Alternative fuel for the USA - Research Paper Example

? Literature Review on Alternative Fuel The requirement for transportation fuels within US isrising. The amount of light-duty automobiles is expected to grow from 28.7 million on-road vehicles during 2010 to 38.7 million by the year 2025. Unless people transform their habits, petroleum will remain the key source of the transportation fuels for the predictable future, and as demand, carries on to increase and in-state as well as Alaskan fuel supplies lessen, US will depend more and more on overseas imports of crude oil (Riley & Chee, p. 192). Almost 100 percent of the country’s transportation system is presently fueled by fossil fuels. Going toward a further varied choice of fuels and sustaining the development of higher competence vehicles are two of the objectives of the state's plans. Being the fifth largest financial system in the world, California is a state that moves on energy. Each day, people spend “$ 24 million for natural gas, $ 84 million on electrical energy, and $ 84 million for petrol and diesel” (Hordeski, p. 183). The State has sustained the growth of alternative transportation fuels (apart from petrol or diesel) since the establishment of the ‘California Energy Commission’ during 1975. Previous agendas incorporated demonstration plans with vehicles utilizing ethanol as well as methanol, infrastructure improvement for methanol/gasoline combination, sustenance for flexible fuel, natural gas, as well as electric means of transportation. Developing vehicle effectiveness is the only useful way to decrease petroleum reliance. ‘The Energy Commission’ along with the ‘California Air Resources Board’ has found out that developing vehicle effectiveness only will not be sufficient. For that reason, US should as well concentrate on increasing the utilization of other fuels (Speight, p. 188). ‘The Energy Commission's 2003 Integrated Energy Policy Report’ suggested quite a lot of measures to encourage reasonably priced energy supplies, develop energy consistency, and improve community health, financial welfare, and ecological worth. One of the transportation energy suggestions created an objective for the utilization of alternative fuels: Rise in the consumption of non-petroleum fuels to 30 percent of on-road fuel utilization by 2025 and 40 percent by 2030, supported by known policies that are feasible as well as cost effective (Stan, p. 299). US is already home to a increasing amount of alternative fuel vehicles as a result of the combined attempts of the ‘Energy Commission’, ‘California Air Resources Board’, local air regions, national government, transportation agencies, utilities, in addition to other civic as well as personal entities. Over 59000 automobiles, transit buses, and trucks presently function on natural gas and LPG, together with over 11000 electric vehicles. US as well have hundreds of fueling stations providing a range of non-petroleum fuels (Bartis et al, p. 55). However, increasing the consumption of these fuels faces considerable doubts such as the accessibility of latest vehicle expertise, the rate and accessibility of new fueling infrastructures, and approval of these fuels by customers. At present, the ‘Energy Commission’ is functioning with stakeholders of different alternative fuels. These stakeholder’s operational groups have contributed in informal studies to recognize the major barriers that exist to creating a more vigorous alternative fuels marketplace within US and to give advice to overcome or alleviate those barriers (Halderman & Martin, p. 33). The accomplishment of modern attempts to introduce electric vehicles into the marketplace will mostly be determined by the capacity of vehicle producers to persuade customers that these vehicles characterize a practical and competitive substitute to the conventional vehicle. Electric vehicles and power trains offer an immense prospect to reengage clientele with automobiles as manufactured goods. Electric vehicles provide enhanced performance and a capacity to sustain innovative ‘body styles, forms and materials’. From a customer’s perspective, it is incredibly exciting. From the point of view of business, it will restructure the value chain. As one view the space, he might think the business required an ‘outside-in’ customer viewpoint to recognize the barriers of implementation for important sectors. It is evident that implementation will take place on an exponential curve and the decisive issue was not so much the constraints of the ‘early adopters’ but instead the ‘early majority’ which is a far bigger sector and can initiate the curve upwards (Muradov & Vezirolu, p. 78). Citizens are keen but there are a number of distinct barriers. First, there is ‘range concern’. The typical customer travels below 100 miles per day but when they get into a motor vehicle, they look forward to the range to be 400 miles per day. This is regarding the range of a filled tank of gas and not for going to the workplace or small journeys but longer trips. There was a lack of awareness and knowledge regarding the battery or ‘range expanding’ or hybrid technologies. OEMs, government along with others that try to build the business, have to work on this to notify sellers and reassure clientele. With respect to price, customers in the U.S. are focused on the ‘deal’ and not on entire rate of ownership. A significant element of the variable is fuel price over the life of the automobile. Nonetheless, in the U.S. that variable is likely to be slightly less significant as consumers are focused on the initial price they give upon acquisition, which signifies another part brands should concentrate on. In terms of ecological performance, LPG vehicles are likely to generate considerably lesser ozone forming discharge, even though it can be complicated to measure the differences. In accordance with the ‘California Energy Commission’, LPG vehicles