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 gen ...

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 gen ...

, 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 meteorologic ...

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 Electric machine, 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 Electromagneti ...

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 A supercapacitor (SC), also called an ultracapacitor, is a high-capacity capacitor, with a capacitance value much higher than other capacitors but with lower voltage limits. It bridges the gap between electrolytic capacitors and Rechargeable ba ...

, 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 Compressed air is air kept under a pressure that is greater than atmospheric pressure. Compressed air is an important medium for transfer of energy in industrial processes, and is used for power tools such as air hammers, drills, wrenches, and o ...

, 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, an ...

. 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 b ...

and

solar panels A solar cell panel, solar electric panel, photo-voltaic (PV) module, PV panel or solar panel is an assembly of photovoltaic solar cells mounted in a (usually rectangular) frame, and a neatly organised collection of PV panels is called a phot ...

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 ...

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. Some vegetable oil blends are used in unmodified vehicles, but straight vegetable oil o ...

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 (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...

, 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