Alternative fuels

Alternative fuel

Alternative fuel (alternate fuel), also known as non-conventional fuels, is any material or substance that can be used as a fuel, other than fossil fuels, or conventional fuels of petroleum (oil), coal, propane, hydrogen, and natural gas. The term "alternative fuels" usually refers to a source of which energy is renewable.

The main purpose of fuel is to store energy in a form that is stable and can be easily transported from the place of production to the end user. Almost all fuels are chemical fuels, that store chemical potential energy. The end user is then able to consume the fuel at will, and release energy, usually in the form of heat for a variety of applications, such as powering an engine, or heating a building.

Some well known alternative fuels include biodiesel, ethanol, butanol, chemically stored electricity (batteries and fuel cells), hydrogen, methane, natural gas, wood, vegetable oil, biomass, and peanut oil.

In the year 2000, there were about eight million vehicles around the world that ran on alternative fuels, indicating the increasing popularity of alternative fuels {citation needed}. There is growing social interest, and an economic and political need for the development of alternative fuel sources. This is due to general concerns of sustainability, both environmental, economic, and geopolitical. A primary concern is that the fact that the use of conventional fuels directly contributes to the global warming crisis. Another concern is the problem of peak oil, which predicts a rising cost of oil derived fuels caused by severe shortages of oil during an era of growing energy consumption. According to the 'peak oil' phenomenon, the demand for oil will exceed supply and this gap will continue to grow, which could cause a growing energy crisis by the year 2010 or 2020. Lastly, the majority of the known petroleum reserves are located in the middle east. There is general concern that worldwide fuel shortages could intensify the unrest that exists in the region, leading to further conflict and war.Source from globalwarming.org.in

Read more...

Wind power

Wind power is so easy to produce from simple wind power stations. These wind power stations can be homely ones, which you can install on your private roof to try to catch some wind. The other side of the wind power stations kinds, are the massive ones you can see on the open fields of many countries around the world, each wind turbine like that reaches to the height of 100m!

For home use, you will need simple wind turbine, connected to wind power station, to produce home use power. The location of the wind turbine, the highest to locate it, the correct direction it to and the right size of the turbine blades are all parameters to consider in order catching the maximum wind power. Open fields, down hills and clean airflow locations are the best places to calculate the maximum wind speed cube for producing wind power. For example, out of a win which blows for 30 Km/H you will be able to produce 300W ( per one square meter cube ). Double of this wind speed will generate much more than double power, something like 2600 Km/H. This is why on windy areas and on high potential locations for windy days, wind power stations are the most green and economical solution.

Home installed wind power stations must have stable wind. If the wind flow is much disturbs, the efficiently of the wind power productions reduce dramatically. This is why you will always see the wind turbines in open area's or high on the top roofs. Comparing to solar panels, wind stations are much costly but also much more efficient. Over the years, you will be able to produce more energy and maintain the power station less than with solar panels. Same like solar systems, the wind systems usually charge large batteries for later use.

There are some advanced solutions to produce wind and solar energy together. The solar part of the system makes sure that the complete system will produce power in no wind days and the wind turbines are taking care of the no sun days. In totally, the system produced alternative power energy, green energy.resources:www.powersavingsystem.com

Read more...