Ethanol Industry Wants to Join Forces With Car Makers
CNN is reporting that the ethanol industry’s top lobbying groups have sent a letter to the executives at Ford, GM and Chrysler, urging the Big Three to adopt widespread support for higher ethanol blends in gasoline and mandatory E85 flex fuel capability on all new cars.
The three ethanol groups — Growth Energy, the Renewable Fuels Association and the American Council on Renewable Energy — painted a bit of a doomsday picture for the Big Three in their letter, suggesting that the only way for the auto industry to avoid “dire consequences” is to “bring resourceful, innovative and practical solutions” to the table.
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While it’s certainly true that the Big Three are direly in need of innovation (see my recent post on Nissan), I love how these ethanol groups spin it.
Not surprisingly, they claim that any plan to save the auto industry “should embrace and support implementation of the congressional mandate for use of ethanol” by supporting “a higher base blend of ethanol at either 15% or 20%” for all vehicles on the road and implementing a “mandatory Flex Fuel Vehicle (FFV) schedule that coincides with the Renewable Fuel Standard.”
Currently only E10 (10% ethanol/gas blend) is supported by the auto manufacturers in existing cars in the US. Additionally, flex fuel vehicles that can run on E85 have had a rather slow implementation with a noticeable lack of marketing. As a result, fueling stations around the country still have a dearth of E85 FFV-capable fuel pumps which means that no one is really taking advantage of the FFV capability.
Granted, these lobbying groups have a keen interest in pushing the ethanol agenda. Yet, while I don’t think corn ethanol is any where near the true energy and transportation solution we need, there’s no way to get to second generation ethanol (such as cellulosic ethanol — “celluline“) without initially building a first generation infrastructure.
Even so, a coalition of Detroit rust-belt and farming corn-belt lobbyists would be a scary thing to behold — a group that could have a ridiculous amount of sway if they play their cards right. Personally, I don’t think the two groups could ever make nice enough to work cohesively, but we are in extraordinary times and, rather than face extinction, both groups could become stronger through consolidation of power.
Image Credit: General Motors
Source: CNN (via Biofuels Digest)
Sweet now the government can prop up to failing industries. It is time to let economic Darwinism take effect.
Where’s the oil lobby when you need them? Ethanol’s benefits aren’t worth all the trouble. We should increase domestic production and exploration of oil and continue to develop and maximize the efficiency of gas/electric hybrid vehicles.
Alternately we should immediately end the $.50/gallon subsidy for ethanol and any and all other corn related subsidy’s. Midwest farmers would then have to re-learn how to grow more than two crops.
Since fuel mileage goes DOWN as the percentage of ethanol goes UP, I wonder why the auto companies aren’t pushing real hard for ethanol.
Cameron has it right. If a subsidy is needed then the technology is NOT ready for use.
If we would just switch to diesel engines in automobiles, then we would get a quick 30% increase in fuel mileage.
You know it might just be what alternative fuels need. OK corn is not the long term answer, any more than trying to run your life on payday loans is. But there does need to be more buy in from automakers to help ethanol/butanol fuels get off the ground, and to provide volume demand that will encourage infrastructure and second generation fuels. That said, the truly dreadful fuel efficiency of US vehicles, cars, trucks and semis must also be addressed. Otherwise you’re warming the house by burning the furniture, which you can do but it is very expensive.
If the US government is going to invest heavily in zombie companies (like AIG) then lets make sure that they are useful zombies with some real benefit to society…
I Support This Fully ! Brazil Has Done This And Has Gone From An Importer Of Energy Fuel To An Exporter Of Energy Fuel. The Legislative Body Of America Should Mandate This Just As They Do Emission Standards. With The Multitude Of Alternate Fuels Available And In The Future It Only Make Prudent Sense. That Facts Are America Only Uses 36% Of Its Available Farm Land And Only 1% Of The Worlds Farm Land Is Used For Bio-Fuel
Brazil Success :
RIO DE JANEIRO — Drivers here can fill up their cars with just about any imaginable fuel — except plain old gasoline.
