A zero emission

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ge ...

motor An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power gene ...

, process, or other energy source emits no waste products that pollute the environment or disrupt the

climate Climate is the long-term weather pattern in a region, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteoro ...

Zero emission engines

Vehicles and other mobile machinery used for transport (over land, sea, air, rail) and for other uses (agricultural, mobile power generation, etc.) contribute heavily to climate change and pollution, so zero emission engines are an area of active research. These technologies almost in all cases include an

electric motor An electric motor is a machine that converts electrical energy into mechanical energy. Most electric motors operate through the interaction between the motor's magnetic field and electric current in a electromagnetic coil, wire winding to gene ...

hydrogen fuel cell A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most batteries in requ ...

s, batteries,

supercapacitors alt=Supercapacitor, upright=1.5, Schematic illustration of a supercapacitor upright=1.5, A diagram that shows a hierarchical classification of supercapacitors and capacitors of related types A supercapacitor (SC), also called an ultracapacitor, ...

, and

flywheel energy storage Flywheel energy storage (FES) works by accelerating a rotor (flywheel) to a very high speed and maintaining the energy in the system as rotational energy. When energy is extracted from the system, the flywheel's rotational speed is reduced as a ...

devices. In some cases, such as compressed air engines, the engine may be mechanical rather than electrical. This mechanical engine is then powered by a passive energy source like

compressed air Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air in vehicle tires and shock absorbers are commonly used for improved traction and reduced vibration. Compressed air is an important medium for t ...

, or a combustible non-polluting gas like

hydrogen Hydrogen is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol, symbol H and atomic number 1. It is the lightest and abundance of the chemical elements, most abundant chemical element in the universe, constituting about 75% of all baryon, normal matter ...

. The above engines can be used in all vehicles, from cars to boats to propeller airplanes. For boats, energy sources such as

nuclear power Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced by ...

and

solar panels A solar panel is a device that converts sunlight into electricity by using photovoltaic (PV) cells. PV cells are made of materials that produce excited electrons when exposed to light. These electrons flow through a circuit and produce direct ...

can also be a viable option, in addition to traditional

sail A sail is a tensile structure, which is made from fabric or other membrane materials, that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may b ...

s and

turbosail The turbosail or French is a marine propulsion system using a sail-like vertical surface and a powered boundary layer control system to improve lift across a wide angle of attack. This allows the sail to power the boat in any direction simply by ...

s. A concept like

vegetable oil economy Vegetable oils are increasingly used as a substitute for fossil fuels. Vegetable oils are the basis of biodiesel, which can be used like conventional Diesel fuel, diesel. Some vegetable oil blends are used in unmodified vehicles, but straight veget ...

produces emissions.

References

* {{cite book , last = Dixon , first = Lloyd , author2=Isaac Porche , author3=Jonathan Kulick , title = Driving Emissions to Zero: Are the Benefits of California's Zero Emission Vehicle Program Worth the Costs? , publisher =

RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...

, year = 2002 , isbn = 0-8330-3212-7

External links

A special issue of the ''Journal of Cleaner Production''
that focuses specifically on Zero Emissions Green vehicles Zero-emissions vehicles

Zero emission engines

See also

References

External links