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Alternative-Energy Vehicles

The oceans are going to rise drastically in the next hundred years, just like they have over the past hundred years. Slowly and gradually the earth’s natural resources and sources of fossil fuels used in energy are running out. These two events are linked by the fact that there needs to be a new source of energy to fuel vehicles because we are running out of fossil fuels and we are diminishing the ozone layer through pollution. There are three main alternative energy vehicles that have been in development, and only one has really been used in mass distribution. The future of an alternative energy vehicle is being developed now and will have a large impact on society, the environment, and the way people live.
There are three main sources of energy that are used alternatively to gasoline to power vehicles today. The first alternative energy that is used quite a bit today in automobiles such as the Toyota Prius, the Toyota Camry Hybrid, and the Ford Escape Hybrid. These types of vehicles are referred to as dual-mode vehicles, or more commonly known as the hybrid. Hybrids are vehicles “…that can run on power from two different sources, typically electricity from overhead lines or ground level power supply and in parallel or alternating from an internal combustion engine burning liquid fuels or gas,” (en.wikipedia.org). The hybrid is capable of running off of two sources of energy at once by using a fuel cell until the vehicle reaches speeds requiring more energy than the rechargeable fuel cell can offer, thus switching to gasoline as the main source of energy to power the vehicle. This offers gas mileage to be almost unlimited, if one is a city commuter; and gas mileage to be much better if commuting in a higher speed area. Pollution would be greatly reduced through the use of the hybrid vehicle as a main source of transportation, however, it would not solve the problem of diminishing emissions and...