Question:

Car fuels... what are they?

by  |  earlier

0 LIKES UnLike

what are the different names of car fuels???

like petrol etc

and what are alternative fuels for cars

 Tags:

   Report

2 ANSWERS


  1. Currently the fuels in common use are:

    gasoline (petrol)

    diesel oil

    biodiesel

    ethanol and its various mixes

    electric

    gasoline/electric hybrid

    propane

    LNG

    Some experimental cars are using pure solar power

    Some cars in the past used steam engines which can be fueled by anything that will burn and can be made to fit inside the firebox.


  2. Helium 3 Power generation:-

    A second-generation approach to controlled fusion power involves combining helium-3 (32He) and deuterium (21H). This reaction produces a helium-4 ion (42He) and a high-energy proton (positively charged hydrogen ion) (11p) and (alpha particle). The most important potential advantage of this fusion reaction for power production as well as other applications lies in its compatibility with the use of electrostatic fields to control fuel ions and the fusion protons. Protons, as positively charged particles, can be converted directly into electricity, through use of solid-state conversion materials as well as other techniques. Potential conversion efficiencies of 70 percent may be possible, as there is no need to convert proton energy to heat in order to drive turbine-powered generators.

    There have been many claims about the capabilities of Helium-3 power plants. According to proponents, fusion power plants operating on deuterium and helium-3 would offer lower capital and operating costs than their competitors due to less technical complexity, higher conversion efficiency, smaller size, the absence of radioactive fuel, no air or water pollution, and only low-level radioactive waste disposal requirements. Recent estimates suggest that about $6 billion in investment capital will be required to develop and construct the first helium-3 fusion power plant. Financial breakeven at today's wholesale electricity prices (5 cents per kilowatt-hour) would occur after five 1000-megawatt plants were on line, replacing old conventional plants or meeting new demand.[28]

    The reality is not so clean-cut. The most advanced fusion programs in the world are inertial confinement fusion (such as National Ignition Facility) and magnetic confinement fusion (such as ITER and other tokamaks). In the case of the former, there is no solid roadmap to power generation. In the case of the latter, commercial power generation is not expected until around 2050[29]. In both cases, the type of fusion discussed is the simplest: D-T fusion. The reason for this is the very low Coulomb barrier for this reaction; for D+He3, the barrier is much higher, and He3-He3 higher still. The immense cost of reactors like ITER and National Ignition Facility are largely due to their immense size, yet to scale up to higher plasma temperatures would require reactors far larger still. The 14.7 MeV proton and 3.6 MeV alpha particle from D-He3 fusion, plus the higher conversion efficiency, means that you get more electricity per kilogram than you do with D-T fusion (17.6 MeV), but not that much more. As a further downside, the rates of reaction for He3 fusion reactions are not particularly high, requiring a reactor that is larger-still or more reactors to produce the same amount of electricity.

    To attempt to work around this problem of massively large power plants that may not even be economical with D-T fusion, let alone the far more challenging D-He3 fusion, a number of other reactors have been proposed -- the Fusor, Polywell, Focus fusion, and many more. These generally attempt to achieve fusion in thermal disequilibrium, something that could potentially prove impossible[30], and consequently, these long-shot programs tend to have trouble garnering funding despite their low budgets. Unlike the "big", "hot" fusion systems, however, if such systems were to work, they could scale to the higher barrier "aneutronic" fuels. However, these systems would scale well enough that their proponents tend to promote p-B fusion, which requires no exotic fuels like He-3.

Question Stats

Latest activity: earlier.
This question has 2 answers.

BECOME A GUIDE

Share your knowledge and help people by answering questions.
Unanswered Questions