The Auto Channel fights for the truth about Ethanol

[JohnWxy]

Auto Channel Executive Vice President and Co-Publisher, Marc J Rauch writes, “Bob and I have studied the issue of alternative fuels and energy and we’ve become very enthusiastic supporters of all the technologies…But most of all, we like ethanol. Why? Because ethanol can be used right now, anywhere in the U.S., and by most vehicles without any engine conversions.”




http://domesticfuel.com/2010/05/27/the-auto-channel-fights-for-ethanol/


The Auto Channel has been a proponent of ethanol for quite some time and has given favorable coverage to the fuel. This week, Executive Vice President and Co-Publisher, Marc J Rauch, took it up a notch in defense of ethanol. In his piece, “The Auto Channel Fights for the Truth about Ethanol Versus Gasoline,” Rauch writes, “Bob and I have studied the issue of alternative fuels and energy and we’ve become very enthusiastic supporters of all the technologies…But most of all, we like ethanol. Why? Because ethanol can be used right now, anywhere in the U.S., and by most vehicles without any engine conversions.”(...by emphasis-JW)


yes Mr. Rauch, there IS something to be said for being available right now, instead of 20 years from now. Especially, since Global Warming is accelerating. Many who aspire to be 'environmentalists' do not appreciate that it GW get's moving too fast in a coule of decades WE WILL NOT BE ABLE TO REIN IT IN, EVEN IF WE REMOVED ALL GHG EMISSIONS FROM CARS AND TRUCKS. I cannot (nor can anybody ) say at this point, if this will happen. But it certainly is a possibility. We need more GHG emisssion reductions SOONER than LATER. But, i have said before, I do not think enough people will realize this until it may very well be too late to do anything about it.

Robert Zubrin (Achieving Energy Victory), has urged that we replace gasoline entirely with alcohol (methanol as well as ethanol) mandating that ALL cars built be able to run on alcohol. What he has not written about (at least not that i am aware of) is that by using the http://www.ethanolboost.com/">Ethanol (or methanol) enabled Direct Injection engine - his idea of replacing gasoline entirely with alcohol is much more do-able, since the Ethanol Enabled Direct Injection engine achieves a boost in fuel efficiency of 30%, if all cars were equippped with this engine you would only need a volume of alcohol equalling 76% of the volume needed if they were using all gasoline (30% increase in fuel efficiency translates into a 24% reduction in fuel consumption). The Ethanol Enabled Direct Injection Engine's marginal cost is $1,000 to $1,600 a copy, about 1/4th to 1/3rd of that of a hybrid. So adaptation would occur much more rapidly than with hybrids.

We need to develop hybrids and PHEVs, but we also need to get greater GHG emissions reductions much sooner than electrics will be able to achieve them (given the logistics of replacing a large portion of the automotive fleet). So we better realize we need to employ those technologies that achieve results in a shorter period of time, as well. NOte: You can replace the fuel faster than you can replace the cars that burn the fuel.



http://www.thenewatlantis.com/authors/robert-zubrin

Robert Zubrin is a New Atlantis contributing editor, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and the president of Pioneer Astronautics, an aerospace engineering R&D firm. He also leads the Mars Society, an international organization dedicated to furthering space exploration. For many years, he worked as a senior engineer for Lockheed Martin. He holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering, and has nine U.S. patents granted or pending. In addition, he is the author of the critically acclaimed nonfiction books The Case for Mars, Entering Space, and Mars on Earth; the science fiction novels The Holy Land and First Landing; and articles in Scientific American, The New Atlantis, American Enterprise, the New York Times, and the Washington Post. He has appeared on major media including CNN, C-SPAN, the BBC, the Discovery Channel, the Science Channel, NBC, ABC, and NPR

[Cleita]

1. I know I can use it in my car. The problem is getting retail pumps

spaced at regular intervals to make it feasible. I guess oil companies wouldn't want to put one ethanol pump in each of their stations.

[JohnWxy]

2. We need to increase the number of ethanol pumps. there are not

nearly enough of them. But that could change fairly quickly, though.

I would love to see us cut gasoline consumption just 20% - just for starters. (ethanol replaced about 7.8% of gasoline in 2009).
We actually can get along without off-shore drilling if we would facilitate the adoption of the Eth. Direct Injection engine.

The thing about the Ethanol Direct Injection engine is that it only uses 5% ethanol but reduces fuel consumption 24% (actually when you figure in the 5% ethanol that replaces gas, it's more like 29% reduction in gasoline consumption). So you get much more impact from a gallon of ethanol compared to substitution of gas burned in a regular ICE (internal combustion engine).

