electric motor (or motors) that drives the wheels.
Using hydrogen to generate electricity onboard gets around the problem of weak batteries, which looks increasingly insoluble.
Companies vary in their approach, but Rose said the important point is that progress is occurring.
“The questions that arise over this technology are, can you build it and can you visualize it,” said Rose. “Five years ago it was a rare person who said yes to those questions and now it’s a rare person who says no.”
Regions where air pollution is a problem also may be prime markets for fuel cells because there are virtually no emissions except water.
Plus, fuel cells so are adaptable that normal considerations in using an energy source have to be thrown out the window.
Rose gave this example: Someone owns a cabin deep in the heart of Maine and he wants electricity. Rather than driving in a generator, and firing it up, it might be easier just to plug the cabin into a fuel-celled car. It’s the same thing as a generator, and the fuel source is easier to provide than one for a generator.
Even the Mother Earth people could appreciate a car like that.
Speaking of Mother Earth, in the 1970s, they never could get their hearts into a methane-powered car. They concluded that putting methane on wheels “is just about the poorest possible way to burn this fuel. The alternative may well be no driving at all (or motoring down the highway on gasoline that costs better than $1 a gallon).”
Which is just about what the future did hold.
