Alternative fuels, known as non-conventional or advanced fuels, are any materials or substances that can be used as fuels, other than conventional fuels. Conventional fuels include: fossil fuels (petroleum (oil), coal, propane, and natural gas), as well as nuclear materials such as uranium and thorium, as well as artificial radioisotope fuels that are made in nuclear reactors, and store their energy.
Some well-known alternative fuels include biodiesel, bioalcohol (methanol, ethanol, butanol), chemically stored electricity (batteries and fuel cells), hydrogen, non-fossil methane, non-fossil natural gas, vegetable oil, and other biomass sources.
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The main purpose of fuel is to store energy, which should be in a stable form and can be easily transported to the place of production. Almost all fuels are chemical fuels. The user employs this fuel to generate heat or perform mechanical work, such as powering an engine. It may also be used to generate electricity, which is then used for heating, lighting or electronics purposes.
Biofuels are also considered a renewable source. Although renewable energy is used mostly to generate electricity, it is often assumed that some form of renewable energy or at least it is used to create alternative fuels.
Biomass in the energy production industry is living and recently dead biological material which can be used as fuel or for industrial production.
Algae based biofuels have been hyped in the media as a potential panacea to our Crude Oil based Transportation problems. Algae could yield more than 2000 gallons of fuel per acre per year of production.[1] Algae based fuels are being successfully tested by the U.S. Navy[2] Algae based plastics show potential to reduce waste and the cost per pound of algae plastic is expected to be cheaper than traditional plastic prices.[3]
Biodiesel is made from animal fats or vegetable oils, renewable resources that come from plants such as, soybean, sunflowers, corn, olive, peanut, palm, coconut, safflower, canola, sesame, cottonseed, etc. Once these fats or oils are filtered from their hydrocarbons and then combined with alcohol like methanol, biodiesel is brought to life from this chemical reaction. These raw materials can either be mixed with pure diesel to make various proportions, or used alone. Despite one’s mixture preference, biodiesel will release a smaller number of its pollutants (carbon monoxide particulates and hydrocarbons) than conventional diesel, because biodiesel burns both cleaner and more efficiently. Even with regular diesel’s reduced quantity of sulfur from the ULSD (ultra-low sulfur diesel) invention, biodiesel exceeds those levels because it is sulfur-free. [4]
Methanol and Ethanol fuel are typically a primary sources of energy; they are convenient fuels for storing and transporting energy. These alcohols can be used in "internal combustion engines as alternative fuels", with butanol also having known advantages, such as being the only alcohol-based motor fuel that can be transported readily by existing petroleum-product pipeline networks, instead of only by tanker trucks and railroad cars.
Ammonia can be used as fuel. A small machine can be set up to create the fuel and it is used where it is made. Benefits of ammonia include, no need for oil, zero emissions, low cost,[5] and distributed production reducing transport and related pollution.
Hydrogen is an emissionless fuel. The byproduct of hydrogen burning is water, although some mono-nitrogen oxides NOx are produced when hydrogen is burned with air.[6][7]
HCNG (or H2CNG) is a mixture of compressed natural gas and 4-9 percent hydrogen by energy.[8]
Liquid nitrogen is another type of emissionless fuel.
The air engine is an emission-free piston engine using compressed air as fuel. Unlike hydrogen, compressed air is about one-tenth as expensive as fossil oil, making it an economically attractive alternative fuel.
Compressed natural gas (CNG) is a cleaner burning alternative to conventional petroleum automobile fuels. The energy efficiency is generally equal to that of gasoline engines, but lower compared with modern diesel engines. CNG vehicles require a greater amount of space for fuel storage than conventional gasoline power vehicles because CNG takes up more space for each GGE (Gallon of Gas Equivalent). Almost any existing gasoline car can be turned into a bi-fuel (gasoline/CNG) car. However, natural gas is a finite resource like all fossil fuels, and production of natural gas is expected to peak soon after oil.
Natural gas, like hydrogen, is another fuel that burns cleanly; cleaner than both gasoline and diesel engines. Also, none of the smog-forming contaminates are emitted, seen substantially by the latter. Around the world, this gas powers more than 5 million vehicles, and just over 150,000 of these are in the U.S. [9]
Nuclear power is any nuclear technology designed to extract usable energy from atomic nuclei via controlled nuclear reactions. The only controlled method now practical uses nuclear fission in a fissile fuel (with a small fraction of the power coming from subsequent radioactive decay). Use of the nuclear reaction nuclear fusion for controlled power generation is not yet practical, but is an active area of research.
Nuclear power is usually used by using a nuclear reactor to heat a working fluid such as water, which is then used to create steam pressure, which is converted into mechanical work for the purpose of generating electricity or propulsion in water. Today, more than 15% of the world's electricity comes from nuclear power, and over 150 nuclear-powered naval vessels have been built.
In theory, electricity from nuclear reactors could also be used for propulsion in space, but this has yet to be demonstrated in a space flight. Some smaller reactors, such as the TOPAZ nuclear reactor, are built to minimize moving parts, and use methods that convert nuclear energy to electricity more directly, making them useful for space missions, but this electricity has historically been used for other purposes. Power from nuclear fission has been used in a number of spacecraft, all of them unmanned. The Soviets up to 1988 orbited 33 nuclear reactors in RORSAT military radar satellites, where electric power generated was used to power a radar unit that located ships on the Earth's oceans. The U.S. also orbited one experimental nuclear reactor in 1965, in the SNAP-10A mission. No nuclear reactor has been sent into space since 1988.
In addition, radioisotopes have been used as alternative fuels, on both land and in space. Their use on land is declining due to the danger of theft of isotope and environmental damage if the unit is opened. The decay of radioisotopes generates both heat and electricity in many space probes, particularly probes to outer planets where sunlight is weak, and low temperatures is a problem. Radiothermal generators (RTGs) which use such radioisotopes as fuels do not sustain a nuclear chain reaction, but rather generate electricity from the decay of a radioisotope which has (in turn) been produced on Earth as a concentrated power source (fuel) using energy from an Earth-based nuclear reactor. [10]
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