- What about hydrogen powered vehicles? One of the most interesting, and in some ways promising, alternative transportation fuels is hydrogen. It is easy to produce through electrolysis, simply splitting water (H20) into oxygen and hydrogen by using electricity.
However, these days, nearly all hydrogen is made from natural gas. Because hydrogen burns nearly pollution-free, it has been looked at as the ultimate clean fuel. When burned, it turns into heat and water vapor. When burned in an internal combustion engine it also produces small amounts of other gases. These gases are mostly oxides of nitrogen because the hydrogen is being burned with air, which is about two-thirds nitrogen.
For now, the problem of how to store enough hydrogen on a vehicle for a reasonable range, and its high cost, compared to gasoline, are critical barriers to widespread commercial use.
- What is Biodiesel? Biodiesel is a lot like diesel fuel, but made from vegetable oil or animal fat. Biodiesel is not regular vegetable oil and is not safe to swallow. Biodiesel is biodegradable though, so it is much less harmful to the environment if spilled. Biodiesel is made through a process called transesterification. This process makes vegetable oil and animal fat into esterified oil, which can be used as diesel fuel, or mixed with regular diesel fuel.
Ordinary diesel engines can run on biodiesel. Practically any type of vegetable oil or animal fat can be used to make biodiesel. But the most popular types of vegetable oils are soybean and rapeseed oil. Used oil from fast food deep fryers is being recycled by turning it into biodiesel fuel.
Maybe one day you will go to McDonalds, order a Big Mac, Large Fries, Apple Pie and ten gallons of fuel.
And yes Jeff, I do know much more about auto repair than I do about brewing beer.
