What is the best alternative fuel?

Answer 1

You need to qualify that question.
"Best" in what sense?
"Alternative" to what?

I personally believe that the way forward is to immediately turn our surplus food production capacity into fuel production. Agriculture should be self-sustaining in terms of fuel.
The best crop is oil-seed-rape in terms of calorific yeild per acre farmed, although genetically modified strains could improve even on this. High yeild willow coppice is also useful as a quick source of solid fuel. Anything growing is directly harnessing energy from the sun and converting it into fuel.

Large scale wind, solar and tidal power all have high embodied energy requirements (i.e. it takes a lot of energy to create the systems). They also have high maintenance requirements.

Distributed, local power generation is preferable.
Gymnasiums and leisure centres should be made to use generating CV exercise equipment.

Each new house build should include some local power generation system. Small scale wind turbine, photovoltaic roof tiles, solar heating systems.

The ultimate aim is for each household and business to be self sufficient in electrical power.

Ta.

Answer 2

I am not sure that this is what you want but, HERE GOES... ONE of the best automotive fuels is Corn Alcohol. Our farming community can be helped as well as a number of others in different regions to produce the stills & work them, ship the products. IT would also cut back on the number of pollutions without a number of the present fuel-killing gadgets. Another suggested fuel that has been experimented with is Hydrogen gas. It would clean up the air considerably. It's exhaust would be WATER. This would be rather dangerous in any freezing-weather areas! There have been a host of others used. In the 1970s Chicken Manure was used effectively. It ran quite well. (I am not sure what the exhaust smelled like or how fun it would be to refuel the vehicles.) The major problem with the hydrogen is that it takes more energy to produce the hydrogen than it will ever produce. Most of the alternates produce much safer exhaust pollutants that the Oil Pruducts that we now use!! This is a portion of the information that I remember from a study that I completed while in college (the summer of 1978). Hybrid cars are helping to save our oil but not helping us to get away from it at all. Electric cars also take more energy than they give off. Energy conversion always has some loss, no getting around it. When we speak of HOMES, wind turbines are a partial result of our sun's energy also. Have a great Holiday!
Eds

Answer 3

Maybe there is no best, absolutely speaking, alternative fuel (by alternative it is meant: in substitution to conventional fossil fuels which cannot be "re-newed" in a short time.)! A comparison between possible options must take into account: production price, plant investment, how environmental friendly it is, what is its application and lots of other factors which are economic, political, tecnical, etc.
However, as of today, some alternative fuels are: wind energy (zero emissions, a little acoustic and landscape pollution), solar energy (zero emissions. Either photovoltaic panels or solar collectors), geothermal energy (energy extracted from gethermal sources such as hot vapor coming directly from under the earth), biomasses (energy extracted from bacteria decomposition of organic substance which mainly produce methane gas), tide energy (energy extracted from the sea's tidal cycle by installing special machines/devices). These are the most common I can think of. Other alternative fuels are biodiesel (fuel derived from vegetables). When I speak of zero emissions I only mean during the energy production process (typically electric energy or heat energy), but naturally some emissions have been produced when building the equipment in the first place (ex: to construct a photovoltaic panel some conventional fossil fuels have been used in the factory to drive machines, cut metal, heat, etc). So global considerations must be made!
The important point about alternative fuels/sources is that even with extensive use of all these alternative fuels/sources it seems that only a small percentage (let's say 10% or less) of mankind's energy needs are fulfilled at the current rate of the world's energy consumption. Apparently we desperately still need fossil fuels with all the heavy consequences they bring for man and the environment. Sad!
Hope I've answered your question.

Answer 4

The most promising fuel source would be solar. If we...somebody really smart...could figure a way to trap and store all of the sun's energy and convert it into a form of energy we can use like electricity or heat, then that would be the best alternative fuel. Then we can work on making electric or hybrid cars more efficient and STOP POLLUTING THE PLANET!

Answer 5

There is not "best". The problem is most people want one answer to this and ignore the fact that what work great for one application isn't good for another. Fitting the available technology to the specific need give the the best for each instance.

Answer 6

Some people think that hydrogen is, but the oxide of nitrogen will be produced because the combustion temperature is so high. Also hydrogen ,the atom is so small it will leak through anything. It is also very explosive.

Answer 7

dung