Future of Fuels; A Brief
Fuels, one of the most discussed topic between almost 95% of the common people and petrol-heads like us too. With the fossil fuel era coming to its dying days and the rise of the EV Revolution that turns out to be a topic to be discussed even though it is on the air. So lets have a little bit of discussion on the fossil fuels its future and the fuels in the future.
Fuel, basically the word fuel means anything which is used as a medium or a source of energy for something to work. Fuel is essential for anything and everything starting from sleep to run and from Driving to generate electricity. Any thing which is used to generate energy is called a fuel. For us humans the fuel is the food we take in. Through the biological process we get energy from the food we take and here the fuel is the food. Like the food provide us the energy the wood provides us the fuel for cooking and many other purposes. So coming back to the fuels in automobile industry lets stat from the past. During the old times people used different resources from earth like the coal to produce steam and the steam is used as a medium to fuel the engines during that times and those kind of engines are know as steam engines. And as you have learned in your lesson the man behind the creations of steam engine is Mr James Watt. So technically a steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force is transformed, by a connecting rod and flywheel, into rotational force for work. The term "steam engine" is generally applied only to reciprocating engines as just described, not to the steam turbine. Here the fuel for the engine to work is the steam produced by the substance which is burnt. For example Coal and wood.
So during that old times when engines used to produce small power outputs the fuel medium was also less powerful like the steam and fire. But things began to change the gears when people began discovering new new technologies and when they started demanding more requirements new and more powerful engines were made. As the newly invented engines were more powerful than the old ones the demand for more efficient fuel increased the petroleum was discovered. The petroleum was discovered through the process of drilling and as studied in the classes this
petroleum is a fossil fuel, which means that it is formed by the gradual evolution of the dead body parts of both plants and animals. Due to this the petroleum is known as the fossil fuels and its formation is a time consuming process. The discovery of the petroleum products was really a milestone during that age as it was used as and still being used as a fuel for powering the engines. So as us people got a resource that is the petroleum products we began using this as a main fuel and the automakers began constructing engines accordingly. The two types of
engines which uses the petroleum products as a fuel is the Petrol and Diesel engines. The cleaner fuel is the petrol and the less cleaner fuel is the diesel and the most efficient fuel than the petrol. Again the change of time has got hands on everything as time changed more cars were produced and more powerful engines were made which consumed more fuel. Statistically the country which consumes the most amount of fuel is America with the statistics of March 2021, petroleum consumption in the United States of America was 19,217.29 thousand barrels per day. The top 5 countries also includes India, Japan, Korea, and Brazil. And as said above India stands second on the amount of fuel consumption.
So now talking about the future of the fuels. The consistent use of the fossil fuels is having a bunch of disadvantages and that have practically made this article so relevant during this period. The disadvantages are known to most of you but I will say it here.
required by the normal car. The more powerful the engine the more the fuel required. And thus more the high performance cars the more fuel consumed, thus leading to the depletion of the oil table. Once completely emptied out it will take hundreds of thousands of years to refresh and
that is not gonna happen anytime soon.
The second factor is the pollution caused by the emission from this engines. As the combustion happens the byproducts will be products will be produced and they are really toxic and pollutants. These obviously causes the pollution and is really bad for the human health too. According to the authorized reports the air pollution caused due to the incomplete combustion of fossil fuels is causing the death of 1 in 5 random people.
The third factor is the ultimate threat to the fossil fuels and it is so common to all of us and that is none other than the Global warming. Burning fossil fuels such as diesel and petrol produces greenhouse gases that trap solar radiation in the atmosphere and cause climate change. But it
also releases tiny poisonous particles known as PM 2.5. Small enough to penetrate deep into the lungs, these particles can aggravate respiratory conditions like asthma and can lead to lung cancer, coronary heart disease, strokes and early death.
So now all these disadvantages are really bad to ourselves and is there any solutions for it?
Yes there it is and it has already started; the Electric revolution. The new technology promotes the use of electricity as the fuel and electric motor as the heart. There are many advantages for the electric cars some of them are as follows:
No toxic products produced. As the electricity does not require any kind if combustion there is no toxic products produced and thus the pollution is not caused. No sound pollution; as the electric motors are more quieter and more efficient the problem of noise pollution is no more a big issue and you will get jaw dropping performance with no extra cost of fuel and pollution.
Ok now as there are these much advantages there are disadvantages too. They may feel a bit wired but they are disadvantages for me.
The first one is the time taken to charge. This electric batteries takes a lot more time to charge up compared to the fossil fuels and its like hours and hours. But if managed in a clever way you can always overcome that. Second one is the drive there is no feel good drive just like the petrol cars.
And yeah that can also be crossed through the continues use and by the gradual acclimatization.
marque in the EV platform is undoubtedly the Tesla from America. Now a days many companies are planning to stop producing diesel engines and WV has started the movement. So the verdict is that the time of fossil fuels is slowly reaching a dead end and it is so sad to say so but for the longer run it would be better.
Special shoutout to my dear friend Yaswanth for the idea and I hope I wrote what you expect me to write. Read it and share it with your friends.
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