Thursday, September 21, 2017

Why will dominant alternative transportation fuels be liquid fuels, not electricity or hydrogen?

This is my recently published paper. The link is:

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301421517304019

If you would like to read the whole text, please email me: binzhaode@gmail.com.  

Highlights of the paper

•    Existing transportation infrastructure favors liquid fuels.
•    The human nature of satisfying their needs with least effort favors liquid fuels.
•    Continuing supply of oil will reinforce existing transportation infrastructure.
•    Understanding alternative fuel market helps avoid making unrealistic policies.
Abstract

The nature of oil as a finite and non-renewable resource determines that the world oil production will eventually peak. Alternative fuels are energy to fill in the gap for transportation. The types of the alternative transportation fuels include electricity, gaseous, liquid, and solid energy carriers. Understanding what type of alternative fuels will dominate alternative transportation fuel market is critical for policy-makers to make sound decisions to develop alternative fuels. The purpose of the paper is to analyze the general trend of alternative fuel market by applying principles that govern the biological and technological evolutions. Existing transportation infrastructure favors liquid alternative fuels over electricity and hydrogen. The human nature of satisfying their needs with least effort also favors liquid fuels over electricity and hydrogen. And continuing supply of oil will reinforce existing transportation infrastructure, which will continue to make it impossible for electricity or hydrogen based transportation system to compete with current liquid fuel based transportation system economically.

Keywords
Transportation energy, Alternative fuel,Peak oil, Prediction,Path dependence,Human nature

Sections of the paper
1.   Introduction
2.   Existing transportation infrastructure favors liquid fuels
3.   The human nature of satisfying their needs with least effort favors liquid fuels
4.   Continuing supply of oil will reinforce existing transportation infrastructure
5.   Conclusions and policy implications
6.   References