Fuel in the context of Solid methane

Gunpowder, also commonly known as black powder to distinguish it from modern smokeless powder, is the earliest known chemical explosive. It consists of a mixture of sulfur, charcoal (which is mostly carbon), and potassium nitrate (saltpeter). The sulfur and charcoal act as fuels, while the saltpeter is an oxidizer. Gunpowder has been widely used as a propellant in firearms, artillery, rocketry, and pyrotechnics, including use as a blasting agent for explosives in quarrying, mining, building pipelines, tunnels, and roads.

Gunpowder is classified as a low explosive because of its relatively slow decomposition rate, low ignition temperature and consequently low brisance (breaking/shattering). Low explosives deflagrate—burning at subsonic speeds—whereas high explosives detonate, producing a supersonic shockwave. Ignition of gunpowder packed behind a projectile generates enough pressure to force the shot from the muzzle at high speed, but usually not enough force to rupture the gun barrel. It thus makes a good propellant but is less suitable for shattering rock or fortifications with its low-yield explosive power. Nonetheless, it was widely used to fill fused artillery shells (and used in mining and civil engineering projects) until the second half of the 19th century, when the first high explosives were put into use.

Olive oil is a vegetable oil obtained by pressing whole olives (the fruit of Olea europaea, a traditional tree crop of the Mediterranean Basin) and extracting the oil.

It is commonly used in cooking for frying foods, as a condiment, or as a salad dressing. It can also be found in some cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, soaps, and fuels for traditional oil lamps. It also has additional uses in some religions. The olive is one of three core food plants in Mediterranean cuisine, with wheat and grapes. Olive trees have been cultivated around the Mediterranean since the 8th millennium BC.

Object manipulation is a form of dexterity play or performance in which one or more people physically interact with one or more objects. Many object manipulation skills are recognised circus skills. Other object manipulation skills are linked to sport, magic, and everyday objects or practices. Many object manipulation skills use special props made for that purpose: examples include the varied circus props such as balls, clubs, hoops, rings, poi, staff, and devil sticks; magic props such as cards and coins; sports equipment such as nunchaku and footballs. Many other objects can also be used for manipulation skills. Object manipulation with ordinary items may be considered to be object manipulation when the object is used in an unusually stylised or skilful way (such as in flair bartending) or for a physical interaction outside of its socially acknowledged context or differently from its original purpose.

Object manipulators may also be practitioners of fire performance, which is essentially object manipulation where specially designed props are soaked in fuel and lit on fire.

A filling station (also known as a gas station [US] or petrol station [UK/AU]) is a facility that sells fuel and engine lubricants for motor vehicles. It serves as a local fuel depot and retailer who receive fuel products from refineries (via regular tank truck resupplies), keep the fuels in (typically underground) storage tanks, and distribute individual product to motorist consumers at a daily varied price.

The most common fuels sold are motor fuels such as gasoline (a.k.a. petrol, often as multiple products according to different octane ratings) and diesel fuel, as well as liquified petroleum gas (LPG, i.e. autogas), compressed natural gas, compressed hydrogen, hydrogen compressed natural gas, liquid hydrogen, kerosene, alcohol fuels (like methanol, ethanol, butanol, and propanol), biofuels (like straight vegetable oil and biodiesel), or other types of alternative fuels. Fuel dispensers are used to pump fuel into the fuel tanks within vehicles, gauge the volume of fuel transferred to the vehicle, and calculate the financial cost the consumer must pay. Besides fuel pumps, another significant device found in filling stations and capable of refueling certain (compressed-air) vehicles is an air compressor. However, these are generally used to inflate car tires.

A major appliance is a non-portable or semi-portable machine used for routine housekeeping tasks such as cooking, washing laundry, or food preservation. Such appliances are sometimes collectively known as white goods, as the products were traditionally white in color, although a variety of colors are now available. An appliance is different from a plumbing fixture because it uses electricity or fuel.

