Talk:Fuel

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Fuels over use as Feed Stock[edit]

"Advantages and Disadvantages of Fuels over use as Feed Stock" What does this mean? I'm moving it to the talk page. If its author can explain what it is or improve its quality, then it can go back in the article. JohnJohn 06:39, 7 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Why should fuel be kept as light as possible and clean 165.16.171.197 (talk) 20:58, 9 September 2023 (UTC)[reply]

"Technically speaking, all matter can be a nuclear fuel because any element under the right conditions will release nuclear energy, but the materials commonly referred to as nuclear fuels are those that will produce energy without being placed under extreme duress."

There's nothing dubious about the above statement. It's physically and scientifically fact. Fusion occurs with all elements in stars and is how each element is created, starting with hydrogen to helium. Any element, given the correct temperature and compression, will fuse, releasing charged electromagnetic energy in the process.

Water?[edit]

Hey, could we call water a fuel? "..or altered in order to obtain energy" - fits water in my opinion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.84.138.101 (talk) 19:06, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Water is not a fuel, it is used to transfer, collect, or store energy and can be seperated into Hydrogen and Oxygen for use as fuels. Water itself is the result of the oxidation of Hydrogen, so the energy has already been relased and requires energy to reverse the process. An experiment some years back showed that by using microwaves, water can be made to burn, but this was only seperating hydrogen and oxygen and the water itself wasn't really burning. The energy required to do it was more than the energy released, so this method isn't a viable energy source.--U25 (talk) 17:03, 7 July 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Advantages and Disadvantages of Fuels over use as Feed Stock[edit]

advantages:

  • widely available
  • cheap to
  • mine / extract / purify
  • transport / distribute
  • efficient

disadvantages:

  • non-renewable / wasting
  • impurities:
  • sulfur (leads to SO2 which causes acid rain)
  • metal oxides
  • silicates
  • incomplete burning:
  • CO
  • C (soot) which causes respitory problems and is toxic
  • NO -> NO2 -> O3 (acid rain and Photochemical smog)
  • flammable hazard
  • horrible smell
  • residue

otherwise

Being based around a hydrocarbon many synthetic materials in todays society require the use of fossil fuels in their manufacture.


I removed this:

July 2006: By lifting restrictions on India's ability to buy nuclear technology and fuel from abroad, America will be helping it out of a uranium squeeze: its usable stocks of the enriched stuff (lower enriched for power generation, higher for weapons) have been dwindling fast.

from the section on nuclear fuel because a certain countries use or need of nuclear fuel has nothing to do with a general article on fuel.Yesukai 05:31, 12 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Future of the article[edit]

This is such a fundamental, multidisciplinary topic that I'm struggling to think of how best to present it. I'd like to at least bring this up to A class. Two problems, one is deciding what topics deserve coverage in this article. Certainly chemical and nuclear are the major headings with chemical including fuels meant for combustion, and those used in metabolism, what else? Nuclear should cover fission and fusion of course. Anything significantly missing there? Another problem is not to forget that it's not just human use of fuel that needs to be covered, but uses of fuel in general, such as stars. So it could be broken into natural uses of fuel and those by mankind. Second problem is what sources would be most suitable to use for this article? General chemistry and physics textbooks have some but not really much general discussion of fuel. Where else to look for the best sources? As you may be able to tell from my questions I'm not the best one to tackle this, but hopefully if I can help get the right foundation built, then others more knowledgeable can take over. I've made a stab at it, ideas would be very welcome. - Taxman Talk

Some discussion of energy density, economics, extraction and distribution may also be beneficial. Futuristic fuels could be mentioned, including Deuterium, 3He (extracted from the lunar regolith) and antimatter. — RJH (talk) 16:25, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
A battery can be viewed as the consumption of a chemical feul. Feul cells consume various chemical compounds as "feul". Lazyquasar 08:57, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Wood[edit]

