EMC Working Papers

When fuels as versatile as petroleum products are in transports, it is not surprising that several alternative fuels are needed to substitute for different vehicle types and usages. Petroleum products' qualities are their unsurpassed energy and volume density and their ease of handling. Now that we're faced with the prospect of scarcity, global warming and constraints on local pollutants, the transportation sector is required to find alternatives to what has fuelled us for 100 years. Necessity being the mother of invention, several alternative fuels are now emerging. None of them are exactly new technologies (see WW2-era popular science magazine below), but a combination of technical improvements, public acceptance, the establishment of norms, and the deployment of a distribution infrastructure are giving each of these technologies a chance to occupy a niche within road and rail transportation.