The gas that's far cheaper than, and almost as good as, petrol

When Quentin Tarantino shouts ‘Action!’ and three hot chicks in yellow latex jumpsuits hammer their flamethrowers, you’re about to see propane do what it does best – burn. Propane is the pyrotechnic gas du jour for the Hollywood special effects set. It’s the same stuff that makes gas barbecues happen right across Australia, and if a licensed installer jams a big enough tank of it in your car (plus sundry plumbing), it’s a fair old substitute for petrol.

The perfect alternative fuel?

Hydrogen is the most abundant element on Earth, a fundamental building block of nearly everything. Hydrogen fusion is the reaction that ‘drives’ the sun, making sunlight itself hydrogen-powered.

Seventy-five per cent of everything around you is made up of hydrogen, which exists in combination with other elements. Water is two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen. By mass it is 11.2 per cent hydrogen and 88.8 per cent oxygen.

Shifting from fossil fuels to hydrogen energy has far-flung implications – in theory. Emissions would be zero. Hydrogen is

Thinking of downsizing automotively to reduce your carbon footprint? Let’s put that in perspective

TOYOTA CAMRY Vs GAS HOT WATER

OPTION 1: Instead of buying a new XR6 Turbo I’ll buy a 2.4-litre four-cylinder Camry.

OPTION 2: I’ll switch my home over from electric hot water to gas.

Analysis: According to the Federal Government’s Green Vehicle Guide data, in 20,000km of motoring the XR6 Turbo will emit

Filling one’s tank is so utterly mundane an experience that few spare a passing thought for the staggering volume of energy routinely transferred in the process. Occasionally some fool makes a Molotov of himself at the bowser with an unwitting static electricity discharge into the air-fuel vapour mix around the filler neck. Captured on CCTV, it’s the merest blip on the popular radar that petrol is anything other than a benign, unremarkable liquid.

The truth, however, is rather different.

Petrol and its more viscous sibling, diesel, are almost perfect energy storage mediums. They cram so much energy into such a small volume, and they weigh and cost so little, that other fuels – especially alternatives – have real trouble measuring up.

Say you fill up on unleaded. The nozzle might click off automatically at 58 litres. You’re ready for another 600km of driving. For a mere $77 you have just tipped 43kg of stored energy into your tank. It doesn’t sound like a big deal until you actually measure the energy, which in this case is a mammoth two billion joules.