[Cleita]

3. I guess we'd better get Willy Nelson to start building pumps nationwide. n/t

[JohnWxy]

4. It'll probly happen faster that way!

[NNadir]

5. The auto channel and the auto industry and all of its apologists, including the ethanol hand wavers

can screw off.

They just destroyed a major inland sea.

Heckuva fucking job.

Have a nice 90% dangerous fossil fuel apologist day.

[kristopher]

6. Ethanol is a 4th rate solution to our climate change, energy security and air pollution concerns

We will need biofuels for heavy-duty mobile industrial applications but it isn't something we should focus on for our personal transportation fleet. For personal transportation there is no justification for mandates, subsidies or any other dipping into the public pocket.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[JohnWxy]

7. For the readers: reality check. Nobody has proposed ethanol as "the" SOLUTION "to our climate

change, energy security and air pollution concerns". No one technology is going to do it alone. We will need electric cars but we will need to do more to get greater GHG emissions reductions in the near and intermediate term or the reductions everyone hopes we will get from electric cars may very well not matter.


REgarding PHEVs the Electic power REsearch institute study which you have referred to in the past, projected possibly 40% of the fleet ccould be electrics by 2030 *. Even if the elecric cars on average, got 60% reduction in GHG emissions that would be a 24% reduction for auto-truck transportation as a whole.... and that's in 20 years. Okay, let's assume 80% emissions reduction, on average, for PHEVs. That would come to 32% aggregate reduction for all autos and trucks. And don't forget PHEVs will create an additional demand for electricity which in 20 years will still be heavily waited to coal and natural gas for power sources which means the 24% (or 32% emissions reductions) will be reduced by some amount, depending on the power generation mix, due to the additional emissions from electric power generation. So the NET emissions reductions won't be 24% or 32% but something less than that (19% to 27%?). (that's why I generally say 20% to 30% reduction due to PHEVs in 20 years).


As global warming is accelerating (think: defrosting permafrost .. and the fact that methane has 23 times the heat trapping capacity of CO2), we will need to do more than wait 20 years to perhaps achieve 20% to 30% reduction of GHG emissions for auto and truck emissions. It's possible that waiting 20 years for that much reduction - without doing more in the shorter term - could mean global warming will be increasing, by then, at a rate we will not be able to rein in (yes, it's possible).


* http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/4219512

"today’s report, co-authored by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), considers a future where 42 percent of the total U.S. auto fleet consists of PHEVs by 2030"


"Of course, the NRDC-EPRI report assumes a drastic increase in plug-in sales in the next two decades (42 percent is admittedly high, EPRI’s Mark Duvall says)". ( Dr. Mark Duvall is Program Manager, Electric Transportation at the Electric Power Research Institute.__JW)

http://my.epri.com/portal/server.pt?open=514&objID=223132&mode=2">Electric Power Research Institute study site


>>>>> note the one thing ethanol (and if necessary, methanol) can do is get us results quicker than 20 years. And that is what we need. Along with the Ethanol enabled Direct Injection ENgine, (with a marginal cost about 1/4th to 1/3rd of the conventional hybrid and about 1/10th the expected marginal cost for the PHEV (whether you buy the battery or just lease it) which means more rapid adoption is possible) alcohol blended fuels can increase our GHG emissions reductions from cars and trucks (the Ethanol enabled direct injection engine is scalable from small cars up to tractor trailor trucks) much more quickly than electrics can.

The time to get the reductions is very important. We will need electric cars. But by themselves, they aren't going to do enough, soon enough.

[JohnWxy]

8. Ethanol efficiency debated in U.S, while Scania's ethanol powered engine cuts CO2 90% vs gasoline.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x529628

[kristopher]

9. Ethanol is a 4th rate solution to our climate change, energy security and air pollution concerns

We will need biofuels for heavy-duty mobile industrial applications but it isn't something we should focus on for our personal transportation fleet. For personal transportation there is no justification for mandates, subsidies or any other dipping into the public pocket.

Abstract here: http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/EE/article.asp?doi=b809990c

Full article for download here: http://www.stanford.edu/group/efmh/jacobson/revsolglobwarmairpol.htm


Energy Environ. Sci., 2009, 2, 148 - 173, DOI: 10.1039/b809990c

Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security

Mark Z. Jacobson

Abstract
This paper reviews and ranks major proposed energy-related solutions to global warming, air pollution mortality, and energy security while considering other impacts of the proposed solutions, such as on water supply, land use, wildlife, resource availability, thermal pollution, water chemical pollution, nuclear proliferation, and undernutrition.

