The Problem With Alternative Fuels

With the threat of global warming close at hand, and the price of gas fluctuating wildly and climbing in general, many consumers, scientists and politicians are heralding the ever-incoming wave of alternative fuels. These fuels, defined as essentially anything other than petroleum-based gasoline, are billed as the wave of the future: cheap, safe, environmentally safe ways of powering our cars, homes and daily lives. Unfortunately, there are a lot of problems with alternative fuels that are preventing this dream from becoming a reality.

Classification

There are two sub-categories of alternative fuel in the context of powering vehicles. The first is combustible fuel, such as ethanol or natural gas. These fuels are already available to the public at large; you can purchase plenty of trucks from Ford or GM labeled "Flex-Fuel," indicating the ability to run on gasoline or ethanol. The second category consists of fuels still in development, such as hydrogen and fuel-cells.

Combustible Fuel

The first problem with ethanol and natural gas is its limited supply. Producers simply can't make nearly enough of these fuels to power a large-scale conversion from gasoline to "corn gas," a popular pseudonym for ethanol. Ethanol is made from organic material, which has to be grown.

Cheaper and Cleaner?

The second problem with ethanol is that it really isn't much cleaner--or cheaper--than gasoline. Although ethanol vehicles output a lower volume of CO2 than gas vehicles, the deficit isn't significant enough to stop or reverse global warming. Although ethanol is typically cheaper than gas by about 50 cents per gallon, ethanol vehicles get correspondingly lower gas mileage, and so the fuel's apparent advantage is negated.

Hydrogen Fuel

Fuels still in development, such as hydrogen, have their own problems. It is currently wildly expensive to produce hydrogen that can be used to fuel a vehicle, and the material is very dangerous in its current state. The promise of replacing dangerous CO2 emissions with safe water vapor--the byproduct of hydrogen fuel--is misleading as well. Water vapor traps heat in the atmosphere four times better than CO2. This means that, unless the actual mass of hydrogen vehicle emissions is significantly less than those of gas cars, hydrogen will rapidly speed up the onset of global warming.

Considerations

The alternative fuels we have today are not a promising alternative to gasoline. Unfortunately, the alternative fuels of tomorrow have plenty of problems as well. Scientists must continue to research and experiment with additional alternative fuels, and learn to accurately predict their effects, before the world is ready for a large-scale shift away from gasoline.

References

• Problems Associated With Alternative Fuels