What do you know about ELECTRICITY as an alternate FUEL source?

Question

Doing a chemistry project on electricity as a fuel source. Having trouble finding criteria needed.

1. How does this fuel source work to produce energy? What types of reactions occur and how?

2. How will the use of this fuel affect the environment?

3. What are the advantages of using this fuel instead of a petroleum gas?

4. What are the disadvantage of using this fuel?

5. What is the current status of this fuel? Is it currently being used? How is it being used? Is it being developed? Is it practical?

Answer 1

Someone gave you a thoroughly dumb assignment.  Electricity is an energy-transmission method, not an energy source.  So there's no intelligent way to answer these questions.  

Electric cars use storage batteries, a technology that's not very good right now, nor has it been for the last hundred years or so.  

I wonder how many of the true believers have ever seen the GM EV1?  With its narrow 70 psi tires and ton of batteries, it was like a exceedingly-overloaded motorcycle.  The aluminum suspension parts and plastic springs were cool, though.  The problem was that nobody could figure out how long these would last, and that's why they abandoned the car.  I can't blame GM.

Answer 2

As someone else said, electricity is a medium, not an energy source or "fuel" in itself (except lightning, which cannot be harnessed, at least now).  Other energy sources (coal, nuclear, solar) are converted to electricity, which is a very convenient way to distribute energy over long distances.

Nuclear energy would provide us more electricity than we would ever know what to do with.  Environmentalists stop us from doing it.

Answer 3

1 - sorry can't tell you trade secret

2 - it will make it better cos it does no harm to it

3 - it never runs out or needs to be 'refined'

4 - there is none

5 - up and running, yes, by me alone, it is all done, very!

Answer 4

Generally speaking electricity is not a fuel so much as it is a method of doing work, like mechanical energy.  The only fuel type arrangement we have for it is fuel cells.  They're really a lot more practical as a power source for a residence or a business.  However, plain old electric cars work great with the right battery.  there's been a tremendous effort to suppress the best battery out there, the NiMH.  Chevron bought it and the company that made it.  They share rights with GM, but mainly to keep the lid on it.  If you wonder "where do they get the electricity to charge the batteries?", well they get it wherever they get it now, mostly coal.  Yes, coal pollutes, but way less than the millions of automobiles it can power.  Here is one message posted in the yahoo Group:

We know GM fails to tell truth about the EV1, how it sabotaged it,

and public demand. To this day, GM *lies* about the EV1's range,

batteries, drivers, performance, and so on, even as it shucks people

about its newfound "green" wash with the supposed VOLT, the

dumb "hybrid" Tahoe and other products.

Ron Cogan, reputedly an oilie-agent, runs a phony "green" site that

is quoted on GM ads praising this idiotic monster-mobile. Is that

the best they can do...just pretend that they make a good product?

When the EV1 first came out, not only did it have failure-prone

Delco batteries, but it also leased for the astonomical sum of $599

per month. GM was hoping for a fast death! But amazingly, a sturdy

cadre of EV fans paid the money, cheerfully put up with the

failures, and made it a cult vehicle. When GM was blindsided by the

incredible, unheard-of HondaEV and RAV4-EV, in the spring of 1997,

using NiMH batteries that GM had believed it had killed and

sequestered, and at a LOWER price ($499/month), the boneheads at GM

went apathetic. They were forced to lower the lease on the EV1 to

match, and forced, eventually, both to upgrade to non-sabotaged PSB

lead batteries and to finally, grudgingly, release a NiMH version of

the EV1.

Imagine, you had to pay more for the sabotaged EV1 in 1997 than you

would have had to pay to lease or buy a top-of-the-line Cadillac!

And people still wanted them!

But GM refused to admit demand, and just plain lied. As usual.

Now, GM is really in the soup. There is public perception that GM

makes a crappy product; and, according to this story, that

perception is veridical! So GM is faced with the dual problems of

having a bad product, and people knowing about it.

Imagine if GM didn't lie, didn't cheat, and didn't try to push

shlock on the public. Imagine, all those betrayed loyal buyers of

GM junk, if they didn't feel conned! A Cadillac "Surcease" costs

about twice the cost of a Prius; after 5 years, both are about the

same.

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'In an attempt to fix its brand issues, General Motors (GM)is re-

aligning its eight major brands into four distinct "channels"; the

idea is to address GM's brand woes by managing the brands within

each channel from a sales, marketing and advertising perspective.

'From the WSJ: ''[GM] moved to bring its eight vehicle brands into

closer alignment, organizing them into four groups...The formation

of a "premium channel" for GM's three upscale brands is likely to

spur the formation of more dealerships carrying all three brands

under one roof -- something the auto maker has already been doing

with its Buick, Pontiac and GMC brands...Cadillac, Hummer and

Saab ... "will evolve into something like" Buick, Pontiac and GMC,

said Mark LaNeve...''

'The problem with this strategy is that shifting the brands around

into four groups and then aligning the dealers around them doesn't

really address GM's brand issues. The problem with GM's brands isn't

a function of dealer alignment and how they're sold, it's how the

brands are perceived and the nature of the underlying product...'

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THAT MEANS, THE WAY PEOPLE PERCEIVE GM PRODUCT IS A PROBLEM, AND

THAT THEY ARE RIGHT ABOUT IT IS ANOTHER PROBLEM! The article

recommends changing people's perception of GM's product, as

secondary to fixing the product.

I'd highly recommend the group in the link below.

Answer 5

For questions 3-5, a documentary I would suggest seeing is called Who Killed the Electric Car?  It chronicles a period in (if I remember correctly) the late 80s when electric cars were being sold, mostly in California, but got pulled off the market  and destroyed by motor vehicle companies.

Electricity is versatile, clean, and quite powerful.  Some contemporary methods of generating electricity can be very polluting (burning coal) or potentially dangerous (nuclear power), but a variety of different ways of generating electricity are being developed with mixed but steady progress, such as wind power and solar power.

I would look up electricity on Wikipedia and start there.

Answer 6

Electricity needs to be created from some source of energy.  Your home is powered by wires cutting through a magnetic field, solar is another way.

Electricity doesn't effect the environment, the method of generating electricity does.  Electricity itself is clean.