Gasoline for Electricity Generation

Gasoline for Electricity Generation
Gasoline is an incredibly powerful fuel source, possessing around 21.5 million joules per pound, compared to coal at around 11 million joules. It’s currently used in automobiles, planes, and other vehicles due to its raw power and high energy density. However, a lot of gasoline is currently wasted; the efficiency of many automobiles is lacking as much of the gasoline is wasted generating heat. A typical internal combustion engine only possesses about 26% thermal efficiency and only about 20% mechanical efficiency.

Comparatively, steam turbines generally have around 35-40% efficiency, and are capable of getting around 90% fuel efficiency, meaning that if gasoline was burned to power specially designed steam turbines they could easily be around 3-4 times more efficient in terms of energy production, and potentially up to 4.5 times more efficient, than standard combustion engines. If this energy was stored as electricity, this means that the energy, over the power grid and through cars, could easily be 3 times more efficient when used in vehicles after the energy is generated with multi-million dollar steam turbines rather than few thousand dollar engines. This would mean that we would not only get three times as much energy from gasoline as we do now, but that the cost of gasoline would essentially drop by 1/3 its current amount, given our reduced need for it. If the energy was generated in a more efficient machine before being used in vehicles one could easily reduce the price of locomotion drastically as well as reduce their polluting emissions.

Algae could be used to capture the exhaust from the steam turbines to prevent it from going into the atmosphere, and then use that algae to produce ethanol. As of now the standard 5-10% ethanol gasoline fuel blend currently used in most unleaded standard gasoline seems to possess the equivalent fuel efficiency of gasoline, despite ethanol being around 1/3 weaker than gasoline. This means that burning ethanol in addition to gasoline in the right concentration seems to keep its power level at the same level as straight gasoline, and is basically like adding 10% free fuel to the mixture simply by reusing previously discarded waste products.

It would also make self-reliance on energy a much more feasible task. The United States in 2004 imported nearly 65% of its oil from other countries, and this was considered the peak import year for the 2000 onward period (foreign oil usage is expected to drop to 54% by 2030). If the efficiency of the United States’ use of oil was increased by just 3 times its current amount, all the gasoline used in the United States could come from local sources. This means that a dependency on foreign imported oil, some of this oil that could potentially come from questionable sources, would be eliminated and the United States’ energy supply needed for daily expenses and even potentially economic prowess could be entirely in its own hands.

The price of practically everything could fall (given the current transport system that involves using gasoline), pollution could be virtually eliminated and various Countries’ dependence on foreign oil could be removed, allowing them to prosper without the hands of countries’ whose democratic values may not be the same as theirs.

While we would still be reliant on gasoline, the said process would create a lot less pollution and would provide vastly more energy for no foreseeable increase in cost in regards to fuel consumption, being a good option for all of the United States’ and other affiliated countries’ energy needs.




While Carbon Fiber is expensive, the addition of Thorium or reduced energy costs, at least enough to lower carbon fiber from 15-16 dollars per pound to 5 dollars per pound, being slightly less than 1/5th the density of of steel (1.5 grams per cubic centimeter compared to 7.85), would put carbon fiber unit to unit about as expensive as steel, making it more feasible for production while keeping the same level of safety. This could be possible with improved efficiency of electricity production, and if the electric cars were lighter weight, they could not only travel further (eliminating range anxiety) but the life of the engine and battery could be lengthened. Potential replacements to lithium include Potassium ion and lithium titanate both of which have longer lives than lithium ion and have potential advantages and disadvantages, namely potassium ion being cheap and lithium titanate being able to recharge faster.