Alternative Fuels: Exactly What are the Best Prospects for Escaping Energy Dependency
by www.SixWise.com
As the United States' dependence on foreign oil increases,
and prices for fuel continue to skyrocket, the country's energy-conscious
have never had a better platform.
Clearly, alternative fuel sources must be created, and all
the political candidates, regardless of their side, are talking
about becoming energy independent.
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Trucks that use biodiesel fuel -- made from vegetable
oil, rendered chicken fat or used fry oil -- emit 75
percent fewer emissions than trucks running on ordinary
diesel fuel.
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Americans, it seems, are all for it. A poll by Mellman Group
found that 74 percent of Americans say they want increased
production and use of domestic renewable fuels.
Will it happen, and if so, how? Let's take a look at some
of the best prospects in alternative fuel to find out.
Ethanol
Easily the most talked about fuel alternative, ethanol is
grain alcohol made, of course, from grains. E85, a blend of
85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, is already at
pumps in 36 states across the country.
Ethanol is clean-burning and may provide more horsepower
than gasoline, but because the alcohol is corrosive anything
exposed to it must be made of corrosion-resistant stainless
steel or plastic.
There are also concerns that producing ethanol requires more
energy to produce than it provides. However, according to
the Department of Energy (DOE), growing, fermenting and distilling
ethanol creates a surplus of energy from 34 to 66 percent.
Meanwhile, according to Argonne National Laboratory, Center
for Transportation Research, "It takes 23 percent more
fossil energy to create a gallon of gasoline than that gallon
of gasoline itself contains. With ethanol, it's the other
way around. It takes 22 percent less fossil energy to create
an equivalent amount of energy in ethanol."
Ethanol shows promise as a renewable fuel source, however
for it to fully replace gasoline, 71 percent of the nation's
farmland would need to be devoted to growing the grain to
produce it -- and that would likely cause another problem:
a food shortage.
Biodiesel
Biodiesel includes fuel for diesel engines made from rendered
chicken fat, vegetable oils, and used fry oil instead of petroleum.
Modern diesel engines can already run on 100 percent biodiesel
fuel with only slight differences.
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Although electric cars produce no tailpipe emissions,
they can only travel just over 100 miles before needing
to be recharged.
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Further, according to the DOE, pure biodiesel reduces CO
emissions by more than 75 percent compared to diesel
fuel made with petroleum.
The future for biodiesel fuel looks bright, the only downsides
being that it costs about $3.50 per gallon and in cold temperatures
the highly concentrated blends turn into waxy solids (and
therefore need special additives to keep them flowing).
Electricity
Electric cars and plug-in hybrid electric vehicles get their
energy from a rechargeable battery pack and produce no tailpipe
emissions. Even when the emissions from power plants are factored
in, they still emit just 10 percent of the pollution of an
ordinary vehicle.
However, electric cars can only travel for 100 to 120 miles
before needing to be recharged -- a process that typically
must be done overnight.
The other issue is that most electricity in the United States
is generated in coal-burning power plants, and coal is another
limited resource. The future for electric cars depends on
new technology that can produce longer-lasting batteries and
electricity from renewable resources.
Compressed Natural Gas
Natural gas is clean-burning, produced domestically and has
already been used for decades to fuel natural gas vehicles.
Natural gas is also inexpensive at about $1.20 a gallon.
However, most vehicles and fuel stations would need significant
updates to be able to function using this fuel (for instance,
vehicle gas tanks would need to be larger and heavier to carry
compressed natural gas). Further, natural gas is also a non-renewable
resource, which makes its future as a fuel source iffy.
Hydrogen
Hydrogen can be produced from fossil fuels, organic matter
(biomass) and even by electrolyzing water. As an alternative
fuel source, it produces no pollution and vehicles run by
hydrogen fuel cells are two to three times more efficient
than gasoline-powered vehicles.
The outlook for hydrogen as a clean-burning fuel is very
promising, but first distribution systems and manufacturing
systems need to be developed. Right now, producing hydrogen
is still expensive and energy-consuming, but researchers are
engaged in revealing cheaper, energy-efficient ways to produce
it.
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Sources
U.S.
Department of Energy
Renewable
Fuels Association
Popular
Mechanics May 2006