Alternative fuels.

[veloce_rosso]

Has anyone considered or attempted dual fuel or other conversations to their Dolomites?

[cleverusername]

You mean LPG? The tax/price advantage for that in the UK is not that great and by classic standards, Dolomites of all engine types, are not very heavy on fuel. You would have to do allot of miles to justify the cost of such a system.

Now I can see why you would fit it to something with a Rover V8 engine for example but not something with four cylinders.

[cliftyhanger]

A good friend has run his herald on LPG for the 20 years and 200k he has done in it. And it was on his mk1 escort before that, probably the car before that too...

We had an LPG Zafira for about 10 years/100k, simple as anything to use, but it was a factory conversion.

Running costs are better, fuel under half price, but you won't get the same mpg, down about 20% on the zafira compared to petrol.

So if doing big meilages it can be worthwhile, or as above, if you have a thirsty engine.

[yorkshire_spam]

LPG is ok, but hardcore eco-warriors are using coffee these days:
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/ ... speed-bid/

[Carledo]

Jeroen (SOE 8M) will probably be on soon with more info, but he's been running an 1850 on LPG for around 250,000km and has built an engine specifically to use LPG and not petrol at all.

I've done a few LPG conversions myself, including at least one twin SU car, it can be done, but it's a bit fiddly getting it right and crucially at swapover from LPG to petrol and vice versa. A fuel injected is easy as flipping a switch.

As others have said, it's a pretty big investment to make back on a car that does relatively few miles. Even doing it myself, which I could achieve easily and scrounging up the bulk of the bits i'd need second hand, it'd probably still cost ME the best part of £500 to convert a Dolomite to LPG. Where I live the nearest LPG available to buy is 16 miles away. And spotty availablity around the country, with that and the slow return, i can't be bothered.

Steve

[soe8m]

I run all my cars on LPG because it's very cheap compared to petrol here in NL. Some have a conventional setup and the Dolomite Carledo mentioned was a LPG injected engine that needed for 13km 1 liter LPG. I'm currently (when I have time) building a 2 liter 8 valve LPG injected engine and using an 1850 head for more compression. All have ratios around 1:11 - 1:12. All these engines do run on petrol but only for emergency. When on petrol the ignition retards automatically because of the detonation on petrol having such a high compression ratio and having a slightly more advaced setup for the slower burning LPG. You can achieve good power figures with LPG also as it has an "octane" of 108. One of my LPG 1850's had 110hp on the rearwheels and that's slightly more than a std sprint has.

When LPG is your main fuel you have to build your engine to LPG. Peoples minds still have a certain shortcut thinking that when running on LPG a car also has to run ok on petrol but that isn't possible. It will never run 100% on LPG and will alway's be a compromise when you also want to drive on petrol ok.

Jeroen

[veloce_rosso]

It was just curiosity. Interesting that someone is running an 1850 on LPG. I think as we become more aware of climate change these alternatives will become more popular.

[cleverusername]

It was just curiosity. Interesting that someone is running an 1850 on LPG. I think as we become more aware of climate change these alternatives will become more popular.

The CO2 benefits of LPG are marginal at best. If climate change is the issue it would require something more radical, converting it to electric, for example.

[Carledo]

It was just curiosity. Interesting that someone is running an 1850 on LPG. I think as we become more aware of climate change these alternatives will become more popular.

The CO2 benefits of LPG are marginal at best. If climate change is the issue it would require something more radical, converting it to electric, for example.

I agree with this! We are at the stage where burning ANY kind of fossil fuel is staring extinction in the face, even Hybrids will be outlawed (for new production) by 2035. LPG does have SOME assets over petrol in terms of pollution, admittedly CO2 production isn't one of them, personally I regard CO2 as a non-issue, it's generally agreed by proper scientists (ie those without an agenda) that CO2 has NO effect on climate change. But it burns cleaner and more completely so less wasted hydrocarbons, your oil stays spotless once you've been using LPG for a while. But LPG is only a stop gap. It wouldn't be viable at all if it wasn't that taxation rates are different. The only REAL benefit of LPG is that it's cheaper, and that is only so because the govt fuel duty imposed on it is lower. In actual fact, at a production level, LPG is MORE expensive than petrol as it's more refined. It's also basically a by-product of petrol production. Stop making petrol and there won't BE any LPG anyway!

Where I don't agree is electric, at least battery electric! For SO many reasons, which I won't go into again here, batteries are a dead end. Electricity isn't, the future to me looks like electric power from a Hydrogen fuel cell. You use "off peak" electricity, which would otherwise be wasted or just not generated via reducing generator output from wind or wave power (nice and green) to separate Hydrogen from sea water, then ship the Hydrogen to fuel stations where you fill your car tank with it, just as you currently do petrol. the Hydrogen fuel cell recombines the hydrogen with atmospheric oxygen to form water vapour (the only exhaust) and the energy generated by this process drives your car. You are not even using valuable breathing oxygen, because you get it back in advance when the hydrogen is separated out of the water, the oxygen left over is released into the atmosphere! It's as close as you can get to something for nothing! The technology ALREADY exists! And the oil companies ALREADY have a distribution and supply network that could be used with only relatively minor mods, that will otherwise go the way of the dinosaur if they don't get their act together!