discharge up to 35 % lesser volatile organic compounds, 23 % fewer nitrogen oxides, and 64 % less carbon monoxide. A main performance disadvantage to LPG is the reduced range in comparison with gasoline. Nonetheless, since LPG has the maximum energy content of the alternative fuels, this range decline is merely about 23 %. Additionally, bigger LPG vehicles can hold a bigger tank, and are likely to sustain a range between “300 and 400 miles” (Tickell et al, p. 76). However, to permit longer range, consignment is lessened as a result of the volume and weight of the LPG tank. Another barrier to the broad utilization of methanol as a fuel is the lack of fueling infrastructure. Although there was a small number of public methanol refueling stations, these stations have stopped functioning during current years. At present, the ‘Department of Energy’ does not record any public refueling places for methanol. This shortage of infrastructure makes it complicated for the methanol vehicle marketplace to develop (Demirbas, p. 183). In fact, due to shortage of demand, methanol infrastructure has decreased during the last couple of years. Nonetheless, existing gasoline tanks as well as pumping equipment could be easily transformed to accumulate and distribute methanol, and automobile users would experience slight dissimilarity between a methanol pumping station and a gasoline pumping station. There are a very small number of electric recharging sites within the United States. At present, there are more or less 700 recharging spots, generally in California. With the broad nature of the electrical energy infrastructure within the United States, there are a small number of technological barriers to increasing EV recharging sites. Nonetheless, with existing expertise, just a few vehicles can use a single charger in one day, as contrasting to a gasoline fueling station that can serve a new motor vehicle every few minutes. The possible ecological performance of hydrogen fuel could surpass all other alternative fuels. Fuel cells are considerably more proficient as compared to gasoline engines, and the only discharge from hydrogen fuel cells is heat and water vapor. Nonetheless, the fuel cycle discharge from the formation of hydrogen fuel could lessen its ecological performance, relying on the key fuel utilized (Lee, p. 92). “For example, if produced from solar energy, the total fuel cycle pollutant and greenhouse gas emissions could be very low or even zero. However, if fossil fuels are burned or reformed to generate hydrogen, depending on whether emissions are captured, total emissions could equal or even exceed those of efficient gasoline and diesel vehicles, therefore, the ultimate feedstock for hydrogen production has become a significant policy concern” (Freudenberger, p. 92). There are a number of key safety apprehensions and a few possible advantages from the utilization of hydrogen fuel. As a result of its low density within air, hydrogen fuel is expected to disperse rapidly within an open region, lessening security concerns. Additionally, hydrogen rises, which may make it less likely as compared to other fuels to lead to asphyxiation if released within an enclosed spot. On the other hand, when hydrogen does burn, the blaze is transparent (Bechtold, p. 92). Moreover, hydrogen is extremely reactive, and in case of a leak, the fuel can be ignited with a tiny spark of static electrical energy. Other apprehensions take account of the protection of ‘high pressure or low temperature onboard fuel storage’, the security of hydrogen stations in highly populated regions, and the requirement to educate initial responders regarding hydrogen security. Alternative fuels have achieved varying levels of marketable achievement, even though at present none is capable to compete with conventional fuels. LPG as well as natural gas fuels and vehicles have been effectively commercialized, and are extensively utilized in both personal and public fleets. Ethanol is a regular chemical addition in gasoline, but is utilized lightly as an alternative fuel. Other fuels, for instance, methanol and electrical energy have had less commercial achievement, but may have a major part in the potential of transportation. The extent to which different alternative fuels have been consumed has been an outcome of financial issues, as well as government tax plans and dictatorial directives. Moreover, the performance traits of the fuels have as well played a key part. In general, there are prospective energy safeties advantages to alternative fuels, as the majority of alternative fuels can be obtained from domestic sources. Further achievable advantages consist of lesser discharge of contaminated toxins, ozone producing contaminants, as well as greenhouse gases. Nonetheless, performance and cost are main barriers to customer acceptance. Without significant progress in alternative fuel as well as vehicle expertise, or considerable petroleum price raise, it is doubtful that any fuel will substitute petroleum based fuels within the near future (Bartis & Bibber, p. 92). Alternative fuel vehicles face two vital setbacks. First, they usually suffer from quite a lot of market shortcomings in comparison with conventional vehicles functioning on conventional fuels. For this reason, they unavoidably need government inducements or directives to achieve something. Second, they normally do not offer cost effective results to main energy and ecological issues, which weakens the policy case for having the government interfered within the market to sustain them. The U.S government along with others has tried to support AFVs for a long time. ‘The 1992 Energy Policy Act’ established the objective of having alternative fuels substitute at least 15 % of petroleum fuels during 2008, and at least 35 % during 2010. At present, alternate fuels used in AFVs substituted for less than 1 % of entire utilization of gasoline (Society of