With pollution an increasingly important concern as worldwide energy consumption continues to rise, research into alternative fuel is at an all time high. Here are some of the currently available alternative fuels, and what's still to come.
1. Alcohol Fuels
Probably the most widespread alternative fuel is ethanol. Ethanol is just plain old grain alcohol, made from corn or soybeans. There aren't very many vehicles at the moment that can run on pure ethanol. Most of the time, what is available are ethanol blends, which is just ethanol blended with varying percentages of gasoline. At this time, the highest percentage available is 85 percent ethanol, 15 percent gasoline.
Methanol is also used, but is not as common as ethanol. Methanol is also called wood alcohol, and can be produced from wood fermentation or from coal, but is usually made more cheaply from natural gas.
2. Natural Gas Fuels
Another alternative fuel is natural gas. This petroleum-based gas burns more cleanly than gasoline, but still suffers from the renewability problems of all petroleum products. It is also an actual gas, unlike liquid propane, and thus suffers from storage issues. Propane is the alternative, and is a liquid when stored, but still suffers from renewability problems.
3. Electricity
Electricity is the focus of much research, because it is not tied (from the consumers point of view) to any particular fuel source and produces zero emissions at the vehicle. This shifts the burden of utilizing cleaner, often harder-to-handle fuels, away from the average end user and into the hands of organizations with the resources to safely handle the alternative fuels. The main problem with using electricity is, again, storage. Current batteries often require large banks to provide enough power for reasonable speeds and distances. For this reason, electricity is still more oft
4. Hydrogen - The Holy Grail of Alternative Fuels
Hydrogen is the most promising alternative fuel source currently under development. It is extremely clean, producing only water vapor as an emission, and is one of the most abundant elements on the planet in the form of water. All that is needed to produce hydrogen is a source of electricity to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen. The biggest drawback is that hydrogen is only liquid at extremely low temperatures, and extremely explosive when mixed with air in gaseous form. These characteristics make hydrogen hard to safely store and transport, especially in an end-user safe fashion.
These are only a sampling of the various types of alternative fuels available or under development. With petroleum prices skyrocketing, pressure to develop an alternative fuel fit for mass consumption is at an all-time high. Many other possible alternative fuels are being developed and studied every day. In the end, the mass use of these fuels will result in an overall better quality of life on this planet.
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