Steve

PS, we WILL still need oil, besides lubricants, almost the entire plastics industry is dependent on oil. Fortunately for us, there is still plenty of oil left and it will last a lot longer if we aren't burning millions of gallons a day, just getting to work!

[veloce_rosso]

I'm not convinced by electric cars. Of course there's no exhaust pollution but given the average battery life is between 8-10 years, how do they dispose of it and what's the process? and if it's all electric then this must come from power stations, around 60% are conventional fossil-burning stations.

Then all the components to make the batteries come from different parts of the world. Are there eco-friendly ships and aircraft?

In a TV documentary a while back they monitored pollution outside a London school. Their findings was surprising: the majority was brake and tyre pollution and not exhaust.

[cleverusername]

Whether electric cars take over the world pretty much depends on battery technology. If we can make a low cost energy dense battery that doesn't require expense exotic materials to make, the internal combustion engine has had it.

ICE engines have character, I wouldn't own an old car is I didn't see that. However from a practical point of view, electric motors crush them. Lighter, less complex, flat torque curve and far less to go wrong. It is the car as a white good, which lets be honest, is what most of the motoring public want.

We could get that battery technology, enough money is being put into research or we might not and the electric car could be another dead end. Time will tell.

[tinweevil]

Hydrogen has very poor energy density, even in liquid form it has less than a third the energy density of petrol so you need a tank with 3 times the capacity to be equivalent. Non-intuitively (to me at least) 30 litres of liquid hydrogen weighs about the same as 10 of petrol so weight of the fuel is not a problem. Weight of the tank however...

Then there's the energy requirement in liquefying it.

This recent development could help with the tank weight and cost of liquefaction but it cannot help the volume problem.

[cleverusername]

Hydrogen has very poor energy density, even in liquid form it has less than a third the energy density of petrol so you need a tank with 3 times the capacity to be equivalent. Non-intuitively (to me at least) 30 litres of liquid hydrogen weighs about the same as 10 of petrol so weight of the fuel is not a problem. Weight of the tank however...

Then there's the energy requirement in liquefying it.

This recent development could help with the tank weight and cost of liquefaction but it cannot help the volume problem.

Fuel is just an energy store, the difference between a fuel cell car and electric car is just the method of storing the energy. Unless we are getting hydrogen from gas, which would it another fossil fuel, both the energy for making hydrogen and charging batteries will have to come from somewhere.

So it comes down to energy density, cost and practicality. Like you I am not convinced by hydrogen. Fueling would be obviously be faster but we would have to build a whole new hydrogen infrastructure, which improved battery tech could render obsolete.

[Bumpa]

All this was discussed in the recent thread titled "Am I right to be skeptical about tuning?". Hydrogen fuel cell cars are a reality already - Hyundai Nexo SUV, Toyota Mirai and Honda Clarity. In Aberdeen there have been fuel cell buses running for a few years now. James May tested the Hyundai Nexo a while back and found it had good performance, could do 300 miles on a full tank and took less than 5 minutes to refill. He said "What's not to like?"

As you say, the issue is manufacturing and distributing the hydrogen. In Orkney there is an experimental station testing different sorts of wave generators which makes so much excess electricity that they use some of it to electrolyse water and fill H2 cylinders, which are then used in fuel cells for even more power generation to push into the national grid.

I'm with Steve (Carledo) in that I think battery electric cars are a dead end. The whole life environmental cost of these vehicles is supposed to be massive, far worse than for petrol vehicles. That's what I read anyway, not that I'm any sort of expert.

[Carledo]

So it comes down to energy density, cost and practicality. Like you I am not convinced by hydrogen. Fueling would be obviously be faster but we would have to build a whole new hydrogen infrastructure, which improved battery tech could render obsolete.

And this is my point! Improved battery technology COULD render it obsolete! IF, COULD, MAYBE, PERHAPS. It DOESN'T EXIST NOW!!!!!

What we have now in Li-Ion is cutting edge tech for right now. And it is SO badly flawed with so many downsides in both monetary and environmental cost, that i'm constantly amazed ANYONE with half a brain cell could consider it a viable solution. The only reason I can think of, is that this drive towards batteries is not driven by science or engineering, but by political agendas. If there was anything better on the horizon, SOMEONE would be shouting about it. I'm quite certain plenty of scientists are looking! You might as well pray for a miracle! I reckon we've as much chance of getting cold fusion up and running as we have of making truly eco friendly batteries. And what about aircraft? you gonna power them with batteries too?

Hydrogen fuel cell tech is here RIGHT NOW! and we have a distribution and supply network already in the shape of the petrol station network and tanker depots. A relatively small effort in repurposing part of those facilities for Hydrogen and Bob's your uncle. In maybe 50 years, they'll all be defunct anyway,

The oil companies NEED to do something to protect their massive investment in all this equipment , transport and real estate. Turning to Hydrogen could cushion the blowfor them. Sooner or later it will sink in that their lobby, whilst powerful ATM is not going to ultimately prevail here. Petrol and diesel as a fuel is doomed. I don't like it, but i'm realistic about it! The oil industry would do well to follow my thinking. (he said, modestly )

Steve