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Alternative Fuels Used in Transportation U.S. DEPARTMENT OF Energy Efficiency & ENERGY EDUCATION AND WORKFORCE DEVELOPMENT ENERGY Renewable Energy Alternative Fuels Used in Transportation Grades: 5-8 Topic: Hydrogen and Fuel Cells, Vehicles, Biomass Owner: National Renewable Energy Laboratory This educational material is brought to you by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. This lesson plan may contain links to other resources, including suggestions as to where to purchase materials. These links, product descriptions, and prices may change over time. Alternative Fuels Used in Transportation For the Teacher: The use of energy is a factor in all our lives, and that is why it is important for us teachers to have our students learn about the energy we use now and the new forms of energy that are becoming available. Non-renewable energy sources are diminishing everyday, and it is vital that students learn about renewable energy sources to help them of the capability to cross multiple as they grow to become better informed education disciplines such as chemistry, and more responsible about the energy physics, economics, and marketing and resources they use. they involve social interaction as well as The use of gasoline for group learning. transportation is the most commonly Alternative fuels are being used fuel. However, there are multiple researched by top scientists every day alternative fuels that are making their at NREL to discover which fuel methods ways to the market. These alternative work best, how well they work and how fuels include such things as propane, easily they can be distributed to the natural gas, electric hybrids, hydrogen public. The authors of this section are fuel cells, and biodiesel. Students will studying the emissions released from probably have heard of some of these large trucks running on different alternative fuels, but they may not biodiesel fuels to compare which blends understand how and why they are create lower emissions. better then ordinary gasoline. The projects included in this section are National Science Education designed to give students the Standards by the National Academy opportunity to create their own of Sciences: investigation and test alternative fuels and their relation to transportation. Science Content Standards: 5-8 The projects included will fit Science as Inquiry easily with regular classroom lessons - Content Standard A: surrounding scientific inquiry and the “Abilities necessary to do scientific scientific method. The projects have inquiry” “Understandings about scientific inquiry” Physical Science - Content Standard B: “Properties and changes of properties in matter” “Transfer of energy” 216 This lesson plan may contain links to other resources, including suggestions as to where to purchase materials. These links, product descriptions, and prices may change over time. Earth and Space Science penetrates porous soils and - Content Standard D: groundwater. “Structure of the earth system” The idea of alternative fuels has Science and Technology been around about as long as there - Content Standard E: been vehicles. In the 1880s, Henry “Abilities of technological design” Ford built one of his first automobiles to “Understandings about science and run on ethanol. The alternative fuels technology” that are being actively explored by the Science in Personal and Social Department of Energy include: Perspectives methanol; propane; ethanol; - Content Standard F: compressed and liquefied natural gas; “Populations, resources, and electricity; hybrid electricity; biodiesel; environments” and hydrogen fuel cells. Factors such as “Science and technology in society” cost, fuel distribution, emissions, vehicle systems analysis, energy storage, power Technology Description: and propulsion systems, and advanced power electronics are just some of the considerations in phasing in alternative Transportation by cars and trucks fuels and advanced vehicle design. radically changed the face of our country over the last hundred years, Complete Combustion with petroleum providing the fuel for Fuel (hydrocarbons) + Air (O & N) our vehicles. We use about 13 million 2 ⇒ CO + H O + N barrels of oil each day to keep us on the 2 2 move. Americans drive their personal vehicles about 2.3 trillion miles a year with 98 percent of our vehicles running on petroleum or diesel fuels. United States imports two-thirds of all the petroleum we use; therefore, cheaper Typical Engine Combustion and renewable alternative fuels would Fuel + Air Unburned Hydrocarbons be desirable to reduce our dependence. + NO + CO + CO + H O In addition to the dependence factor, x 2 2 one also needs to consider that the Improving fuel economy, cost, emissions from gasoline-powered availability, and emissions are the vehicles are fairly extensive and include primary goals of research into CO, CO , NOx, SOx, VOCs, OH-, and PM. 2 alternative fuels and transportation. Some of these emissions are known or probable human carcinogens, including Alternative Fuels- benzene (known), formaldehyde, Methanol acetaldehyde, and 1,3-butadiene