Nine electric power sources and two liquid fuel options are considered. The electricity sources include solar-photovoltaics (PV), concentrated solar power (CSP), wind, geothermal, hydroelectric, wave, tidal, nuclear, and coal with carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. The liquid fuel options include corn-ethanol (E85) and cellulosic-E85. To place the electric and liquid fuel sources on an equal footing, we examine their comparative abilities to address the problems mentioned by powering new-technology vehicles, including battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), and flex-fuel vehicles run on E85.

Twelve combinations of energy source-vehicle type are considered. Upon ranking and weighting each combination with respect to each of 11 impact categories, four clear divisions of ranking, or tiers, emerge.

Tier 1 (highest-ranked) includes wind-BEVs and wind-HFCVs.
Tier 2 includes CSP-BEVs, geothermal-BEVs, PV-BEVs, tidal-BEVs, and wave-BEVs.
Tier 3 includes hydro-BEVs, nuclear-BEVs, and CCS-BEVs.
Tier 4 includes corn- and cellulosic-E85.

Wind-BEVs ranked first in seven out of 11 categories, including the two most important, mortality and climate damage reduction. Although HFCVs are much less efficient than BEVs, wind-HFCVs are still very clean and were ranked second among all combinations.

Tier 2 options provide significant benefits and are recommended.

Tier 3 options are less desirable. However, hydroelectricity, which was ranked ahead of coal-CCS and nuclear with respect to climate and health, is an excellent load balancer, thus recommended.

The Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.

Whereas cellulosic-E85 may cause the greatest average human mortality, nuclear-BEVs cause the greatest upper-limit mortality risk due to the expansion of plutonium separation and uranium enrichment in nuclear energy facilities worldwide. Wind-BEVs and CSP-BEVs cause the least mortality.

The footprint area of wind-BEVs is 2–6 orders of magnitude less than that of any other option. Because of their low footprint and pollution, wind-BEVs cause the least wildlife loss.

The largest consumer of water is corn-E85. The smallest are wind-, tidal-, and wave-BEVs.

The US could theoretically replace all 2007 onroad vehicles with BEVs powered by 73000–144000 5 MW wind turbines, less than the 300000 airplanes the US produced during World War II, reducing US CO2 by 32.5–32.7% and nearly eliminating 15000/yr vehicle-related air pollution deaths in 2020.

In sum, use of wind, CSP, geothermal, tidal, PV, wave, and hydro to provide electricity for BEVs and HFCVs and, by extension, electricity for the residential, industrial, and commercial sectors, will result in the most benefit among the options considered. The combination of these technologies should be advanced as a solution to global warming, air pollution, and energy security. Coal-CCS and nuclear offer less benefit thus represent an opportunity cost loss, and the biofuel options provide no certain benefit and the greatest negative impacts.

[JohnWxy]

11. for the reader: EPRI study extrapolates PHEV's to be 42% of fleet by 2030

http://www.popularmechanics.com/cars/news/4219512

EPRI: Electric Power Research Institute

"Of course, the NRDC-EPRI report assumes a drastic increase in plug-in sales in the next two decades (42 percent is admittedly high, EPRI’s Mark Duvall says) and, therefore, a heavier burden on the electrical grid".
(note: Dr. Mark Duvall is the Program Manager, Electric Transportation, EPRI)

The EPRI report predicts for (2050) that PHEVs will yield "40% to 65% improvement over the conventional vehicle" in GHG emissions. Let's apply that rate to a fleet proportion of 42% (for 2030). You get a range of 16.8% to 27.3% reduction of GHG emissions for the entire car and truck fleet.


Electrics aren't going to solve the problem alone. Also, as stated before, we need to get GHG emissions reductions sooner than in 20 years. This is where ethanol would be important. Cheaper approaches will be adopted more quickly, getting results sooner. Later, electricss will add to these gains. Obviously, We need electrics too, but if do not do what can be done for GHG reductions much sooner (than in 20 yrs), any gains from electrics will likely not matter. Global warming will be accelerating at pace by then that we won't be able to rein it in.

(actually that is what I predict will happen. That we won't do the things we need to do for earlier reductions and later it will not matter what we do.)

[Kringle]

10. exporting corn --> exporting jobs .nt