21世紀の自動車用燃料

摘要

According to the rapid economical development in BRICs countries, the fossil fuel consumption has rapidly increased. Especially, the oil has strongly related to our life and the price of crude oil affects our economical activity strongly. The new energy research for solar power, bio fuels, or hydrogen has been conducted to improve the energy supply-and-demand factor in Japan, but still it is too small to alternate the energy of fossil fuels. Auto industries have developed the electric vehicles, including hybrid vehicles and fuel cell vehicles, but the gasoline and diesel fuels must be the most appropriate fuels for automobiles, because of the high energy density and the easy treatment of liquid fuels. The perspectives of the fossil fuels and the possibility of alternative fuels were discussed and the automotive fuels for 21st century were explained in this paper.%BRICs諸国における急速な経済発展に伴い，ここ数年，化石燃料の消費量は著しく伸びている．特に石油はわれわれの生活に密接なものであり，原油の価格上昇は経済活動に大きな影響を与える．太陽電池や風力による発電や，バイオ燃料，水素といった新エネルギーが国内のエネルギーの需給率を向上させることを目的に研究開発されているが，製造されるエネルギー量は少なく石油の代替となるには極めて難しい状況にある．