I'm glad to see that an Iranian auto manufacturer is enjoying such successes. It's certainly a source of pride for Iranians and brings them one step closer to establishing themselves as a regional power.

Now if only they could improve on their refinery situation so Iranians could afford to own and drive more Samands. But then again, the last thing Tehran needs is more cars in the streets...

There are according to this article even "petrol and gas-powered Samand models".

The Iranian model of these cars run with natural gas, they don´t need petrol.
This means Iranians can afford to run and own those cars.
Iran has large reserves of natural gas and you don´t need refineries for them.

Here is an article about it

Iran also has great potential as a producer of ethanol. The date fruit from the date palm (Phoenix dactylifera) is an excellent source of biomass to produce ethanol if they're thinking far enough ahead to start planting large orchards of date palm trees now.

http://www.greenedia.com/sectors/directory/biopact-blog/40524

If they could run their own cars on ethanol they could sell virtually all of their petroleum for cash.

Europeans and Americans and start burning their food?
They have natural gas enough to run their cars forever.

The Hidden Agenda behind the Bush Adminstration's Bio-Fuel Plan

these commercial cars are just a cover for their evil covert suicide bombing plans against US forces in Iraq. This car being designed to run on so called natural gas is just a cover to fill their tanks with mustard gas. That is just another reason for Iran to be bombed with tactical nuclear missiles. You can't trust Iranians even when they make birthday cakes they are always meant for blowing up US forces in Iraq. So our esteemed VP Chenney was right all along, Iranians should not be allowed to produce anything let alone export anything for even their dates are contaminated with various biological toxins.

(sarcasm:))

"Let there be Light!"

Why should the Iranians be as stupid as us Europeans and Americans and start burning their food? They have natural gas enough to run their cars forever.

If the Iranians have decided they want to live exclusively on dates then they can plant enough date trees to supply them with food AND ethanol. If there is a date shortage now they'll need to plant more trees anyway. They have plenty of land and ground water available. By the time the trees they plant today are old enough to be producing sufficient date fruit for ethanol production as well as enough fruit for the Iranian people to make all their meals out of dates, the cellulosic ethanol process will be even further along in efficiency than it is now.

By the way, the cellulosic ethanol process DOES NOT REQUIRE THE DATE FRUIT, in other words the edible part, to be used -- the large SEEDS inside the date fruit are fine. Those are virtually useless and typically burned or thrown away. Cellulosic ethanol production uses agricultural waste like cornstalks and corn cobs and wheat straw -- and date seeds -- for raw biomass. Any woody, fibrous plant material, even wood chips and forestry waste and peach and plum pits etc.

The cellulosic ethanol road map from Mascoma's CEO

September 25, 2007

Posted by Michael Kanellos

Cellulosic ethanol, a car fuel made out of forest scraps and prairie grasses, is coming, but there still are a lot of hurdles to overcome, said Bruce Jamerson, CEO of Mascoma in an interview with News.com.

http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9784515-7.html

Iran also has considerable intellectual resources. To mention only one; the fact that Iranian engineers have chosen to tackle the engineering nightmare of completing their subway system in Tehran that other countries said couldn't be done.

Jonny brings up a good point that reminds me of a paper written by someone (I'm trying to find the paper now) who made a very valid point in favor of Iran's right to nuclear energy.

The author's most compelling argument is that if you are a farmer and corn is your money crop, you don't consume the corn for food because that reduces the profits available from the corn. The analogy holds true for Iran. Oil is one of the chief sources of revenue for Iran so if they can find ways to maximize profits by reducing their own consumption they absolutely should.

I agree Concerned-Citizen.

Fossil fuels such as oil or coal are generally considered to be finite resources, even if the known deposits might be enormous. Mining or drilling, often under very difficult circumstances is always required to extract those products. "Green" fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel on the other hand are plant products and therefore easily harvested, with the additional benefit that the previous year's consumption is replaced every year. If the Iranians can arrange their transportation sector to run on domestically produced motor fuel made from what are essentially agricultural products and agricultural waste they are free to sell their fossil fuel resources for hard cash.

That's interesting about the Tehran subway system. I didn't know they were building a subway. Best of luck to them, that's an enormous and complicated job.

I was employed in the wheeled vehicle engineering business for a few years and I worked with one engineer originally from and trained in Iran. He was first rate, better than many American engineers I worked with. That's just an anecdote of course but if he was representative of Iranian engineering schools and the quality of people the country produces they're top-notch.

The whole corn ethanol is a fool's dream when it is done from corn and grains. It takes much more energy than it yields to produce ethanol and it only serves to raise the price of food and land. It isn't even feasible without massive government subsidies. Sugar cane ethanol like Brazil uses, is feasible. So is Bio Diesel from farm waste.

Iran is blessed with excess natural gas beyond which it has the capacity to export. It is the cleanest burning fuel and cars last almost forever that run on it.

Combine that natural gas with efficient nuclear power plants and Iran becomes THE GREENEST COUNTRY ON THE PLANET!

Who said anything about "corn ethanol." Besides you I mean.

