Who can name all the alternitive fuels?

Question

I know the odbious ones, eathanol and hydrogen fuel cells, biodeisel, but can anyone give me a complete list of all the alternitive fuels? I really want to look into this, because apparentley some of the alternative fuels actually do worse for the enviroment than gas does...

Answer 1

I'd try the department of energy or the patent office.

Answer 2

I'm hoping for Bio-Butanol.  (Hopefully) to be commercialized by DuPont & BP.  It "is an inherently better fuel (than ethanol) because, unlike ethanol, it has as much energy for each gallon as gasoline does."  It is also compatible with current pipelines and pumps and can be used in existing vehicles.  Bio-butanol is made using genetically modified micro-organisms acting on sugar beets, sugar cane, corn byproducts, grasses, and/or other biomass items.  Richard Branson's Virgin Group is providing funding for research by a Calif. startup company called GEVO.

Answer 3

An alternative fuel is generally anything that isn't a common motor fuel.  Usually anything that isn't gasoline, diesel, or kerosene.

These would typically be:

Hydrogen

Methanol

Butanol

Methane

Propane

Butane

Vegitable oil (straight up)

Nitrogen Tetroxide / Hydrazine

Nitromethane

Kerosene

Notice, ethanol and biodiesel aren't on that list.  Ethanol is actually a fairly standard fuel, and biodiesel is just diesel derived from a non-petroleum source.

Now, if you want to call any fuel that isn't derived from petroleum "alternative", then add:

Ethanol

Gasoline

Diesel

Biodiesel

Kerosene

That's right.  Although typically made from petroleum, these things can be made from other (renewable) resources.  Ah, the wonders of chemistry.

Answer 4

Many alternative fuels such as hydro, wind, solar, nuke (yuk!).

If you are referring to combustible fuels you have propane, methane, kerosene, butane, napalm, coal dust, coal gasification, wood, etc, etc...

Answer 5

Doubtful. Almost anything organic can be used as an alternative fuel. And almost any natural process. It really just depends on the creativity of the person working on it.

Instead of looking for problems, why not look for better ANSWERS? Eg, ethanol from corn is problematic. But it's hardly the only possible source. Cellulose and 'oilgae' are both better processes. Cheer up! The glass really IS half full!