Obviously not a fossil fuel (it's also carbon neutral, growing it removes the same amount of CO2 as is given out when it's burnt). The sentence "The utilization of fossil fuels has enabled large-scale industrial development and largely supplanted water driven mills, as well as the combustion of wood or peat for heat." from the fossil fuel article might have lead to wood being included here. On careful reading it tells us wood (and peat) use has been supersceded.--Mongreilf 08:59, 18 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Also wood-derived charcoal, plus Cow dung. — RJH (talk) 16:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Good point but what do we call them, natural fuels? -Icewedge 06:03, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
They would probably go under biofuels. — RJH (talk) 19:07, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Combustibility in definition[edit]

The current definition of fuel given in the beginning of the article is : Fuel is any combustible matter used to maintain fire, such as coal, wood, oil, or natural gas, in order to create heat or power.

It would appear that this definition excludes nuclear fuels and discussions of metabolism, since none of these processes involve combustion. Should we find a new definition or adapt the article to the existing one? --Gimme danger 08:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Yeah we should alter the definition, the whole definition of a fuel is kind of shaky though. I would suggest something emphasizing its portability because that is really the only thing that sets it apart energy sources like geothermal energy. -Icewedge 06:02, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
I just went ahead and replaced it with a definition derived from World Encyclopedia that seems to cover the basics well enough (consumable material used to obtain energy). Gimme danger 16:06, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


Nuclear fuel[edit]

I broke the nuclear fuel heading down into two subsections. Feel free to revert me if the other way was preferred. -Icewedge 06:19, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • currently not utilized by man, is correct, not for the coming 100 years is maybe better ? Mion 07:08, 13 September 2007 (UTC), which in itself would be problematic also, nobody can predict how it will progress.Mion 07:14, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • Fuels for fusion power are being used in a research capacity, and the Joint European Torus is 70% of the way to the break even point. But yeah it'll probably be ages before it goes commercial. — RJH (talk) 20:00, 24 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

+ hydrogen ?[edit]

  • or altered in order to obtain energy. that would include hydrogen.Mion 07:12, 13 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
We do include hydrogen in the article. -Icewedge 17:54, 15 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps a summary of the Hydrogen storage article is needed? It is the subject of much recent research so I think it needs more development. Also the article could do with some remarks on rocket fuel, including liquid hydrogen. — RJH (talk) 19:09, 19 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]
True, those should be mention in this article along with a host of other things. I might be able to get around to it but I doubt it. -Icewedge 04:21, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Oxygen atmosphere as oxidizer[edit]

Perhaps a brief discussion that most feuls (not all) require oxygen as an oxydizer which is typically acquired from the atmosphere. On the moon "feul cycles or combinations" might include hydrogen/oxygen, oxygen/metal, silicon/oxygen, etc. Venus and Mars have CO2 atmospheres so "feuls" are anything that interacts with CO2 to create energy. Inside the Gas Giants one might term "feul" as the oxidizers carried to interact with local hydrogen, methane, etc. in atmospheres. Lazyquasar 09:04, 20 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Only applicable to chemical fuels, of course. The section on Chemical fuels already mentions the role of the oxydization. — RJH (talk) 18:36, 22 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]


important question![edit]

Who discovered fuel?will some body tell me --Varunn 11:32, 11 April 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Varunn pandya (talk • contribs)

Bad definition?[edit]

Is it just me or is the definition erroneous by singling out mechanical work? Wouldn't that mean essentially that non-physiological "fuel" did not exist until the invention of the steam engine? (i.e. the harnessing of heat to do mechanical work). Surely fuel can also be stored for its other potential energies, such as thermal energy or illumination? Otherwise, by that definition, one cannot put fuel in a fireplace, unless it is harnessed for work. Also, the way it is now, it seems to include "any material that stores energy that can later be extracted to perform mechanical work in a controlled manner", might that not also include water in a reservoir or millpond, or for that matter a spring in a pocketwatch? Morgan Riley (talk) 23:00, 20 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]

this is athing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 58.152.166.141 (talk) 12:30, 10 November 2015 (UTC)[reply]

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