Mitigating Environmental Pollution and Impacts from Fossil Fuels: The Role of Alternative Fuels

Abstract

Energy has been one of the most important factors in keeping our society running smoothly. However, in the past few decades, terms such as ‘energy crisis’ and ‘green house gases emission’ have been brought to our attention more frequently than ever. It is well recognized that this world will be a different place in the future than it is today with shortages in the energy supply. In order to meet the rising global demand for energy, rapid development of conventional fossil fuels (i.e., coal, oil, and natural gas) have been experienced by many nations, bringing dramatic economic benefit and prosperity to fossil-fuel industries as well as wellbeing of human society. However, various fossil-fuel related activities emit huge quantities of gaseous, liquid, and solid waste materials, posing a variety of impacts, risks, and liabilities to the environment. Therefore, on the one hand, control measures are desired for effectively managing pollution issues; on the other hand, it becomes extremely critical to invest efforts in finding promising alternative energy sources as solutions to the possible energy shortage crisis in future. This article focuses on both aspects through: (1) a discussion of waste materials generated from fossil-fuel industries and waste management measures; and (2) an exploration of some well-recognized alternative fuels in terms of their nature, availability, production, handling, environmental performances, and current and future applications. The conclusion restates the urgency of finding replaceable long-term alternatives to the conventional fuels.

Keywords:

• alternative fuel
• energy
• fossil fuel
• management
• mitigation
• pollution control

Acknowledgment

The authors would like to thank the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada for funding this research. This study was also supported by the “National Basic Research (973) Program” Project (No.: 2005CB724200 and 2005CB724201) of the Ministry of Science and Technology of China.