Ford & GM Riding the Biofuel Bandwagon
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA on 02. 9.06
Both Ford and General Motors are hoping to be better late than never to the world auto industry's alternative-fuel and alternative-energy party. Using the Chicago Auto Show as a springboard to show how into it they can be, (as if the Super Bowl wasn't enough) each automaker is jumping in to the ethanol pool with both feet. Ford announced that it will launch what they're calling a “Midwest Ethanol Corridor” by expanding E85 ethanol availability; by 1/3 in Illinois and Missouri this year, and by less quantified amounts in neighboring states as well. The first steps to create said Corridor will be to convert approximately 40 existing gasoline fuel pumps to E85 in Illinois and Missouri. Ford estimates there are 50,000 owners of Ford flexible fuel vehicles (FFV) in Illinois and 28,000 in Missouri, and they'll produce up to 250,000 ethanol-capable vehicles in 2006. Since they were already there in Chicago, Ford also announced that it is working with the city of Chicago to put hybrid taxi cabs on the roads of the Windy City beginning in 2007 (similar to the programs already rolling in New York and San Francisco).
Not to be outdone, GM announced that they'll be lending a hand (through collaborative partnerships with Shell Oil Products US and VeraSun Energy Corp) in the addition of 26 additional E85 refueling pumps to six stations in greater Chicago. The collaboration is part of a national GM campaign to boost the use and awareness of E85 fuel here in the States, and they sound excited about it. Said Elizabeth Lowery, GM vice president of environment and energy, "GM is pursuing gasoline-savings solutions on many fronts on the way to our ultimate vision of hydrogen fuel cell-powered transportation. E85 ethanol burns cleaner than gasoline and is a renewable, domestic fuel that can enhance the nation’s economy and energy security."
Stories like this are interesting to us, for a number of reasons. In the past, it's been easy to get down on these American automakers for their un-TreeHugging practices of producing gas-guzzling, emission-spewing perpetuators of our oil addiction. While they haven't completely turned it around, baby steps sure beats nothing. Ethanol and other biofuels have been hot our collective tongue lately, especially since the recent State of the Union address, and these announcements may very well have been spun accordingly. We aren't going to judge them for these announcements and efforts, though, regardless of how transparent (or not) they happen to be. To this end, Joel Makower has an excellent post at Two Steps Forward which is well worth reading for anyone who wants to delve further into the dynamics of writing about green cars in the green blogosphere. via ::Green Car Congress, ::GM Serious About Ethanol And Flex-Fuel Vehicles?
Biodiesal = Good
E85 = Bad - http://www.flash-the-brain.com/bklik/blog/?p=108
GM = Stupid
You may want to add Vancouver, BC to the hybrid taxis list...we've had Prius cabs for well over a year
Please read:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/climatechange/story/0,,1659037,00.html
It really opened my eyes to what I thought was a great solution. Now I am not so sure.
i believe that NREL has done studies on ethanol and proven that it does have a positive net energy. although not as good as biodiesel due to the heating involved in ethanol. www.nrel.gov
I almost put E85 in my car the other day. I had the pump in my hand ... then I noticed it said "NOT GASOLINE" so I put it back and got my normal 10% ethanol blend.
Many life cycle energy burden studies have been done for ethanol over the last 20 years. The results vary greatly by geophysical region and in accordance with the investigator's choices of literature values used. Eample: the fuel inputs are vastly different for low-til or "no-til" ag systems compared to the old fashioned fall and spring plough systems. Sure you can cherry pick worst case rates for all the major energy debits and crank out a result that hovers around energy neutral or worse. You can bias the other direction as well. The results from the best practice LCA studies are energy positive to neutral.
They typical reporting cites a single study being trumpeted by someone with an agenda or who's trying to pull in grants, pointing out the most extreme findings. There is a formal peer review process for life cycle inventory study. If you want to rock the boat, ask the editor if the numbers cited are from a peer reviewed LCA investigation.
While E85 from corn isn't that great there are other sources. The main thing we need to do is reduce the amount of fuel burnt.
GM is not dumb however, just a little slow, but seriously; they came up with a mild hybrid system that could be used to increase the MPG of many of their vehicles that use their 4 cyl engine. In the case of the first vehicle it is used on they get a 5MPG improvement at much lower cost and with much less complexity than a full hybrid.
If they can apply this system over their large range of vehicles it could end up saving much more fuel than a few hundered thousand full hybrids. http://www.greencarcongress.com/2006/02/gms_vue_hybrid_.html