Ethanol is probably the most well known alternative fuel in the world today, especially in corn growing states like Iowa, Illinois and Indiana. Ethanol is really nothing more than grain alcohol because it is made most often with corn. Using ethanol as an alternative fuel is a great way to help the environment and our farmers too. After all, the United States is an agricultural machine!

The main ethanal fuel product available nowadays for you car is E85.  E85 is made from 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent alcohol. There are many cars that can run on E85 fuel and many of you drive these cars and probably don’t even know it. If your vehicle is labeled as a “Flex-Fuel” vehicle, then chances are you can run it on E85.

Running your car on E85 is good for the consumer because it costs less! With the recent volatility of the oil industry and prices rising and falling like waves on the ocean, E85 has remained consistently cheaper and simple to produce. In addition, (and I don’t care what you hear from critics) E85 will not effect your gas mileage in any way. You car doesn’t know what it’s burning! It only responds to the weight or your lead foot, and not to the ‘drank in the tank.’

Environmentally speaking, E85 is much cleaner burning compared to its petroleum counterpart and is made from a renewable resource! These are two good selling points in the eyes of environmental watch dogs.

Are you catching the balance here folks? You can actually do something good for the environment without sacrificing quality or paying more to do it! That’s balanced green living!

Brazil, which is by far the largest producer in the world, makes ethanol from sugar cane. Projects are now underway in California to convert some of the state’s agricultural waste, like rice straw that is now burned in fields, into ethanol. Ethanol as an alternative fuel has really come a long way over the years and has turned out to be an extremely viable product for both consumers and activists alike. This is why we consider it to be one of the most well-balanced green initiatives to date.

Corn ethanol as an alternative fuel is made today by converting the starch in corn to sugars and then into alcohol in a process of fermenting. A company in Canada, Iogen, has invented a process for converting agricultural waste such as corn stalks, husks, etc. (corn “stover”) and other cellulose rich plant waste like straw into ethanol by using enzymes.

Using ethanol as an alternative fuel is only a part of the alternative fuel trend. There are many other alternative fuels being developed in the “green” movement and we will talk about each of them and report on their viability as we see it. The reality is that ethanol provides the most promise to date in use as an alternative fuel.

E85 is the perfect green product in that it is cheaper, performs well and offers less impact on the environment, now that’s balanced green living!

The easiest and quickest way to start down the path of eco-friendliness and balanced green living is to explore your options for alternative fuel for your automobile. This is a “win-win” because, as you know, being eco-conscious often requires you either sacrifice quality or pay more: …not so with alternative fuel. They are the wave of the future as scientists look for cleaner burning fuels that won’t damage the environment while providing great advantages to everyday consumers like you and me. Here are the top runners in the marathon of alternative fuels:

The most publicized and well known alternative fuel is Ethanol. Ethanol is often called grain alcohol as it is made from corn or soybeans. Right now on the market is E85 which is 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Even though it still has petroleum-based gasoline in it, ethanol burns much cleaner than regular gas and saves on gas mileage for those who use it. Ethanol can also be made from organic materials including agricultural crops and waste, plant material left from logging, and trash; including paper!

Another type of alternative fuel is methanol, a relative of ethanol, as they are both alcohol based products. Methanol is sometimes called wood alcohol and can be made from various biomass resources like wood, as well as from coal. However, today nearly all methanol is made from natural gas, or methane, because it is cheaper.

Propane, or compressed natural gas has long been used to provide energy to homes, but it is rising in popularity as a type of alternative fuel for vehicles. Like oil, this common fuel comes from underground. However, natural gas, as the name implies, is a gas much like air, rather than a liquid like petroleum. It has been found to be one of the most environmentally friendly fuels, and its popularity is growing.

You can find another type of alternative fuel in the form of good old fashioned electricity. In fact, electric vehicles have been around for a long time, and they are coming back in popularity due to environmental concerns. Electric vehicles don’t burn gasoline in an engine. They use electricity stored in the car in batteries. Sometimes, 12 or 24 batteries, or more, are needed to power the car.

One of the most interesting and promising type of alternative transportation fuels is hydrogen. While mostly only experimental vehicles are operating on this fuel now, the potential for this unique energy source is excellent. Hydrogen is the lightest of all elements and is easy to produce which is why it is gaining much attention.

These are only a few types of alternative fuels and more are being developed all the time. With a growing concern over global warming, the use of alternative fuels will grow in popularity over time and you will likely begin to see many other types of alternative fuels make their appearance.