Major appliances differ from small appliances because they are bigger and not portable. They are often considered fixtures and part of real estate and as such they are often supplied to tenants as part of otherwise unfurnished rental properties. Major appliances may have special electrical connections, connections to gas supplies, or special plumbing and ventilation arrangements that may be permanently connected to the appliance. This limits where they can be placed in a home.

Methane (US: /ˈmɛθeɪn/ METH-ayn, UK: /ˈmiːθeɪn/ MEE-thayn) is a chemical compound with the chemical formula CH₄ (one carbon atom bonded to four hydrogen atoms). It is a group-14 hydride, the simplest alkane, and the main constituent of natural gas. The abundance of methane on Earth makes it an economically attractive fuel, although capturing and storing it is difficult because it is a gas at standard temperature and pressure. In the Earth's atmosphere methane is transparent to visible light but absorbs infrared radiation, acting as a greenhouse gas. Methane is an organic hydrocarbon, and among the simplest of organic compounds.

Naturally occurring methane is found both below ground and under the seafloor and is formed by both geological and biological processes. The largest reservoir of methane is under the seafloor in the form of methane clathrates. When methane reaches the surface and the atmosphere, it is known as atmospheric methane.

Fire is the rapid oxidation of a fuel in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products.Flames, the most visible portion of the fire, are produced in the combustion reaction when the fuel reaches its ignition point temperature. Flames from hydrocarbon fuels consist primarily of carbon dioxide, water vapor, oxygen, and nitrogen. If hot enough, the gases may become ionized to produce plasma. The color and intensity of the flame depend on the type of fuel and composition of the surrounding gases.

Fire, in its most common form, has the potential to result in conflagration, which can lead to permanent physical damage. It directly impacts land-based ecological systems worldwide. The positive effects of fire include stimulating plant growth and maintaining ecological balance. Its negative effects include hazards to life and property, atmospheric pollution, and water contamination. When fire removes protective vegetation, heavy rainfall can cause soil erosion. The burning of vegetation releases nitrogen into the atmosphere, unlike other plant nutrients such as potassium and phosphorus which remain in the ash and are quickly recycled into the soil. This loss of nitrogen produces a long-term reduction in the fertility of the soil, though it can be recovered by nitrogen-fixing plants such as clover, peas, and beans; by decomposition of animal waste and corpses, and by natural phenomena such as lightning.

Commodity money is money whose value comes from a commodity of which it is made. Commodity money consists of objects having value or use in themselves (intrinsic value) as well as their value in buying goods.This is in contrast to representative money, which has no intrinsic value but represents something of value such as gold or silver, for which it can be exchanged, and fiat money, which derives its value from having been established as money by government regulation.

Examples of commodities that have been used as media of exchange include precious metals and stones, grain, animal parts (such as beaver pelts), tobacco, fuel, and others. Sometimes several types of commodity money were used together, with fixed relative values, in various commodity valuation or price system economies.

A propellant (or propellent) is a mass that is expelled or expanded in such a way as to create a thrust or another motive force in accordance with Newton's third law of motion, and "propel" a vehicle, projectile, or fluid payload. In vehicles, the engine that expels the propellant is called a reaction engine. Although technically a propellant is the reaction mass used to create thrust, the term "propellant" is often used to describe a substance which contains both the reaction mass and the fuel that holds the energy used to accelerate the reaction mass. For example, the term "propellant" is often used in chemical rocket design to describe a combined fuel/propellant, although the propellants should not be confused with the fuel that is used by an engine to produce the energy that expels the propellant. Even though the byproducts of substances used as fuel are also often used as a reaction mass to create the thrust, such as with a chemical rocket engine, propellant and fuel are two distinct concepts.

