Will it happen?

[McMouse]

http://uk.cars.yahoo....ol-development-0.html

///A British company has invented artificial petrol that emits no greenhouse gases and could cost as little as 19p per litre at the pumps.

Cella Energy, the Oxfordshire-based firm that is developing the fuel, uses hydrogen, which is currently much cheaper than oil.

The first road tests of the as yet unnamed fuel are scheduled to take place next year. If everything goes to plan, then the miracle 'petrol' could be available in three to five years.

Though a figure of 19p per litre has been suggested, it is expected that the motorist would pay around 60p per litre with the addition of Government fuel tax.///

[TTG]

Yes it will happen + £1 tax...lol

[R1Geezer]

perhaps but if it goes mainstream it's get taxed like any other fuel that becomes too popular. Fuel is dirt cheap now if you take the tax off.

[R1Geezer]

Of course as it uses hydrogen it does in fact need a lot of electricity to produce so it's far from "no emissions"

[rowanwitch]

no it won't as one of the big petrochemical companies will pay an extortionate amount of money to the developers for the patent/intellectual rights or whatever and it will disappear down a little black hole

[jake-the-peg]

This story is misleading

What they have developed is a way of trapping Hydrogen in microscopic spheres.

Do you know where Hydrogen is obtained from? reacting steam with Hydrocarbons!

19p a litre is frankly fanatasy - it's probably 19p a litre on top of the cost of the hydrogen

[jake-the-peg]

There was some discussion of it on a thread started over the weekend

http://www.theanswerb...s/Question982781.html

[squarebear]

If it does exist, rowanwitch is correct.

[jake-the-peg]

You have to be kidding square bear & Rowan Witch

Do you seriously think if BP or Shell had the sole rights to a groundbreaking technology (not that this is one) that they would not use it to drive the competition into the ground?

[squarebear]

Not while people are still paying over the odds for oil. If someone invented a battery that never ran out, I doubt Duracell would be too happy.

[jake-the-peg]

Yes but we're not talking perpetual motion here

we're talking about a shift to a new technology - as pointed out the cost that we pay is mostly tax - any energy company that grab sole rights to a game changing technology can dominate the industry.

Look at the Microsoft model - do you think Shell would turn down the chance to be the Microsoft of the Energy business?

[pa___ul3]

plus if one company had the rights to produce this fuel, I'm guessing it wouldn't run in a standard petrol tank meaning cars would have to be converted thus leading essentially to a monopolisation of this new fuel's market.

[jake-the-peg]

Not as difficult as you might think - there are already kits to convert existig cars to hydrogen.

Not that they're legal for road use yet of course.

http://www.switch2hydrogen.com/h2.htm

[youngmafbog]

I seem to recall similar to this on 'Tomorrows World' Many years ago Nothing New.

R1, in this country yes you are corerct. In France no, nuclear drives the electricity generation. Unfortunaltey for us we were saddles with Noo labour and probably due to their CND background refused to invest in nuclear so we are, yet again, behing

Thanks Grondo

[flobadob]

ttg hit nail on't head.

[jake-the-peg]

Even France doesn't have enough YMB

To run all our cars on Hydrogen electolysed from water we would need, based on the estimates I did last time this came up 10 times the electricity generating capacity we already have.

Scaling up production by that amount is simply unviable.

Solar based is by far the most practical - that may be direct or indirect (biofuels for example) but you're going to need sunshine and lots of it.

I still say the Saharan countries are going to see a rush for land in the next 50 years or so

[rov1100]

I think you could be right Jake, There is a £240bn project to capture the solar energy in the Sahara

http://www.forumforth...the_end_of_the_desert