A three-decade-long alternative energy campaign has outfitted Brazilian filling stations with fuel pumps that offer pure ethanol, a blend of gasoline and 20% ethanol called gasohol, or even natural gas. This year, Brazil will achieve energy independence — a goal the United States has been chasing without success since the energy crises of the 1970s.
http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-03-28-brazil-ethanol-cover_x.htm
This Needs To Happen NOW!
‘Looks like the Chinese are going to use ethanol more efficiently than Americans are: DonFeng, the major Chinese auto maker is introducing a conventional engine that burns a cheaper mix of 65% ethanol and 35% water, with a simple add-on. This is an ethanol-water reformer attached to the engine that makes hydrogen. That would be Hydrogen on Demand, from a safe onboard renewable liquid fuel, that does Not have to be compressed into expensive high pressure tanks.
The efficiency of ethanol goes way up, when you blend it with water, instead of gasoline. When 65% ethanol is made, you can leave most of the water in the mix, and save over half the cost to distill it. The cost per gallon would drop by over 1/3. This ethanol-water solution can easily be reformed into hydrogen.
Toyota is also developing a similar onboard ethanol-water reformer, and so is MIT and Ohio State University. This technology may be similar to the ethanol reactor invented in 2004 by Lanny Schmidt, University of Minnesota professor of chemical engineering. Schmidt says his reactor, which you can hold in the palm of your hand, can reform enough hydrogen from a mix of ethanol and water to power a car or a small house. Using very little energy, the device instantaneously strips all the hydrogen from the ethanol, and it also strips half of the hydrogen from the water, as a bonus.
A recent article by Matthew McDermott, “Hydrogen Made From Ethanol With 90% Efficiency Using Inexpensive Catalyst”, appeared in “Science & Technology”. Ohio State University researchers have developed a similar method to produce hydrogen from ethanol, using an inexpensive catalyst and only a small amount of energy.
One of these reactors can efficiently provide hydrogen to a typical internal combustion engine by reforming a 2 to 1 mix of ethanol and water. However, the highest use is to mate the ethanol-water reactor to a fuel cell, which is 2-3 times more efficient. So here’s a way to leapfrog a hydrogen infrastructure, by splitting ethanol-water into hydrogen on demand, onboard the moving vehicle.
This technology could also be applied to high-torque electric farm tractors, where crops and biofuel feedstocks are being produced. For a fraction of the cost, locally produced ethanol mixed with water would be reformed onboard tractors into hydrogen, to power fuel cells 2-3 times more efficient than current diesel engines.
Ethanol-water reactors could also be added-on to existing conventional internal combustion engines to supplement gasoline consumption, increase power and mileage, and clean up unburned residues in the combustion chamber. The hydrogen would simply be added to the intake air, and a computer chip would be reprogramed. This can also be adapted to long-haul diesel trucks.
Future generation Plug-in Hybrid electric vehicles, for extended range, may soon be equipped with ethanol-water reformers, supplying fuel cells with hydrogen on demand. You may one day pull-up to a blender pump that custom mixes pure ethanol with water: W20, W30, W40, W50, W60. Contrary to what critics say, with this technology, ethanol has the potential to replace foreign oil entirely.
For those of you who think ethatnol is a subsidised fuel you need to do a little research and you will find out that gas is subsidised far more than ethanol. In fact it is subsidised about 10 times as much ethanol.
Another myth is the lower mileage with ethanol. That is only true when you run ethanol in a gas engine. If you build engines to run specifically on ethanol you will get about 20% better mileage than a comparable gas engine.
cellulosic ethanol is good . building a fuel infrastructure will cost alot.It be better to build ft plants and turn our trash into fuel. Trush is cheap and waste to fuel is good idea.
Ethanol in South America is made from Sugar. When you make Ethanol from sugar you get 7 gallons of Ethanol for every gallon of energy used when you make Ethanol from corn you use 1.2 gallons of energy to create one gallon of ethanol. This is not about reducing our reliance on foreign oil this is about saving worthless lobbyists. Why do lobbyists where neckties? To keep the foreskin from going over their heads.
CNCMike has it right.
If automakers would increase the compression ratios of their engines, they would get more horsepower and miles per gallon. Of course, they would no longer run on unleaded regular. They would need either 93 Octane unleaded premium, 95 octane E10 or 105 octane E85.