Alternative Fuels: A Review and Assessment of the Feasibility of Turning Away from Petroleum, Arjun Kapur
Research Published in the Curieux Academic Journal, Spring & Summer 2025
The transportation sector is experiencing a transition from petroleum-based fuels to alternative energy. With this comes questions regarding the transition’s environmental promise and its overall feasibility based on technological, economic, and accessibility criteria. Through a literature review, I evaluate the benefits and challenges of popular alternative fuels (e.g., electricity, hydrogen, natural gas, biofuels) and specifically examine their potential to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and their feasibility for widespread adoption. Overall, there is a need for strategic investment and policy support to drive the shift toward cleaner energy. Such support must target explicit alternative fuels to tackle infrastructure, cost, and market readiness challenges, which remain critical barriers. Ultimately, a coordinated effort among governments, industries, and consumers is essential for successfully transitioning to a sustainable energy future.
Methods
I conducted a literature review to assess current knowledge about fuel alternatives, their emissions, and national-, company-, and consumer-level responses to switching fuels. I surveyed peer-reviewed research articles as well as government and corporation reports on transportation trends and impacts, specifically regarding company changes for fuel alternatives.
I constructed my corpus by searching GoogleScholar (www.google.com/scholar) and Google (www.google.com) using the keywords: (‘petroleum’ OR ‘petrol’ or ‘diesel’) AND (‘alternative fuel’) AND (‘emissions’). Results were only included if articles acknowledged petroleum-based fuels and at least one alternative fuel/vehicle type. From the results, I recorded the type of alternative fuel, changes in vehicle structure/function, and changes in fuel consumption.
Lastly, I conducted a comparative analysis to determine each significant fuel alternative’s environmental impact, cost-efficiency, and feasibility.
Key Findings
Figure 1 shows the inverse relationship between the challenges and market readiness for a shift to renewable energy. Adopting alternative fuels that offer the most significant environmental benefits comes with higher challenges and lower levels of market readiness (particularly for HFCVs), thus taking more time. Additionally, these alternatives may also make more sense in some markets than others.
It is important to note that the widespread adoption of fuel alternatives does not mean every state or country shifts to EVs or HFCVs, which have the highest environmental benefit. Instead, it means adopting something that makes sense in that geographical location and is a better alternative to petrol.
Environmental Impact: Emissions from producing and driving alternative
Table 1, summarizes CO₂ emissions for the alternatives previously discussed in the paper. While many alternatives reduce tailpipe emissions, their overall environmental impact depends on how they are produced, the fuel cycle, and their full-cycle emissions.
Conclusions
The transition of fuel sources requires time, financial investment, and technological advances that will lead to overall affordability and accessibility. Amongst the suite of promising alternatives, EVs and lower-scale HFC vehicles rise to the top. A shift to an EV could benefit consumers, but environmental gains still depend on how electricity is sourced. On the other hand, HFCs currently need a more scalable production to help a party significantly. If refueling stations and general production are increased, it may demonstrate significant promise.
When considering fuel alternatives, the main takeaway is that only time can tell whether a switch can work seamlessly. However, global steps are being taken, such as shifting to a clean-sourced EV and a high-production HFC, which could leave petrol and diesel in the past
Key Discussion Highlights
- Petrol—a massive contributor to air pollution and GHG emissions has sparked numerous global conversations about the need to efficiently shift our energy consumption. Examples of the state of California mandating zero emissions for automobiles by 2035, policy mandates, technological advances, government and local incentive programs offer additional motivation for the public to use EVs.
- All alternative fossil fuel substitutes must be evaluated for their corresponding CO 2 emissions, energy efficiency, cost, and accessibility
- Current research on alternative fuels reveals several gaps that limit progress in reducing petroleum dependence. A primary concern is the lack of comprehensive understanding of their long-term environmental impact and economic viability. Another key challenge is the limited data on the scalability of production methods—particularly on whether fuels derived from renewable resources can meet global energy demands
- There are also relevant gaps and limitations in corporate production. For instance, many companies need more technical capacity and associated infrastructure to mass-produce alternative fuels. This limitation can hinder wide market adoption and consequently affect fuel market viability. More significant investments in research and development are required to enhance technology capabilities and make these alternatives more mainstream.
- My research indicates that among the greatest challenges to alternative fuels in the future is addressing scalability, cost, and infrastructure concerns, in addition to robust policy frameworks to incentivize production and consumption.
- While there are challenges, there is also immense promise if one addresses the shortcomings and works through strategic next steps toward a sustainable energy future.
Acknowledgements & References
I am deeply grateful to my advisor, Dr. Mary Burak, for her invaluable guidance and support throughout this research. This paper has been published in the peer reviewed Curieux Academic Journal (Spring & Summer 2025, June Part 1). Further details and all references are cited in the paper.
https://www.curieuxacademicjournal.com/spring-summer2025
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