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UpFuel

Transport & Industry

The fuels that move aircraft, rockets, trains and power stations, and why each application picks the fuel it does.

Aircraft burn kerosene, rockets carry their own oxygen, power stations grind coal to a powder finer than face powder, and trains increasingly burn nothing at all. Each of those choices follows from a constraint, and the constraints are what this section explains.

Aviation runs on kerosene rather than petrol mainly for safety: a flash point above 38 °C against petrol's −43 °C means the tanks are not carrying an ignitable vapour space, which matters when you are carrying tonnes of fuel in the wings. Rockets carry an oxidiser because there is no air in space, which is why propellant is roughly 90% of a launch vehicle's mass. Pulverised coal exists because combustion happens at surfaces, and grinding multiplies surface area enormously.

The recurring theme is that no fuel is best in the abstract. Energy density by mass decides aircraft, energy density by volume decides cars, and controllability decides power stations.

What goes wrong most often

  • Assuming jet engines burn something more exotic than kerosene.
  • Thinking a rocket could breathe air like a jet.
  • Expecting a solid fuel to work in an internal combustion engine.
  • Judging power station efficiency without accounting for the two-thirds lost as heat.
  • Confusing electric traction being efficient with it being emission-free.

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