Zero emission refers to an
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 ...
,
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 g ...
, process, or other energy source, that emits no waste products that pollute the environment or disrupt the
climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, 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 meteorologi ...
.
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 an electrical 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 wire winding to generate for ...
powered by an energy source compact enough to be installed in the vehicle. These sources include
hydrogen fuel cell
A fuel cell is an electrochemical cell that converts the chemical energy of a fuel (often hydrogen fuel, hydrogen) and an oxidizing agent (often oxygen) into electricity through a pair of redox reactions. Fuel cells are different from most bat ...
s,
batteries,
supercapacitors, 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 c ...
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, or a combustible non-polluting gas like
hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with the symbol H and atomic number 1. Hydrogen is the lightest element. At standard conditions hydrogen is a gas of diatomic molecules having the formula . It is colorless, odorless, tasteless, non-toxic ...
.
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 ...
and
solar panels can also be a viable option, in addition to traditional
sails 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. Some vegetable oil blends are used in unmodified vehicles, but straight vegetable oil o ...
produces emissions.
See also
*
Air engine
A pneumatic motor (air motor), or compressed air engine, is a type of motor which does mechanical work by expanding compressed air. Pneumatic motors generally convert the compressed air energy to mechanical work through either linear or rotary m ...
*
Carbon neutrality
Carbon neutrality is a state of net-zero carbon dioxide emissions. This can be achieved by balancing emissions of carbon dioxide with its removal (often through carbon offsetting) or by eliminating emissions from society (the transition to the "p ...
*
Economics of climate change mitigation
*
Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives
Zero Emissions Research and Initiatives (ZERI) was established by Gunter Pauli in 1994 at the United Nations University (UNU) with the support of the Japanese Government. Three years before the Kyoto Protocol was agreed upon in 1997, Pauli directe ...
*
Zero-emissions vehicle
A zero-emission vehicle, or ZEV, is a vehicle that does not emit exhaust gas or other pollutants from the onboard source of power. The California definition also adds that this includes under any and all possible operational modes and conditions ...
*
Zero-energy building
A Zero Energy Building (ZEB), also known as a Net Zero Energy (NZE) building, is a building with net zero energy consumption, meaning the total amount of energy used by the building on an annual basis is equal to the amount of renewable energy ...
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
, 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