Palm | Kelapa Sawit

To make a vehicle work some sort of energy must be used. Gasoline and diesel are the normal sources but other products are coming to the forefront of alternative fuels. As the cost of conventional fuel rises consumers are demanding cheaper and more environmentally friendly ways to run their vehicles.
In the article, “Grease Guzzlers”, by Zachary Gonzalez-Landis we learn about this alternative fuel. Diesel engines are being converted to run on vegetable oil. “Vegetable oils are biofuels, renewable raw materials from which one can extract the same kind of energy as found in fossil fuels, such as natural gas and coal”. The process of converting a diesel engine is actually often less than buying a new car. Besides the cost effectiveness of SVO or straight vegetable oil the benefits to the environment are astounding. “It’s a recycled resource; reduces air pollution and greenhouse gases; biodegrades and is non-toxic; decreases dependence on imported oil; and offers better fuel economy than diesel. Overall, biodiesel presents the lowest carbon footprint of any alternative fuel. And it’s cheaper”.
The only downfall is the lack of diesel vehicles in the United States. According to the article less than five percent of all cars in the U.S. run on diesel. How can we get the U.S. to take advantage of this cost saving environmentally friendly alternative? Any ideas?

Check out inthesetimes.com to read the rest of this informative article.

When I think about comparing fuels or using alternative fuels I automatically think of cars, and buses. While looking around the Internet I discovered an article about using alternative fuels for airplanes. It makes sense, there are thousands of flights a day and those huge airplanes just fly through fuel, why not use better fuels in the skies as well?

The article Alternative Jet Fuels Put To The Test, we learn that researchers along with NASA are testing 2 types of fuels, both not petroleum based. For these tests the alternative fuels will be used on a DC-8 aircraft. The aircraft will remain on the ground so that the researches can test the exhaust. For these experiments they will use a 50/50 blend of fuels and also a 100 alternative fuel.

I wonder if it would cost more for the airline to use alternative fuels? Would you as a passenger be willing pay more per ticket if your airline was more environmentally friendly? Could it be cheaper to produce these fuels?

NASA/Langley Research Center. "Alternative Jet Fuels Put To The Test." ScienceDaily 1 February 2009. 15 October 2009

Posted by Kendra Collins

Formation of Fossil Fuels (Coal, Petroleum):

Energy and minerals are the life-blood of modern day world. Rapid industrial growth and growth in human population has brought the consumption of energy and mineral to a very high level. Ironically, resources are not unlimited. We know, the fossil fuels – coal, petroleum and natural gas – provide most of our needs of energy; till recently, coal used to be major source of energy. Due to recent hike in price of petroleum products, coal again is getting importance as major source of energy.

Geologically fossil fuels (coal and petroleum) have been originated from very old-buried (more than hundreds of million years old) of plants, animals and microorganisms and overlaid with sediments. This burial protected these vegetation and microorganism from oxygen, which would have completed its breakdown, and preserved it instead it into partially decayed form as coal and petroleum. Coal originated from plants & trees, whereas petroleum & natural gas originated from marine organism. Chemically, all fossil fuels consist largely of hydrocarbons, which are compounds composed of hydrogen and carbon.

The various stages of coal formation are:

(a) Peat - partially carbonized plant matter,

(b) Lignite - soft brownish-black coal with low carbon content,

(c) Sub-bituminous coal - soft coal with intermediate carbon content,

(d) Bituminous coal - soft coal with higher carbon and lower moisture content than sub-bituminous coal,

(e) Anthracite coal - hard coal with highest carbon content and lowest moisture content.

Methane (CH4) gas, which is a hydrocarbon compound, is also entrapped in most of the coal seams; is now finding importance in recovery from coal seam due to recent energy crisis.

The petroleum and gas deposits are particularly prevalent in coastal zones. Largely, our cars and vehicles are powered by diesel, gasoline and natural gas.

Vast quantity of oil is locked-up in a fine grained sedimentary rock called oil shale. This contains high proportion of ‘kerogen’, a solid organic material, when heated produces oil vapour from which oil can be recovered.