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Alternative fuel is any material or substance, other than Petroleum (oil), which is consumed to provide energy to power an Engine . Some alternative Fuel s are Biodiesel , Ethanol , Electricity , Hydrogen , Methane , Natural Gas , Wood , and Vegetable Oil . The need for the development of alternative fuel sources has been growing due to concerns that the Production Of Oil Will No Longer Supply The Demand . See Future Energy Development for a general discussion. Categorization Some of these come into the category of Renewable Energy . Renewable energy includes electricity generation for the home, while the term "alternative fuels" tends to refer to mobile energy. Some alternative fuels and the Cars They Power are: Gasoline type biofuels
Diesel type biofuels
Others with internal combustion
External combustion
No combustion
Some less conventional alternative fueled cars are:
Most alternative fuels are designed to be cheap, non-polluting, non-finite sources of energy. Renewable energy ''Main article:'' Renewable Energy Another possible solution to a potential future energy shortage would be to use some of the world's remaining fossil fuel reserves as an investment in Renewable Energy infrastructure such as Wind Power , Solar Power , Tidal Power , Geothermal Power , Hydropower , Thermal Depolymerization , Ethanol and Biodiesel , which do not suffer from finite energy reserves, but do have a finite energy flow. The construction of sufficiently large renewable energy infrastructure might avoid the economic consequences of an extended period of decline in fossil fuel energy supply per capita. Biodiesel has some potential advantages because it could replace petroleum diesel without engine modification, and could reuse existing fuel distribution infrastructure. Hydroelectric power currently produces electricity more cheaply than natural-gas turbines; as a result, nearly every river in North America that can be dammed has been. Gigantic hydropower projects have recently been built all around the world (see Itaipu and Three Gorges Dam ). Another promising renewable energy source may be wind power (currently over four times as efficient as Solar PV power systems). Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) Plants are economic in arid and semiarid regions today. This is particularly true if these solar power plants are designed to take full advantage of the combined heat and power potential outputs. These solar facilities can produce not only electricity, but also steam, hot water, chilled water, and ice using absorption refrigeration cycle equipment. Thermal Depolymerization , like biodiesel, has significant current interest and investment because of the potential to replace or gradually replace oil based transportation fuels. One factor potentially in renewable energy's favor is its much smaller environmental impact. Renewable energy sources may have a significantly smaller total "cost" compared to fossil fuel production after factoring in pollution - in other words, oil production is likely more expensive (compared to renewable energy) than the initial price seems to indicate, if you factor in the cost of pollution on our public health programs. ALTERNATIVES TO OIL Non-conventional oil , Oil Shale and Bitumen . Potentially significant deposits of non-conventional oil include the Athabasca Oil Sands site in northwestern Canada and the Venezuela n Orinoco tar sands. Oil companies estimate that the Athabasca and Orinoco sites (both of similar size) have as much as two-thirds of total global oil deposits, but they are not yet considered proven reserves of oil. Extracting a significant percentage of world oil production from tar sands may not be feasible. The extraction process takes a great deal of energy for heat and electrical power, presently coming from Natural Gas (itself in short supply). There are proposals to build a series of Nuclear Reactor s to supply this energy. Non-conventional oil production is currently less efficient, and has a larger environmental impact than conventional oil production. Other fossil fuels and the Fischer-Tropsch process It is expected by geologists that Natural Gas will peak 5-15 years after oil does. There are large but finite Coal reserves which may increasingly be used as a fuel source during oil depletion. The Fischer-Tropsch Process converts Carbon Dioxide , Carbon Monoxide , and Methane into liquid Hydrocarbon s (Gas To Liquid GTL ) of various forms. The carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide are generated by partial Oxidation of coal and wood-based fuels (Biomass To Liquid BTL ). This process was developed and used extensively in World War II by Germany , which had limited access to crude oil supplies. It is today used in South Africa to produce most of that country's Diesel from coal. The Karrick Process is an improved methodology for coal liquefaction, with higher efficiency. Since there are large but finite coal reserves in the world, this technology could be used as an interim transportation fuel if conventional oil were to become scarce. There are several companies developing the process to enable practical exploitation of so-called Stranded Gas Reserve s, those reserves which are impractical to exploit with conventional gas pipelines and LNG technology. Methanol can be used in Internal Combustion Engine s with minor modifications. It usually is made from natural gas, sometimes from coal and could be made from any carbon source including CO2. Flexible fuel vehicles may run with a high share of Ethanol (up to 85% Ethanol and 15% fossil gasoline for