Thermochemistry is a core topic taught in freshmen general chemistry. Over the past year its relevancy has increased in the chemical education curricula on account of the global and national focus and emerging political debate on energy-related issues, especially those related to exploration, production, and consumption of gasoline, natural gas, and alternative fuels such as biofuels (namely methanol, ethanol, and biodiesel), pressurized molecular hydrogen, and fuel cells. Because chemistry textbooks are revised at best every other year, they can't keep pace with the new, relevant, and important advancements made in fuel chemistry and technology. In this presentation the author will describe how he used fuel-related articles found in recent issues of Popular Science, Popular Mechanics, and Scientific American magazines in addition to Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN) to teach the main practical concepts associated with thermochemistry, namely the enthalpy of combustion (energy/mole), specific enthalpy (energy/mass) and enthalpic density (energy/volume).