When it comes to balanced green living, seeking an alternative fuel is one of the best ways to appeal to the public and both sides of the environmental aisle. I am a big fan of alternative fuels, especially E85 ethanol because it is convenient, cheaper and readily available. It’s the perfect product for the regular folks out there who want to be green without stepping out of their normal comfort zone.

Thinking about running your vehicle on a hydrogen fuel cell? Read this:

There has been a push in this country toward using alternative fuels – specifically hydrogen fuels that are required to run on hydrogen fuel cells. So what is a hydrogen fuel cell? The explanation can be easy or it can be complicated. We’ll try to make it easy!

A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device. A fuel cell converts the chemicals hydrogen and oxygen into water, and in the process it produces electricity. The other electrochemical device that we are all familiar with is the battery. A battery has all of its chemicals stored inside, and it converts those chemicals into electricity too. This means that a battery eventually “goes dead” and you either throw it away or recharge it.

With a fuel cell, chemicals constantly flow into the cell so it never goes dead — as long as there is a flow of chemicals into the cell, the electricity flows out of the cell. Most fuel cells in use today use hydrogen and oxygen as the chemicals. The biggest advantage to a hydrogen fuel cell is that the only thing it emits when used as a fuel is water vapor.

You cannot ask the question “What is a hydrogen fuel cell?” without considering the types of fuel cells that have been produced. The main type of hydrogen fuel cell is the polymer exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). This is the fuel cell that the Department of Energy is focusing on as the next big thing because it is the most likely candidate for transportation applications.

The PEMFC has a high power density and a relatively low operating temperature (ranging from 60 to 80 degrees Celsius, or 140 to 176 degrees Fahrenheit). The low operating temperature means that it doesn’t take very long for the fuel cell to warm up and begin generating electricity.

There is another type of hydrogen fuel cell that shows promise when trying to operate a vehicle. This one is the direct methanol fuel cell (DMFC). Methanol fuel cells are comparable to a PEMFC in regards to operating temperature, but are not as efficient. Also, the DMFC requires a relatively large amount of platinum to act as a catalyst, which makes these fuel cells expensive.

What is a hydrogen fuel cell? It is the next new wave of emerging technology in the field of alternative fuels that will help our country as well as our environment. A hydrogen fuel cell vehicle burns clean and runs efficiently. It is what alternative fuel supporters have hoped for since the advent of alternative fuels for energy – a clean vehicle that runs great and has safe emissions.

Hydrogen fuel as an alternative to patroleum does have its drawbacks.

The alternative fuel lobby will say that using hydrogen fuel cells to power your vehicle is definitely the way to go, but what about the disadvantages? They give us all the information about the advantages to switching to hydrogen fuel cells, but they gloss over the disadvantages. The truth is that while hydrogen fuel cells are highly advantageous, but they also have some significant disadvantages.

People who have studied hydrogen fuel cells say that there are three main disadvantages to using hydrogen as a fuel source.

1. The low density. A hydrogen fuel tank will have three times the size of a gasoline tank. Also it must be insulated, and this will add to its bulk. This seems entirely bearable.

2. Safety problems. Liquid hydrogen is cold enough to freeze air, and accidents have occurred from pressure build-up following plugged valves. Some say these problems can’t be overcome, but many side with those who think they can be overcome.

In a collision the hydrogen tank may rupture, as can a gasoline tank. Limited accident experience suggests that the danger is somewhat less with hydrogen than with gasoline, because the hydrogen dissipates rapidly. The release of hydrogen into a confined space like a garage risks an explosion.

3. Since the insulation can’t be perfect, the hydrogen will gradually evaporate, typically 1.7 percent per day. This is too fast for a car to sit for months between uses. A tank of compressed hydrogen holding enough to get to a hydrogen station would solve this.

If the engine is flexible enough to burn gasoline as well as hydrogen, a half gallon gasoline tank would suffice. Some automobile companies like BMW, have experimented with vehicles powered by liquid hydrogen. However, hydrogen cannot come into common use until the political obstacles to nuclear expansion are overcome or the technological obstacles to large scale solar energy are overcome.

It is unlikely to be used as long as gasoline remains so cheap – in other words as long as oil remains cheap and fear of global warming does not prevent its use. Hydrogen enthusiasts will just have to wait if this persists.

There’s really no doubt that using hydrogen fuel cells as an alternative fuel can be very advantageous both for the environment as well as for America in general by reducing our dependence on foreign oil. But there still are significant disadvantages that must be overcome before we can realize the real benefits of using hydrogen fuel cells as our main source of energy to power our vehicles.