Automotive Engineers Inc, p. 82). All alternative fuel vehicles that have so far been encouraged with inadequate success -‘electric motor vehicles, natural gas vehicles, methanol vehicles, and ethanol vehicles’ - have each experienced from quite a lot of of these hurdles. Any one of these barriers can be a ‘showstopper’ for an alternative fuel vehicles or an alternative fuel, even where other obvious advantages are delivered. Electric vehicles carry the clear advantage of ‘zero tailpipe’ discharge, and can even have lesser per mile charges as compared to gasoline cars, but range, refueling, and initial cost concerns have restricted their achievement and caused most key automobile companies to remove their electric automobiles from the market (Bechtold, p. 282). In the case of natural gas motor vehicles, the ecological advantages were oversold, as were the early cost approximates for both the motor vehicles and the refueling stations. Early supporters regularly consider that costs just have to go down and cited what turned out to be impossible price levels. According to a study, “exaggerated claims have damaged the credibility of alternate transportation fuels, and have retarded acceptance, especially by large commercial purchasers” (Lefebvre & Ballal, p. 65). All alternative fuel vehicles face the growing competition from enhanced gasoline powered vehicles. Indeed, before two decades when ‘tailpipe’ discharge principles were being developed requiring “0.02 grams/mile of NOx” (Muradov & Vezirolu, p. 93), few believed that inner combustion engine vehicles moving on formulated gasoline could attain this. The vehicles do cost a little additional, however, that is more than offset by the existing government motivation and the large decline in gasoline charges, even disregarding the performance advantages. Contrast that to several alternative fuel vehicles, whose ecological advantages, if any, usually come at the cost not merely of a superior initial charge for the motor vehicle, however, a much higher annual fuel bill, a condensed range, and other unwanted features from the customer’s point of view (Wilson et al, p. 87). The government must change transportation policy to deal with rising reliance on imported oil and greenhouse gas discharge. Evading severe atmosphere alteration will almost positively need a considerable decline in estimated US transportation greenhouse gas discharge by 2025 and a striking decline in total discharge by 2050. In addition, whatever strategy is used to decrease transportation carbon dioxide discharge should not impede with the equally critical attempts to reduce any boost within coal discharge and then to decrease those discharge. The only reasonable policy for achieving major declines in anticipated vehicle petroleum utilization and carbon dioxide discharge by 2025 is fuel competence. For attaining 2050 objectives, it is believed that the most reasonable policy is a plug-in hybrid running on a blend of low-carbon electrical energy and a low-carbon biomass resultant fuel. The hydrogen fuel cell is the alternative fuel vehicle that has the most technological and infrastructure barriers and is the least capable path for making use of renewable resource (Maugeri, pp. 198). The government should aim for at least a 35 % drop in carbon dioxide discharge per mile for new vehicles by 2025. Lacking such principles, discharge and imports will carry on rising sharply. There is no escape from a government-ordered solution, whether in the shape of carbon dioxide discharge standards or a refund for proficient vehicles and fee bate for ineffective vehicle. Lacking a standard, much of the competence gain of latest technologies will possibly go towards offering improved vehicle ‘acceleration and weight’, as it has for the last two decades. The most likely bio-fuel for providing considerable drop in U.S. greenhouse gas discharge and oil use in the medium- as well as long-term is ‘cellulosic ethanol’ (Korin, & Luft, p. 98). While hydrogen might eventually verify to be a feasible as well as environmentally advantageous substitute fuel post 2035, it is presently receiving financial support as well as policy concentration that is greatly inconsistent to both its possibility of achievement and expected ecological advantages. Hydrogen should be viewed as a long-term, high-risk research and development attempt, needing at least three most important technical advancements before it is practical or advantageous (Bryce, p. 302). It is worth continuing hydrogen research and development, but at least twenty years early to be spending considerable finances in deploying vehicles or infrastructure. For hydrogen automobiles to be commercial in decreasing greenhouse gas discharge, the government will initially have to sharply transfer the existing energy strategy to create renewable power the main resource of U.S. electrical energy. In addition, hydrogen is no substitute to government rules; indeed, for hydrogen as well as fuel cell means of transportation to turn into commercially flourishing, the national government will have to get involved in the vehicle market far more than it has ever done during the past (Lee et al, p. 193). Transportation is the main source of U.S. reliance on imported oil and the region that has had the greatest development in greenhouse gas discharge over the last two decades. Yet the effectiveness of the light duty vehicle fleet is at a 20 year low and attempts to support alternative fuel vehicles in the market have mainly unsuccessful. However, the vital need to reverse the ‘business as usual’ development path in greenhouse gas discharge in the subsequent two decades to avoid severe if not disastrous climate alteration requires action to make the vehicles cleaner (K M S Publishing.com, 83). Works Cited Bartis, J. T. and Bibber, L. V. Alternative Fuels for Military Applications. 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