Methanol, or wood alcohol, is a (probable). Gasoline can also impact the colorless, odorless, toxic liquid. environment if spilled, since it spreads Methanol is the simplest alcohol on water surfaces and quickly (CH3OH), produced by replacing one 217 This lesson plan may contain links to other resources, including suggestions as to where to purchase materials. These links, product descriptions, and prices may change over time. hydrogen atom of methane with a stored in pressurized tanks. Propane is hydroxyl radical (OH). Methanol can be 270 times more compact in its liquid produced from natural gas, coal, state than it is as a gas, making it a residual oil, or biomass. portable fuel. Although vehicles can operate on pure Propane has been used as a methanol fuel (M100), methanol transportation fuel for more than half a blended with 15 percent unleaded century and is the most widely used and gasoline–M85- is more practical for real most accessible alternative fuel. Today world applications. Because methanol is about three percent of total propane a liquid fuel, it does not require major consumption is used to fuel 270,000 changes in the distribution system or in vehicles, mostly in fleets. For fleet car engines, but no major auto vehicles, the cost of using propane is 5 manufacturers offer M85 compatible to 30 percent less than for gasoline. vehicles at this time. The cost of M85 is equal to or slightly higher than premium Ethanol blends. M85 has a lower energy Ethanol is a clear, colorless content per gallon, so mileage is lower; alcohol fuel made by fermenting the but power, acceleration and payload sugars found in grains—such as corn capacity are comparable to gasoline. and wheat—as well as potato wastes, Vehicles using methanol, however, must cheese whey, corn fiber, rice straw, use a special, expensive lubricant. urban wastes, and yard clippings. There are several processes that can produce Propane alcohol (ethanol) from biomass. The Propane is an energy-rich fossil fuel most commonly used processes today often called liquefied petroleum gas use yeast to ferment the sugars and (LPG). It is colorless and odorless; an starch in the feedstock to produce odorant called mercaptan is added to ethanol. A new process uses enzymes serve as a warning agent. Propane is a to break down the cellulose in woody by-product of petroleum refining and fibers, making it possible to produce natural gas processing. And, like all ethanol from trees, grasses, and crop fossil fuels, it is nonrenewable. The residues. chemical formula for propane is C3H8. In the 1970s, the oil embargoes Under normal atmospheric revived interest in ethanol as an pressure and temperature, propane is a alternative fuel. Today, more than fifty gas. Under moderate pressure and/or ethanol plants, mostly in the Midwest, lower temperature, however, propane produce over a billion gallons of ethanol. can easily be changed into a liquid and Gasoline containing ten percent 218 This lesson plan may contain links to other resources, including suggestions as to where to purchase materials. These links, product descriptions, and prices may change over time. ethanol—E10—is widely used in urban gasoline. As a result, natural gas areas that fail to meet standards for vehicles typically have a shorter range, carbon monoxide and ozone. Since unless additional fuel tanks are added, ethanol contains oxygen, using it as a which can reduce payload capacity. With fuel additive results in up to 25 percent an octane rating of 120+, power, fewer carbon monoxide emissions than acceleration and cruise speed are conventional gasoline. E10 is not comparable. considered an alternative fuel under EPACT, but a replacement fuel. Electricity In 1891, William Morrison of Des Moines, Iowa, developed the first electric car. By the turn of the century, Methane dedicated electric vehicles (EVs) Methane, the natural gas we use outnumbered their gasoline-powered for heating, cooking, clothes drying, and counterparts by two-to-one. Today water heating, can also be a clean there are about 10,500 dedicated EVs in burning transportation fuel when use in the United States, mostly in the compressed (CNG) or liquefied (LNG). West and South. Researchers are still Compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles working on the same problem that emit 85-90 percent less carbon plagued those early dedicated EVs: the monoxide, 10-20 percent less carbon need for an efficient battery. The dioxide, and 90 percent fewer reactive batteries limit the range of a dedicated non-methane hydrocarbons than EV, which is determined by the amount gasoline-powered vehicles. (Reactive of energy stored in its battery pack. The hydrocarbon emissions produce ozone, more batteries a dedicated EV can carry, one of the components of smog that the more range it can attain, to a point. causes respiratory problems.) These Too many batteries can weigh down a favorable emission characteristics result vehicle, reducing its load-carrying because natural gas is 25 percent capacity and range, and causing it to hydrogen by weight; the only use more energy.
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