Student Article High School Science Journal Author: Dane Gapuz

Analysis of Hydrocarbons for the 21st Century

July 12, 2006

Hydrocarbons For The 21st Century - The Work Of The Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute

by George A. Olah

1994 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry

Link: http://nobelprize.org/chemistry/articles/olah/index.html

  This article was about the world’s dependence on its fuel supply. It says that the world uses 10 million metric tons of fuel a day. Since this “fossil” fuel is un-recyclable, it is a waste and the world will eventually run out of it. Hydrocarbon is needed for fuels, electric base items, and heating. If we don’t do anything about our wasting of hydrocarbon we’ll run out of it in a few decades.

  Some scientist now are researching on how to make fuel more efficient by raising it’s octane. They’re trying to mix hydrogen fluoride into it to make it more environmental friendly and efficiently burn. They are also trying to hydro-treat coals, tar sands and other types of fuel. Even though some steps of help making fuel efficient and recyclable, it is more expensive, but it should be done. It will help the world over time and we won’t be damaging it.

  I am into cars very much and I read about them everyday. I like how some cars today have “hybrid” technology, meaning that it has an electrical unit that helps it run father and use less gas. The downside of this technology is that it is so expensive that buying a non-hybrid car will be the same as buying a hybrid one. For example, you buy a hybrid car for 30 grand and you buy non-hybrid for 20 grand, it will take about 10 years for the regular car to rack up 10 grand. So, it is basically the same thing, unless companies do something about this, we won’t be seeing that many hybrids on the road. I also heard about ethanol based fuel that use 85 octane. Though it could be cheaper and better than fossil fuel, we don’t have enough to let everyone have. In my opinion, I think we need to change the engineering of the engines of the cars instead of what we put in it. By doing this we can have both research on the chemical and the mechanical parts for a car or an object using fuel. Just give it trial and error, then we’ll have it finished soon.

 
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