lubrification). However methanol or ethanol is not in itself a source of energy, but a way to obtain oil with a net loss of energy which has to come from a source like fossil fuel planetary reserves, Solar Radiation (either through Photosynthesis , Photovoltaic panels or some other undiscovered way), or others. New processes are set up to use not only crops but the whole plant to generate alcohol. Another potential source of fossil energy is Methane Hydrate . This substance consists of methane molecules trapped within the crystalline structure of water ice and is found in naturally-occurring deposits under ocean sediments or within continental sedimentary rock formations. It is estimated that the global inventory of methane hydrate may equal as much as 10x the amount of Natural Gas . With current technology, most gas hydrate deposits are unlikely to be commercially exploited as an energy source. In addition, the combustion of methane results in the formation of Carbon Dioxide and would thus continue to contribute to Global Warming . Nuclear power The U.S. would require at least an eightfold increase in Nuclear Power production, from 10% of all energy supplied to about 90%, to replace both the current amount of electricity generated from fossil fuels and gasoline usage. Nuclear Engineer s estimate that the world can derive 400,000 Quad s of energy (1000 years at current levels of consumption) from Uranium isotope 235, if reprocessing is not employed. As uranium ore supplies are limited, a majority of this uranium would have to somehow be cost effectively extracted from seawater. Fast Breeder reactors are another possibility. As opposed to current LWR (light water reactors) which burn the rare Isotope of Uranium U-235, fast breeder reactors produce Plutonium from U-238, and then fission that to produce electricity and thermal heat. It has been estimated that there is anywhere from 10,000 to five billion years' worth of U-238 for use in these power plants, and that they can return a high ratio of energy returned on energy invested ( EROEI ), and avoid some of the problems of current reactors by being automated, Passively Safe , and reaching economies of scale via Mass Production . There are a few such research projects working on fast breeders - Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory being one, currently working on the small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor ( SSTAR ). The long-term Radioactive Waste storage problems of nuclear power have not been solved, although onsite spent fuel storage in casks has allowed power plants to make room in their spent fuel pools. One possible solution several countries are considering is using underground repositories. The U.S nuclear waste from various locations is planned to be entombed inside Yucca Mountain , Nevada. Because automobiles and trucks consume a great deal of the total energy budget of developed countries, some means would be required to deliver the energy generated from nuclear heat to these vehicles. The most simple solution is to use Electric Vehicles . Mass transit will be an important aspect of this solution, as it is readily electrified. Some think that hydrogen may play a role (see below). If so, it would be produced by electrolysis, either conventionally or at high temperatures supplied by reactor heat. Fusion power ''Main article:'' Fusion Power It is relatively easy to start Nuclear Fusion reactions, which generate lots of Energy (cf. Nuclear Weapons ). However, the energy input needed in achieving the necessary temperature and electromagnetic confinement for controlled and sustained fusion is much too vast to maintain a significant energy gain. - Tritium ) fuel cycle (the option that is most likely to be put into effect) are essentially inexhaustible. {Link without Title} . The research to make fusion power possible started in 1950, and has made remarkable progress since then {Link without Title} . , Japan , Russia , the USA , South Korea , India and China are jointly participating in ITER. However, ITER is only a scientific project. It will not generate electricity. If the current rate of research is maintained, fusion power may become a viable economic alternative to oil around 2050 {Link without Title} . Another problem regarding fusion power is that fusion might be an alternative to oil only in generating electricity. However, a great portion of oil consumption is related to transportation and production of oil derivates ( Plastics , Fertilizers , etc.). Hydrogen Fuel Cells are a potential solution to the transportation problem, but the technology is still being developed. Hydrogen Proponents of a , Photoelectrolysis , and Genetically Modified Organism s have also been proposed as means to produce hydrogen. According to the majority of energy experts and researchers, hydrogen is currently impractical as an alternative to fossil-based liquid fuels. It is inefficient to produce, insufficiently energy dense (hydrogen gas tanks would need to be 2-3 times as large as conventional gas tanks), and expensive to transport and convert back to electricity. However, theoretically it is more efficient to burn fossil fuels to produce hydrogen than burning oil directly in car engines (due to efficiencies of scale). Unfortunately, this does not take into consideration the significant energy cost of having to build hundreds of millions of new hydrogen powered vehicles plus hydrogen fuel distribution infrastructure. Research on the feasibility of hydrogen as a fuel is still underway, and the outcome is, at best, uncertain. EXTERNAL LINKS
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