Oh, you must be talking about cornstalks and corn cobs as I mentioned. You don't eat those things do you? I don't.

I have always had dish washers at home, but never used it for real. It might be prejudice, but I have the impression that they are the most used useless products ever made.

Internal combustion engines might be another example. I forgot the exact figure, but something like 60% of fuel energy is lost thru heat alone, where we collect it and toss it in the wind. We just capture the gas volume expansion of it and use it to move the car. A bit fancier steam engine. It is ridiculous that we have not ventured a different mechanism. Just think about how quartz revolutionized the mechanical movement of watches.

Who is hampering the advancement? Unfortunately the same businesses that are supposed to be pushing the front lines. The same who "Who Killed the Electric Cars?", the same who, who had giga hz computer processors ten years ago, but decided to slice it to two hundred mega hz every six months and sell it to make many folds more profit that way, probably the same who, who is killing off anyone associated with cold fusion idea.

Tehran suffers heavily from smog problem and they knew it 15-20 yrs ago. Converting gasoline engines to NG engines has been on the table that long too. The conversion technology is a weekend project. Yet it is not done. It must be the same who, who is involved in big auto contracts and has influence in the government too (Rafsanjani?) Iran makes one million cars a year (us makes 12 millions). Instead of a different fuel, Iranian engineers should come up with a power generating mechanism that cuts the ridiculous number of hoses, wires, lubricants, heat, sound, smoke, pollutants, ...

Opposition to Iran's nuclear program might be related to this issue too. Global warmists want all countries commit themselves so they can dictate to these countries how much air above their heads they can burn every year, and thus effectively control industrial development in these countries. Obviously they wouldn't want an outlaw third world country like Iran to have a clean energy technology which might share with other to-be slave countries too.

Nuclear
Nuclear energy is not really durable since its resources are finite on the same scale as about fossil fuels or so they claim.

@Kats
Engines
The internal combustion engine wastes a lot of energy, but the fuel for the engine contains a lot of energy for a relatively small amount of mass and volume. The engine itself is also relatively small.

Generally the more power you need the more energy you relatively waste (lose in heat).

Washing
A dishwasher uses less water than manual washing if used correctly. However some people just fill it up with just a few plates or fill their washing machine with just a few clothes which is just a waste.
I don't have a dishwasher by the way.

Nuke,
Nuclear fuel resources is what not many people talk about. If I am not mistaken, Australia has 40% (or 60%?) of world's known uranium.

ICE,
I don't mean to be splitting hair here, but this issue might be actually indicative of a perceptional anomaly in our life style. We get confused between 'value' and 'price'. Most of us toss a plastic spoon after use, not because the spoon exhausted its usefulness, but because its cheap.

We are being forced to tolerate and pay for internal combustion engines-ICE because of enormous profit the oil companies and car manufacturers make. The technological advantages of ICE made sense 50 years ago, not today.

Most companies who can afford, have Research and Development departments, which are supposed to come up with new product ideas. Ironically, the bigger the company and the fancier their R&D , the fewer innovative ideas they come up with. It may sound counter intuitive, but it really is not. The reason is that the newer the ideas the more they can 'cannibalize' their giant 'existing businesses'.

Smaller companies don't have 'giant existing businesses' and are more than happy to see their innovative products slash thru big businesses. And that's why bigger corporations have installed market research scavenger positions who look for small innovative startups and gobble them up like a macrophage phagocytosizing a bacteria. And that's why a small soft drink startup that comes up with an electrolyte drink with no suger or sulfuric/phosphoric acid in it, which is what we all and especially athlete need, it vanishes in an eye lash by the fat ones.

Every time one of those passenger carriers in the airport hallways passes me by, I sigh and imagine how nice our streets would have felt if cars and bikes sounded less than humans walking.

How nice it would have been we didn't have a greasy car repair shop every other corner with crook mechanics in every other one of them, with literally hundreds of different screw drivers, wrenches, sockets, nippers, pliers, gages, testers, caps, needles, ...

How nice it would have been we didn't have to be stranded in the high ways waiting for AAA tow truck, because we forgot to change the fuel or air filter, or a v-belt snapped and water pump stopped and the coolant is over heating, ...there is no end to this madness. All because this 'giant existing business' cannot be cannibalized.

The same way that Xerox brushed the quartz idea in their own company and leaked by a Japanese guy to Japan and boom all watch repair shops were shut down, we need an aggressive and innovative country that isn't pinned down by this 'giant existing business' to shut down this ICE octopus.

Washing machine.
Unlike cars, this is at least a choice. You can skip it if 85% of your dishes (like mine) do not need detergent, but a brisk rubbing and rinsing. If you use detergent when unnecessary, you actually use more water, not to mention putting chemicals in the soil.

Dishwashers are set for toughest stains (less than 20% of all dishes at worst), no mechanical rubbing, use of detergents, hot water, drying to avoid streaks, and of course electricity... I dunno, maybe it makes sense for large families whose sinks are not large enough to dump used dishes and cups, before they are ready to wash them. I think they are there because water, electricity, detergent and soil are cheap.