Alt Fuels

In a process that's a bit like a flow battery, scientists have generated electricity by spraying salt water on a rusty film.

Tech has lagged for light-duty engines designed to use gaseous fuels, like natural gas, propane, and biogas; an EU project has aimed to address that.

At least one startup may be getting close to scaling up fuel production with carbon captured from the air. But burning the fuel would still pollute.

President Donald Trump is expected Tuesday to direct the EPA to lift the seasonal ban on higher-ethanol E15 blends of pump gasoline linked to summer smog issues. The move has been anticipated for months. This timing for it, according to Reuters, is aimed at helping Republican candidates in...

Algae-based biodiesel has been hyped in the past as a renewable fuel that can be produced here in the U.S., lowering greenhouse-gas emissions without displacing food crops or taxing water supplies. And yet it still hasn’t arrived in any significant way. There’s no single factor to blame...

Though the Environmental Protection Agency has already ruled on ethanol-blended gasoline mixtures for 2018, that hasn't stopped ethanol advocates from pushing for a higher 30-percent blend for non-flex-fuel vehicles. The latest call for ethanol comes from corn-state ethanol refiners, farmers, and...

No single definition exists for the idea of "green car," and very few shoppers set out to go buy a green car. Instead, car buyers look for vehicles that meet their needs—with fuel economy or energy efficiency somewhere in that list of needs, whether higher or lower. Certainly the definition...

Building a fueling network turns out to be more of a challenge than many advocates, regulators, and drivers may have anticipated. The attempt to boost passenger vehicles fueled by cheap, abundant U.S. natural gas is now essentially over, with a mere 942 public natural-gas fueling stations...

As they say, the best compromise is usually the one that leaves all parties equally dissatisfied. When it comes to the Environmental Protection Agency's renewable-fuel mandate, it seems regulators have reached equilibrium. The latest skirmish in the long-running battle over the U.S. renewable-fuel...

You just don't hear the phrase "alternative fuels" as much as you did, say, 10 years ago. With a couple of million plug-in electric cars now on the world's roads, the idea of swapping in one hydrocarbon fuel for another may have passed its time. Admittedly biodiesel continues to make quiet inroads...

With electrification spreading through many types of transport, one vehicle still remains largely absent in using electrons for propulsion: aircraft. Automakers have been building commercially viable electrified cars—in whole (electrics) or in part (hybrids)—for more than two decades...

Tesla CEO Elon Musk made a bet that he'd build the world's largest lithium-ion battery in Australia in 100 days. If his company failed, Musk would personally pay for the project, but the battery is now ready for its first test ahead of full operation—and on schedule. The massive...

Tesla has never built anything but battery-electric cars. Now a Dutch gasoline company believes it's improved upon the Silicon Valley automaker's design with a hydrogen fuel cell—so much so that it wants to sell its solution to the general public. The Holthausen Group, a Dutch gasoline...

Earlier this month, the 30th World Solar Challenge kicked off in Darwin, Australia, with 42 competitors vying for victory. At the end of the 3,022-kilometer (1,880-mile) race from Darwin to Adelaide, one team emerged victorious in the highly contested Cruiser class. Solar Team Eindhoven, from the...

Following years of debate, the EPA said earlier this month it will study the possibilities of cutting the amount of ethanol in the United States' gasoline supply. Since 2007, the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) has required growing amounts of ethanol to be blended into U.S. fuel supplies, with...

Since 2007, the Renewable Fuel Standard has required increasing levels of ethanol in gasoline blends sold in the U.S. Most fuel stations across the United States no longer offer pure gasoline, with E10—a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline—prevailing. After years of...

Audi’s vision of future mobility primarily centers around an array of long-range electric cars scheduled to debut in the coming years under the "e-tron" badge. These are intended to be Tesla killers, as they’re often called in Germany. But there’s another kind of tron with a...

Solar power provides 10 percent of California's energy supply, which meant electric-grid operators had to be prepared for potentially disastrous effects during Monday's solar eclipse. To the surprise of many, there were no serious repercussions as the moon blocked a significant source of energy for...

Natural gas vehicles were first promoted starting in about 2000 as a way to reduce reliance on imported oil and cut tailpipe emissions. Their promise appeared to grow near the height of the global financial crisis, when gas prices hovered around $4 per gallon across much of the United States. The...

Electric cars may receive most of the attention within the realm of alternative propulsion methods, but liquid hydrocarbon fuels will be with us for many decades to come. The challenge then becomes how to reduce the carbon footprint of extracting, transporting, refining, and burning those fuels to...