Alternative Fuels

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Alternative Fuels

• Georgia Agriculture Education
• May 2007

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Why Alternative Fuels?

• As the cost of conventional fuels goes up, the
  interest in other fuel sources increase
• In some cases, alternative fuels are more
  environmentally friendly
• Some alternative fuels are more energy efficient

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Types of Alternative Fuels

• Ethanol
• Natural gas
• Propane
• Hydrogen
• Biodiesel
• Electricity
• Methanol

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Ethanol

• Ethanol is an alcohol-based alternative fuel
  produced by fermenting and distilling starch
  crops or cellulose that have been converted into
  simple sugars
• Ethanol is most commonly used to increase octane
  and improve the emissions quality of gasoline.
• Ethanol can be blended with gasoline to create
  E85, a blend of 85 ethanol and 15 gasoline.
• Ethanol can degrade quickly in water, therefore,
  posing less environmental harm than oil in the
  case of a spill

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Ethanol

• Ethanol is an excellent, clean-burning fuel,
  potentially providing more horsepower than
  gasoline. In fact, ethanol has a higher octane
  rating (over 100) and burns cooler than gasoline
• One acre of corn can produce 300 gal. of ethanol
  per growing season. So, in order to replace that
  200 billion gal. of petroleum products, American
  farmers would need to dedicate 675 million acres,
  or 71 percent of the nation's 938 million acres
  of farmland, to growing feedstock.

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Natural Gas

• Natural gas is produced either from gas wells
• or in conjunction with crude oil production.
• Because of the gaseous nature of this fuel, it
  must be stored onboard a vehicle in either a
  compressed gaseous state or in a liquefied state
• A natural gas vehicle can be less expensive to
  operate than a comparable conventionally fueled
  vehicle depending on natural gas prices.
• The United States has vast natural gas reserves
  across the country
• Vehicles tend to cost 3500 to 6000 more than
  gasoline powered ones

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Propane

• Propane or liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is a
• popular alternative fuel choice for vehicles
  because there is already an infrastructure of
  pipelines, processing facilities, and storage for
  its efficient distribution.
• LPG produces fewer vehicle emissions than
  gasoline.
• Propane is produced as a by-product of natural
  gas processing and crude oil refining.
• Propane vehicles can produce fewer ozone-forming
  emissions than vehicles powered by reformulated
  gasoline
• The cost of a gasoline-gallon equivalent of
  propane is generally less than that of gasoline,
  so driving a propane vehicle can save money.

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Hydrogen

• Hydrogen, a gas, will play an important
• role in developing sustainable
  transportation
• in the United States, because in the future
  it may be produced in virtually unlimited
  quantities using renewable resources.
• Hydrogen and oxygen from air fed into a proton
  exchange membrane fuel cell produce enough
  electricity to power an electric automobile,
  without producing harmful emissions. The only
  byproduct of a hydrogen fuel cell is water.
• Currently there are no original equipment
  manufacturer vehicles available for sale to the
  general public. Experts estimate that in
  approximately 10-20 years hydrogen vehicles, and
  the infrastructure to support them, will start to
  make an impact.

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Biodiesel

• Biodiesel 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.
• Biodiesel can also be used in its pure form but
  it may require certain engine modifications to
  avoid maintenance and performance problems and
  may not be suitable for wintertime use.

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Biodiesel

• Pure biodiesel, B100, costs about 3.50--roughly
  a dollar more per gallon than petrodiesel.
• Need to heat storage tanks in colder climates to
  prevent the fuel from gelling
• Like E85, biodiesel began with farm co-ops and
  local entrepreneurs. High fuel prices affect
  farmers, too, and here was an opportunity to make
  money from otherwise fallow farmland.

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Electricity

• Electricity can be used as a transportation fuel
  to power battery electric and fuel cell vehicles.
  When used to power electric vehicles, electricity
  is stored in an energy storage device such as a
  battery.
• EV batteries have a limited storage capacity and
  their electricity must be replenished by plugging
  the vehicle into an electrical source.
• EVs have lower "fuel" and maintenance costs than
  gasoline-powered vehicles.

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Electricity

• Vehicles that operate only on electricity require
  no warm-up, run almost silently and have
  excellent performance up to the limit of their
  range. Also, electric cars are cheap to "refuel."
  At the average price of 10 cents per kwh, it
  costs around 2 cents per mile.
• Pure electric cars still have limited range,
  typically no more than 100 to 120 miles.

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Methanol

• Methanol, also known as wood alcohol, can be used
  as an alternative fuel in flexible fuel vehicles
  that run on M85
• It is not a commonly used fuel at this time as
  methanol produces a high amount of formaldehyde
  in emissions.
• The benefits include lower emissions, higher
  performance, and lower risk of flammability than
  gasoline
• Methanol can easily be made into hydrogen for
  hydrogen fuel cell vehicles in the future.

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Methanol

• Methanol is extremely corrosive, requiring
  special materials for delivery and storage.
  Methanol, in addition, has only 51 percent of the
  BTU content of gasoline by volume, which means
  its fuel economy is worse than ethanol's.
• Methane also can be produced by processing
  biomass such as grass clippings, sawdust and
  other cellulose sources.

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