British scientist invents "Artificial Petrol" that could cost as little as 90p per Gallon.

I was searching the latest petrol prices on the web and came across this.

www.eutimes.net...

Artificial petrol that costs 19p per litre could be on forecourts in as little as three years.

British scientists are refining the recipe for a hydrogen-based fuel that will run in existing cars and engines at the fraction of the cost of conventional petrol.

If this is true, then this will be fantastic news. It could mean the end of BIG OIL, but I won't be holding my breath.

No doubt he will be invited in by BP to discuss and explore his invention in more detail only to discover that funnily enough it doesn't work.

I remember seeing something about this last year on physorg.com... Glad to see it is making progress.

Very interesting read. Unfortunately you can probably find dozens of articles from the 60's and 70's that carry the same claims......

reply to post by no special characters


Yes the liklihood of this ever reaching the forecourts is remote to say the least, but it would certainly sort out a few political issues.

British scientist invents "Artificial Petrol" that could cost as little as 90p per Gallon

Doesn't matter

Governments the world over would put duty on the product to bring it in line with normal fuel prices, no cheap go go juice for anyone

reply to post by Pockets


No doubt they would tax it, but how would they justify it? Presently they are able to because their scientists have created the global warming phenomenon, therefore attempting to encourage people to reduce carbon emissions.

I suspect that once we stop using fossil fuels entirely it will be discovered that actually it was Hydrogen all along that was contributing to global warming.

reply to post by Cobaltic1978


You think they would need to justify a decision?

Come on, this is the real world

reply to post by Pockets


As long as it's not more expensive than fossil it's a win. Hopefully it will give time for the environment to repair it's reserves.

eutimes as a source is as reliable as world weekly news.

reply to post by Pockets


They try to justify all their decisions, albeit sometimes ludicrous justification. It would be interesting too see what excuse they use if they were to tax the hell out of it.

reply to post by raivo


Fully agree there are more sources that seem more credible though on this one

Hydrogen is generated using either natural gas or through electrolysis of water. Electrolysis requires electricity. And the total efficiency of a internal combustion engined car fueled by hydrogen created through electrolysis is rather terrible.


Wind-to-Wheel Energy Assessment

According to my math you will need 135 kilowatt hours to travel 100 kilometers using an internal combustion engined car fueled by hydrogen created through electrolysis. At 11.5 cents per kilowatt-hour, the average in the United States for residential users, is $16 per 100 kilometers. I pay 5.2 USD per US Gallon in Australia... fuel costs me $11.07 per 100 kilometers in my car that gets just above 8 litres per 100km (30mpg). In other words, assuming the car in the study was similar to mine, in reality this fuel will cost over $7 per gallon even when using cheap electricity. Interestingly, electricity is much cheaper than oil when an equal amount of energy is actually used. Since this is more expensive, it's because it is extremely inefficient and hence is using more energy, so it would likely have an even larger environmental impact over oil. An electric car will utilize the same amount of electricity six times more efficiently.

Of course, it is possible to obtain hydrogen from natural gas, but then there's the question of why we don't just burn the natural gas directly, which would likely be less complex, easier, and more efficient.

The only way this could possibly be a good idea is with advancements in electrolysis currently at the laboratory scale, and special hydrogen fuel cells that are more than twice as efficient as the Internal Combustion Engine.

You want fuel that costs the equivalent of less than $1.5 per US Gallon? The only existing technology that can do that is the EV. We only need to drive the capital cost down which can be done through mass-production.