Life-cycle studies of the currently dominant transport biofuels (bioethanol made from starch or sugar and biodiesel made from vegetable oil) show that solar energy conversion efficiency is relatively poor if compared with solar cells and that such biofuels tend to do worse than conventional fossil transport fuels as to the emission of eutrophying and acidifying substances. Lifecycle studies of ...

INTRODUCTION Turn your ignition key and fuel ignites, pushing pistons, powering your automobile, and allowing you freedom and mobility. Simple! We drive to work; we drive for vacations; we drive just to drive. Transportation is just one of the many examples of society’s dependence on fossil fuels. Today, the burning of fossil fuels, including coal, oil, and gas meets more than 85% of the world’...

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century the limitations of the fossil age with regard to the continuing growth of energy demand, the peaking mining rate of oil, the growing impact of CO2 emissions on the environment and the dependency of the economy in the industrialized world on the availability of fossil fuels became very obvious. A major change in the energy economy from fossil energ...

We compare the energy efficiency of hybrid and fuel cell vehicles as well as conventional internal combustion engines. Our analysis indicates that fuel cell vehicles using hydrogen from fossil fuels offer no significant energy efficiency advantage over hybrid vehicles operating in an urban drive cycle. We conclude that priority should be placed on hybrid vehicles by industry and government.

Two pathways are recognized for the activation of dihydrogen by metal catalysts, homolytic and heterolytic. Homolytic activation involves oxidative addition to metals usually in low oxidation states. Heterolytic activation, which occurs with no formal change in oxidation state, is associated with metals in higher oxidation states and gives rise to hydridic (H-, usually attached to a metal) and ...

The overall objective of this project is to carry out the fundamental research needed to develop a first-generation, structure-based model of coal char formation and combustion. Current models of char combustion and carbon burnout estimate char behavior from empirical relations based on parent coal properties. With the wide range of fuels of interest to modern combustion systems (international ...

1Department of Applied Chemistry, China University of Mining and Technology, Xuzhou 221116, China 2Department of Chemical & Petroleum Engineering, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA 3Fuels and Energy Technology Institute, Curtin University, Bentley, WA 6102, Australia 4Bioscience Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM 87545, USA 5State Key Laboratory of Heavy Oil Pr...

This paper describes the model of an industrial society based on fossil fuels whose supply decreases and the society is forced to develop alternative energy sources. It is conceived as an abstract model that captures the basic aspect of such a change, but in a simple and schematic way. Despite this, most of the important dynamics of this problem are included in the model. The results show inter...

BACKGROUND Presently, different studies are conducted related to the topic of biomass potential to generate through anaerobic fermentation process alternative fuels supposed to support the existing fossil fuel resources, which are more and more needed, in quantity, but also in quality of so called green energy. The present study focuses on depicting an optional way of capitalizing agricultural ...