Vehicles can use propellants to move by ejecting a propellant backwards which creates an opposite force that moves the vehicle forward. Projectiles can use propellants that are expanding gases which provide the motive force to set the projectile in motion. Aerosol cans use propellants which are fluids that are compressed so that when the propellant is allowed to escape by releasing a valve, the energy stored by the compression moves the propellant out of the can and that propellant forces the aerosol payload out along with the propellant. Compressed fluid may also be used as a simple vehicle propellant, with the potential energy that is stored in the compressed fluid used to expel the fluid as the propellant. The energy stored in the fluid was added to the system when the fluid was compressed, such as compressed air. The energy applied to the pump or thermal system that is used to compress the air is stored until it is released by allowing the propellant to escape. Compressed fluid may also be used only as energy storage along with some other substance as the propellant, such as with a water rocket, where the energy stored in the compressed air is the fuel and the water is the propellant.

Ferrous metallurgy is the metallurgy of iron and its alloys. The earliest surviving prehistoric iron artifacts, from the 4th millennium BC in Egypt, were made from meteoritic iron-nickel. It is not known when or where the smelting of iron from ores began, but by the end of the 2nd millennium BC iron was being produced from iron ores in the region from Greece to India, The use of wrought iron (worked iron) was known by the 1st millennium BC, and its spread defined the Iron Age. During the medieval period, smiths in Europe found a way of producing wrought iron from cast iron, in this context known as pig iron, using finery forges. All these processes required charcoal as fuel.

By the 4th century BC southern India had started exporting wootz steel, with a carbon content between pig iron and wrought iron, to ancient China, Africa, the Middle East, and Europe. Archaeological evidence of cast iron appears in 5th-century BC China. New methods of producing it by carburizing bars of iron in the cementation process were devised in the 17th century. During the Industrial Revolution, new methods of producing bar iron emerged, by substituting charcoal in favor of coke, and these were later applied to produce steel, ushering in a new era of greatly increased use of iron and steel that some contemporaries described as a new "Iron Age".

Agronomy is the science and technology of producing and using plants by agriculture for food, fuel, fiber, chemicals, recreation, or land conservation. Agronomy has come to include research of plant genetics, plant physiology, meteorology, and soil science. It is the application of a combination of sciences such as biology, chemistry, economics, ecology, earth science, and genetics. Professionals of agronomy are termed agronomists.

Gasoline (North American English) or petrol (Commonwealth English) is a petrochemical product characterized as a transparent, yellowish and flammable liquid normally used as a fuel for spark-ignited internal combustion engines. When formulated as a fuel for engines, gasoline is chemically composed of organic compounds derived from the fractional distillation of petroleum and later chemically enhanced with gasoline additives. It is a high-volume profitable product produced in crude oil refineries.

The ability of a particular gasoline blend to resist premature ignition (which causes knocking and reduces efficiency in reciprocating engines) is measured by its octane rating. Tetraethyl lead was once widely used to increase the octane rating but is not used in modern automotive gasoline due to the health hazard. Aviation, off-road motor vehicles, and racing car engines still use leaded gasolines. Other substances are frequently added to gasoline to improve chemical stability and performance characteristics, control corrosion, and provide fuel system cleaning. Gasoline may contain oxygen-containing chemicals such as ethanol, MTBE, or ETBE to improve combustion.

Energy economics is a broad scientific subject area which includes topics related to supply and use of energy in societies. Considering the cost of energy services and associated value gives economic meaning to the efficiency at which energy can be produced. Energy services can be defined as functions that generate and provide energy to the “desired end services or states”. The efficiency of energy services is dependent on the engineered technology used to produce and supply energy. The goal is to minimise energy input required (e.g. kWh, mJ, see Units of Energy) to produce the energy service, such as lighting (lumens), heating (temperature) and fuel (natural gas). The main sectors considered in energy economics are transportation and building, although it is relevant to a broad scale of human activities, including households and businesses at a microeconomic level and resource management and environmental impacts at a macroeconomic level.

Interdisciplinary scientist Vaclav Smil has asserted that "every economic activity is fundamentally nothing but a conversion of one kind of energy to another, and monies are just a convenient (and often rather unrepresentative) proxy for valuing the energy flows."

