Questions tagged [fuels]
Use this tag when discussing chemicals for use in powering any variety of technology. Fuels may include anything from unleaded gasoline to radioactive elements, coal, oil, or even whale fat.
67 questions
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Would a terraformed planet have no fossil fuels and if so, what alternates would be available?
I'm writing a story in which a world has been terraformed into an Earth-like planet and settled by a group of colonists. However, a cataclysm forces society to regress to the Stone/Bronze Age, at ...
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Is there a geologically sound way of making peat renew 'even faster'
Yes. I know it's a clumsily written title.
The long and short of it is that I am writing about a tropical rainforest that is being harvested for, among other things, its peat.
Problem I need addressed ...
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Uses for horse manure?
So the car is never invented and, faced with the logistical challenges of managing horse manure in cities, there have been innovations in making sure horses only go where you want them to. Every day ...
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How would a society with no wood reliably heat itself?
I have a society that does not have access to significant wood. They are a permanent agrarian civilization with quite a few large cities, with technology similar to Europe in 1200 AD.
I know there are ...
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Ways to refuel nuclear powered cars
I am working on a story set on a world where cars (or in a broader sense road based vehicles) are the main transport mode (aircraft have never been invented here and most bodies of water are so small ...
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What is the easiest fuel a blockaded, sanctioned nation can procure/synthesize during a war?
In my world, which is partially based on a WW2-style environment, there are two large countries, namely A and B, that are fighting each other.
A is a Nazi Germany-type country with fine revised ...
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Post-apocalyptic automotive fuel for a cold world?
I am writing a scifi story in which Earth's orbit has been altered, making the planet generally colder. This has made the northern hemisphere, as well as most of the southern, practically inhospitable....
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Non-liquid fuel produced biologically in a carbon-based lifeform
I have a creature that was bio-engineered by an extremely capable society, and I need it to "produce" an explosive* fuel that is contained within the outer layer of flesh/fur. This fuel ...
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Other ways "Fossil fuels" can form [closed]
For clarification my question is: What are some other ways hydrocarbons can form?
Okay for context in my world people traveled to another planet and found hydrocarbons in the ground (coal, oil and ...
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What would be the ideal reaction mass for hall-effect engines?
The Setting
In a bright future, after the brutally efficient totalitarian dystopia-state that once controlled solar systems fell to its own people, the world is still getting back on its feet. They ...
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How to harvest/produce industrial amounts of metallic hydrogen
For those not versed in theoretical states of matter, Metallic Hydrogen is a semi-fluid phase of hydrogen that acts like a metal, able to conduct electrons. It's also theorized to be potent rocket ...
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Fuel for vehicles in an abruptly abandoned world
The scenario: in September 1985, almost everyone abruptly disappears. Humans, domestic animals, carried/worn possessions, and vehicles currently in motion, vanish, while everything else stays as it ...
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How would higher oxygen content affect engine and fuels?
If oxygen %age of atmosphere was raised to i) 25% . ii) 30% . iii) 35%
How much would it affect the power output/fuel efficiency of current engines?
Engines being 1) Petrol Engines . 2) Diesel Engines ...
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Social status by fuel used?
In this universe contained self sustaining fusion has been achieved. As we know the fuel for fusion is most commonly isotopes of hydrogen, and helium is produced as a byproduct of that.
Helium is, as ...
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What would a spacefaring race use as fuel for their matter-to-energy reactors?
Imagine that we invent the technology to convert matter directly to energy, and capture most of the output for doing work. We can convert any matter to energy in this way, i.e. the matter does not ...
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