Alternative Fuels: Biodiesel, Electricity, Ethanol, Hydrogen and Natural Gas

The following are some of the alternative fuel that are now available. The U.S. Department of Energy classifies them as Alternative fuel.

• Biodiesel or mono alkyl esters, is a domestically produced, renewable fuel that can be manufactured from vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled restaurant greases. Biodiesel is safe, biodegradable, and reduces serious air pollutants such as particulates, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, and air toxics. Basically, there is no engine modification that is required to make it work, and biodiesel sustains the payload capacity and range of a diesel.

• Electricity can be used as a transportation fuel to power battery electric and fuel cell vehicles. When used to power electric vehicles or EV’s, electricity is stored in an energy storage device such as a battery. but the difference between batteries and fuel cells is that, fuel cells convert chemical energy to electricity.

• Ethanol is an alcohol-based alternative fuel produced by fermenting and distilling starch crops that have been converted into simple sugars.

• Hydrogen in the future may be produced in virtually unlimited quantities using renewable resources. Hydrogen has been used effectively in a number of internal combustion engine vehicles as pure hydrogen mixed with natural gas.

• Natural Gas is domestically produced and readily available to end-users through the utility infrastructure. It is also clean burning and produces significantly fewer harmful emissions than reformulated gasoline or diesel when used in natural gas vehicles.

These alternative fuels, although already available are not that accessible to all because only few offers it and only few engine are out in the market that uses these alternative fuels.