Ranking Renewable and Fossil Fuels on Global Warming Potential Using Respiratory Quotient Concept

Table 4

RQ factor for different fuels along with their respective O/C and H/C ratios.

Fuel	“” or; O/C	“” or; H/C	RQ	HHV, Boie (kJ/kg)
Gaseous fuels
Methane	0.00	4.00	0.50	55,426
Ethane	0.00	3.00	0.57	51,373
Ethylene	0.00	3.00	0.57	51,373
Propane	0.00	2.67	0.60	49,914
Acetylene	0.00	1.00	0.80	41,402
Liquid fuels
Methanol	1.00	4.00	0.67	22,168
Ethanol	0.50	2.99	0.67	29,603
Gasoline (C8H18)	0.00	2.25	0.64	47,968
Diesel (C12H23)	0.00	1.92	0.68	46,347
Biodiesel	0.10	1.90	0.70	40,147
Free fatty acid from peanut oil soap stock	0.07	1.83	0.70	41,645
Canola oil	0.08	1.63	0.73	39,927
Heavy oil	0.01	1.55	0.72	42,579
Bio oil (wood pyrolysis)	0.50	1.34	0.92	22,801
Solid fuels
Softwood (Juniper)	0.56	1.39	0.94	19,874
Hardwood (mesquite)	0.58	1.37	0.95	17,434
Fibrous (rice straw)	0.66	1.33	1.00	16,068
Animal based (LAPCDB)	0.40	1.26	0.89	14,780
Wyoming coal	0.18	0.70	0.92	18,347
Texas Lignite coal	0.19	0.68	0.93	14,577

Renewable fuels. LAPCDB: low ash partially composted dairy biomass.