The zebu (/ˈziːb(j)uː, ˈzeɪbuː/; Bos indicus), also known as indicine cattle and humped cattle, is a species or subspecies of domestic cattle originating in South Asia. Zebu, like many Sanga cattle breeds, differ from taurine cattle in the fatty hump on their shoulders, their large dewlap, and their sometimes-drooping ears. They are well adapted to high temperatures and are raised throughout the tropics.

The zebu is used as a draught and riding animal, as dairy cattle and beef cattle, and as a source of byproducts such as hides and dung for fuel and manure. Some small breeds such as Nadudana (also known as the miniature zebu) are also kept as pets.

In public transport, a request stop, flag stop, or whistle stop is a stop or station at which buses or trains, respectively, stop only on request; that is, only if there are passengers or freight to be picked up or dropped off. In this way, stops with low passenger counts can be incorporated into a route without introducing unnecessary delay. Vehicles may also save fuel by continuing through a station when there is no need to stop.

"Flag stop" airline service was historically offered by several scheduled passenger air carriers in the past into destinations with low airline passenger demand. As an example, in its June 1, 1969, worldwide system timetable, Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) had this explanation: "Flag stop: A stop will be made and traffic will be accepted only when operating conditions permit, and provided request to stop is made sufficiently in advance."

A motor fuel is a fuel that is used to provide power to the engine (motor) of vehicles — typically a heat engine that produces thermal energy via oxidative combustion of liquid or gaseous fuel and then converts the heat into mechanical energy through reciprocating pistons or gas turbines.

Currently, the majority of motor vehicles, powerboats and light aircraft worldwide are propelled by internal combustion engines powered by petroleum-based hydrocarbon fossil fuels such as gasoline, diesel or autogas, while larger ships and aircraft use marine diesel oil and kerosene to power gas/steam turbine, turboprop and jet engines. Other fuel types include ethanol, biodiesel, biogasoline, propane, compressed natural gas (CNG) and hydrogen (either using fuel cells or hydrogen combustion). There are also cars that use a hybrid drivetrain of different power sources. The use of synthetic alternative fuels (especially renewable biofuels) is increasing, especially in Europe, as well as increasing mass adoption of battery electric vehicles (which are powered by battery-stored electricity instead of fuels).

Autogas is liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) used as a fuel in internal combustion engines of vehicles as well as in stationary applications such as generators. It is a mixture of propane and butane.

Autogas is widely used as a "green" fuel, as its use reduces CO₂ exhaust emissions by around 15% compared to petrol. One litre of petrol produces 2.3 kg of CO₂ when burnt, whereas the equivalent amount of autogas (1.33 litres due to the lower density of autogas) produces 2 kg of CO₂ when burnt. CO emissions are 30% lower compared to petrol, and NO_x is reduced by 50%. It has an octane rating (MON/RON) that is between 90 and 110 and an energy content (higher heating value—HHV) that is between 25.5 megajoules per litre (for pure propane) and 28.7 megajoules per litre (for pure butane) depending upon the actual fuel composition.

Kerosene, or paraffin, is a combustible hydrocarbon liquid which is derived from petroleum. It is widely used as a fuel in aviation as well as households. Its name derives from the Greek κηρός (kērós) meaning "wax"; it was registered as a trademark by Nova Scotia geologist and inventor Abraham Gesner in 1854 before evolving into a generic trademark. It is sometimes spelled kerosine in scientific and industrial usage.

Kerosene is widely used to power jet engines of aircraft (jet fuel), as well as some rocket engines in a highly refined form called RP-1. It is also commonly used as a cooking and lighting fuel, and for fire toys such as poi. In parts of Asia, kerosene is sometimes used as fuel for small outboard motors or even motorcycles. World total kerosene consumption for all purposes is equivalent to about 5,500,000 barrels per day as of July 2023.