With fuel prices rising, the search for sustainable and cost effective fossil fuel alternatives is on going. As fuel prices continue to damage hauliers’ ability to provide services, UK companies are feeling the pressure as European based businesses are able to meet the demands of the sector with the help of lower diesel prices. Enter the Centre for Low Carbon Futures (CLCF), which believes that liquid air could be the answer everyone’s looking for.
Just like normal air, but in liquid form; its use as a fuel has been well known for some time, but until recently production costs have been prohibitive. The CLCF’s latest report indicated that not only would liquid air prove to be a cheaper fuel to run vehicles off, but would be far more environmentally friendly than the carbon dioxide producing fuels currently in use.
And it’s not just logistics that could benefit from liquid air. Even the ability to power your home could benefit from a little (or a lot of) liquid air, with new technologies being developed to transfer and store the fuel in its various stages, along with efficient methods of creating the energy without combustion required. Liquid air could power our power plants, our homes and our vehicles.
The CLCF’s study – entitled Liquid Air in the Energy and Transport Systems: Opportunities for Industry and Innovation in the UK – highlighted the greater industry and employment that would come hand in hand with the need to produce, store and distribute liquid air, as well as the opportunity it presents to reduce greenhouse gases and create sustainable energy for the nation.
Said to be 100 times more powerful per gallon than fossil fuel, liquid air could be just what the world needs to meet energy demands. But for the logistics sector, the ability to meet reduced carbon emissions using a sustainable fuel that’s cheaper than fossil fuels currently available on the market, could only boost efficiency. Testing of liquid air in conjunction with a power plant has already been in place for the last two years, further applications for the fuel are currently being reviewed with new technologies being developed to allow wide spread use.