Engineering

Wind-powered Dutch ship sets sail for greener future

The world's first chemical tanker ship fitted with massive rigid aluminum "sails" has left Rotterdam, its owner hoping to plot a route to bringing down the shipping industry's huge carbon footprint.

Energy & Green Tech

Could mini nuclear stations plug South Africa's power gaps?

South African nuclear scientists want to build a new generation of mini nuclear reactors, both to plug holes in their own country's blackout-plagued grid and to build an export industry for the future.

Energy & Green Tech

Benefits of heat pumps detailed in new report

Millions of U.S. households would benefit from heat pumps, but the cost of installing the technology needs to come down to make their use a more attractive proposition, according to researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy's ...

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Fuel

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.

This text uses material from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA