Fuel

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Fuel is any material that is burned or altered to obtain energy and to heat or to move an object. Fuel releases its energy either through a chemical reaction means, such as combustion, or nuclear means, such as nuclear fission or nuclear fusion. An important property of a useful fuel is that its energy can be stored to be released only when needed, and that the release is controlled in such a way that the energy can be harnessed to produce work. Examples: Methane, Petrol and Oil.

All carbon-based life forms—from microorganisms to animals and humans—depend on and use fuels as their source of energy. Their cells engage in an enzyme-mediated chemical process called metabolism that converts energy from food or light into a form that can be used to sustain life. Additionally, humans employ a variety of techniques to convert one form of energy into another, producing usable energy for purposes that go far beyond the energy needs of a human body. The application of energy released from fuels ranges from heat to cooking and from powering weapons to combustion and generation of electricity.

For more information about Fuel, read the full article at Wikipedia.
This text uses material from Wikipedia and is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.


News tagged with fuel

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Panasonic Develops High Energy Lithium-ion Battery Module  with High Reliability

Panasonic plans home-use storage cell

Technology / Energy

created Dec 23, 2009 | popularity 4.1 / 5 (15) | comments 8

Panasonic Corp., which recently made a successful takeover bid for Sanyo Electric Co., plans to market a lithium-ion storage cell for home use around fiscal 2011.


NREL Evaluates UPS Hybrid-Electric Van Performance

Technology / Energy

created Dec 22, 2009 | popularity 3.3 / 5 (3) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- The U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has collected and analyzed fuel economy, maintenance and other vehicle performance data from UPS’s first generation hybrid diesel ...


Method makes refineries more efficient

Chemistry / Other

created Dec 22, 2009 | popularity 4.5 / 5 (6) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Refineries could trim millions of dollars in energy costs annually by using a new method developed at Purdue University to rearrange the distillation sequence needed to separate crude petroleum into products.


Nanoparticles go platinum: NCEM instruments provide key images

Nanoparticles go platinum: NCEM instruments provide key images

Nanotechnology / Nanophysics

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (3) | comments 0

At Berkeley Lab's National Center for Electron Microscopy it was revealed that single-stranded DNA can disperse bundles of single-walled carbon nanotubes into individual tubes and serve as guideposts for synthesizing ...


Molecular freight: Synthetic nanoscale transport system modeled on nature

Chemistry / Biochemistry

created Dec 21, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (5) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- Just like our roads, there is a lot of traffic within the cells in our bodies, because cell components, messenger molecules, and enzymes must also be brought to the right places in the cell. One of these ...


Can Snowmobiles Adapt in the Age of Ethanol?

Can Snowmobiles Adapt in the Age of Ethanol?

Technology / Energy

created Dec 18, 2009 | popularity 1 / 5 (2) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- By 2022, federal regulations will require a 400 percent increase in the amount of renewable fuel in America’s gasoline, from 9 billion to 36 billion gallons.


A Search for Stability for Platinum Catalysts

A Search for Stability for Platinum Catalysts

Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials

created Dec 17, 2009 | popularity 5 / 5 (1) | comments 0

(PhysOrg.com) -- A new carbon support that greatly increases the durability of proton-exchange membrane fuel cells has been developed by scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Princeton University. ...


Toward home-brewed electricity with 'personalized solar energy'

Toward home-brewed electricity with 'personalized solar energy'

Technology / Energy

created Dec 16, 2009 | popularity 4.3 / 5 (6) | comments 1

New scientific discoveries are moving society toward the era of "personalized solar energy," in which the focus of electricity production shifts from huge central generating stations to individuals in their ...


New Bacterial Behavior Discovered

New Bacterial Behavior Discovered

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 15, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (7) | comments 1

(PhysOrg.com) -- Bacteria dance the electric slide, officially named electrokinesis by the USC geobiologists who discovered the phenomenon.


'Rock-breathing' bacteria could generate electricity and clean up oil spills

Biology / Cell & Microbiology

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 3.5 / 5 (8) | comments 1

A discovery by scientists at the University of East Anglia (UEA) could contribute to the development of systems that use domestic or agricultural waste to generate clean electricity.


Ethanol results in higher ozone concentrations than gasoline, researchers say

Ethanol results in higher ozone concentrations than gasoline, researchers say

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 14, 2009 | popularity 4.4 / 5 (8) | comments 4

(PhysOrg.com) -- Ethanol, often promoted as a clean-burning, renewable fuel that could help wean the nation from oil, would likely worsen health problems caused by ozone, compared with gasoline, especially ...


New science estimates carbon storage potential of US lands

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 10, 2009 | popularity 3.1 / 5 (7) | comments 4

The first phase of a groundbreaking national assessment estimates that U.S. forests and soils could remove additional quantities of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere as a means to mitigate climate change.


Researchers engineer bacteria to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

Researchers engineer bacteria to turn carbon dioxide into liquid fuel

Biology / Biotechnology

created Dec 10, 2009 | popularity 4.7 / 5 (43) | comments 25

(PhysOrg.com) -- The genetically modified cyanobacterium consumes carbon dioxide and produces the liquid fuel isobutanol by using energy from sunlight.


New forest fire detection system prototype installed at Lake Tahoe

New forest fire detection system prototype installed at Lake Tahoe

Space & Earth / Environment

created Dec 07, 2009 | popularity not rated yet | comments 0

Graham Kent, Nevada Seismological Laboratory director at the University of Nevada, Reno is leading the installation, testing and maintenance of a novel way to monitor forests fires and other environmental ...


Munich lab demonstrates diesel truck engine with barely measurable emissions

German researchers demonstrate diesel truck engine with barely measurable emissions

Technology / Engineering

created Dec 07, 2009 | popularity 3.8 / 5 (6) | comments 1

Just three months after the Euro 5 Norm for exhaust emissions went into force for all new car models, researchers at the Technische Universitaet Muenchen (TUM, Germany) have demonstrated an engine that is ...