Why cant there be cars powered by grass?

India
December 1, 2009 7:13am CST
Grass is the most abundant plant on earth. The energy content of grass is about 15000 KJ/Kg. Grass mostly contains cellulose which is the most abundant macromolecule on earth. If we are able to extract proton from grass(cellulose) like we do from hydrogen, petrol etc in a fuel cell, then we could power a car using grass powered fuel cell. Or at least we could convert cellulose to some compound from which we can extract proton easily. If this is possible then most of our future automotive energy requirements will be satisfied, because if we could produce 1 million metric tonne of grass every day, then we could have 10kg of grass for 10 million cars every day. That means we have 150000 KJ per car every day which is approximately equal to 3 liters of gasoline every day. And since the energy is converted using a fuel cell, it will be more efficient that means about 5 liters of petrol per car every day. I think this is quiet enough for an average man's use. Also we have very vast grasslands on earth and with a little engineering we could increase the grass production and its calorific value to meet all the energy requirements for our automobiles. Then why there are no grass powered production cars on our planet???? I am not talking about bullock carts.
3 responses
1 Dec 09
That's new and great. Genius! It's more of the biofuel idea. But what I would really want to see is making garbage and trash made into fuel or energy. More of recycling. Wastes on earth would be a great help then.
@samawati (140)
1 Dec 09
Overunity is the answer ... to make something that breaks newtons laws , ohms laws and a whole lot of smart head laws before our time is something worth marveling about , We are using ancient technology to power our life because we accept that their laws are the only laws there are in physics and most universities defend this fact . But the truth is , that physics can be bent and broken and new ideas , beyond our own comprehension could be discovered. Why believe that matter cannot be created or destroyed except in a radioactive reaction.If there is one exception there must be tons of other exceptions to follow. Our human race is getting dumber every year because of the internet and modernization , not many people want to experiment and discover , they just want to redesign the wheel and brand it with their own name. No offense , but bio-fuels have been done and can be done on anything that is organic , since the decomposition of organic matter releases energy , so it's just a matter of finding the most efficient biofule to produce a lot of energy for the shortest time , Biofules are also a good way to degrade the environment further , whichever way you look at it. To set you on the right path ... you should focus more on invisibe energy , like magnetism or natural radiation from the sun or even earth potential (earth batteries) , they use kinetic and radiant energy which ofcourse if harnessed well can illuminate your life for a long time ... This subject is very wide and i don't want to dictate what someone should think , but atleast try and be more creative and think outside the box. This compter I am using is powered by a Bedini motor , it took me a while to reach suffiient current levels since voltage alone wont do the work on digital , the rectification circuits etc all i did from online designs and I love my small quiet self sustaining generator. Bye ... happy experimenting.
@samawati (140)
1 Dec 09
Because cows need the grass in order to make milk , feeding your car the grass like a cow makes no sense because a cow feed on grass and gives back milk . A lot of our high calorie foods can produce enough energy to power a car , but the resource is needed elsewhere , so bad idea! It's bad enough that we are using oil like never before for our energy needs , but it's gonna be worse to start using food or the raw material required in order to feed the people. The only true way to conserve energy is to find a real free energy source that can satisfactorily operate at a certain level of overunity. So far a few attempts have been made at this , some Australians have developed a self sustaining generator , which operates at overunity , meaning that it produces more energy than is required to actually run the machine , like Zero point energy... this is more practical than using grass to power cars etc ... bbut i'd like to see such kind of generator go into mass production so that everyone can have free energy ... Keep thinking , keep inventing and keep on believing there is a day we will be able to power our planet without spoiling it .. :)
• India
5 Dec 09
Please forgive me if I am wrong, but what I understood is that zero point energy is the minimum energy below which a thermodynamic system can never go. If we want to extract energy from a system which is at its zero point energy, we need to convert it to a state which is having energy lower than its zero point energy, which is never possible unless we convert the system to a different form in which the system has a lower zero point energy. For example if we want to extract energy from helium at its zero point energy, we have to convert it to some other element with a lower zero point energy. This process, even if possible, cannot produce free energy since helium will eventually get depleted. Extraction of free energy from a system at zero point energy is possible only if zero point energy is infinite, because reducing a finite amount from infinity will not change its value. If the zero point energy of helium is infinite then we can extract free energy from it with out converting it to another element. But experiments show that zero point energy is not infinite. Perhaps this may be the reason why no devise claimed to operate using zero point energy has been demonstrated to operate as claimed.
• United States
1 Dec 09
This is a great idea and I think you should try and patent it if at all possible. I never really thought about using grass as a fuel source but you are right there is a lot of it and it grows rather abuntly as well. Thanks for starting this topic and I hope to see more peoples opinions about it as well.