Alternative Fuels in Our Current World

Background
In the last few decades, the transportation industry has grown exponentially. Along with this growth has increased the demand and usage of its chief fuels – gasoline and diesel. Both gasoline and diesel are fossil fuels and are extracted from crude oil through distillation. As they are both hydrocarbon fossil fuels, they carry the shortcomings of all such fuel. First, they are extremely harmful to the environment, both when they are burnt and when they escape into the surroundings in their natural form. Second, fossil fuels are, by definition, non-renewable. This means that as the fuel is used, it becomes more difficult and more expensive to find and extract more fuel. This is evident by how gas prices have rapidly increased all over the globe in the last five to six years. It is highly likely that continued usage of crude oil extracts for fuel will lead to environmental as well as economic disaster.

The solution for this lies in alternative fuels. These are fuels that are not completely derived from crude oil. There are many different kinds of alternative fuels. A few of these are Biodiesel, Ethanol, Methanol, Electricity, and Hydrogen. Each of these has their own advantages and disadvantages. Generally, the greatest advantage alternative fuels have are their reduced environmental impact. The greatest disadvantage, however, is the lack of infrastructure available to support a large industry running exclusively on these fuels. Given the amount of time that gasoline has been the fuel of choice; no alternative fuel can compete in terms of fuel availability. As these alternative fuel technologies develop, however, the infrastructure to produce, transport and use these fuels have also increased.

Current Infrastructure for Production, Transport, and Distribution of Alternative Fuels
Infrastructure is a major concern when considering a potential replacement for gasoline. With more than 100,000 dispensing stations around the United States and a well-established transportation network, gasoline is readily available within a few minutes’ drive to most people living in the country. With most alternative fuels, this is not the case. This is not the case with most alternative fuel. Either transporting the fuel is difficult or there are not enough fueling stations. This link leads to an interactive map which shows where alternative fueling stations are available.

Biofuels (Biodiesel, Ethanol, Methanol)
While there are a lot of gas stations that dispense biofuels as low percentages of gasoline (e.g. E10, or 10% mixture of ethanol with gasoline), there are relatively fewer stations that dispense high percentage mixtures of biofuels or pure biofuels. Another drawback with the current infrastructure of biofuels is that biofuels have a higher volume to transport. As such, it would require a larger amount of pipelines, and rail and road transportation networks to move the fuel around.

Electricity
Electricity has a large advantage over any other alternative fuels in terms of infrastructure. Research has shown that the current power grid and electricity generation plants are enough to support the ever growing population of electric cars. The current dispute regarding electric car infrastructure is that the power grid may not be able to handle a very large number of electric cars drawing high power from the grid at once. While this is not an issue now, this is one field that will need to be improved for the future of electric cars.

Hydrogen
Of the major alternative fuels, hydrogen lags the farthest behind in terms of infrastructure. As shown by the map linked above, hydrogen has the fewest dispensing stations of the major alternative fuels. This reflects the difficulties of effectively storing and using hydrogen as a fuel. There are also various safety precautions that are legally required when a designing a hydrogen fueling station, so as to ensure the safety of the pump. The low numbers of hydrogen fueling stations is also indicative of the very few hydrogen fuel cars available to the public, even for demonstration purposes.

Current Alternative Fuel Vehicles in Use
The number of alternative fuel vehicles in use in the United States is relatively low. In 2011, there were just under 1.2 million alternative fuel vehicles being used. Among these, E85 fuel vehicles make up the largest percentage, with the number over 800,000. Hydrogen fuel vehicles make up the smallest percentage, with the number being just over 500. The graph is pictured to the right, and can also be found in this link.

The number of alternative fuel vehicles are highly dependent on government subsidies and tax incentives. Without these, alternative fuel vehicles cannot compete with their far more established gasoline counterparts. There are multiple federal programs that support the development of alternative fuel vehicle. The continuation of these programs are vital to the future of alternative fuel technology.