Here is a short video form GM and Medialink about how Ethanol works. The video is focused on the country experiences of Brasil and Sweden on reducing their dependency on oil. It is very nice to see GM investing on educating the public about Ethanol.
Check the video here.
Related posts:
- List of Flex Fuel Cars in America
- Living on Ethanol
- Biofuels: Just Mix it
This is great news. WIth Honda now starting to do this in Brasil we can expect that it might come in the future for the United States too. Honda will move its locally produced versions of the Civic and then the subcompact Fit into the flex fuel technology. Honda is making the move after Toyota announced it will do the same with its locally produced Corolla.
Here is the link to the news story.
Related posts:
- List of Flex Fuel Cars in America
- Living on Ethanol
- Biofuels: Just Mix it
Honda Motor and a Japanese research firm said on thursday that they have developed a way to produce ethanol out of cellulose and hemicellulose. This is found on tree leaves and stalks. Full note on MarketWatch.
This is excellent news, as cellulose has been seen as a possible ethanol raw material for a while. It can potential make ethanol production less costly in terms of the energy and raw material used to produce it. There has been controversy around how much efficient ethanol is in terms of the total energy used to produce it vs. fossil fuels.
Related Posts:
The Renewable Fuels Association just announced on August 28th that US production and consumption of Ethanol reached historical highsin June 2006. See the press release from RFA here.
As the number of Ethanol pumps continues to rise and more people are concious about helping the US reduce its dependency on oil, ethanol seems to be one of the fuels that is getting a lot of attention. The RFA release is certainly very encouraging since it points to annual growth rates close to 30%. It seems that the US is quickly developing an ethanol market for vehicles.
The Des Moines Register published an excellent article yesterday on ethanol. It has very useful information to understand ethanol and the different mixes sold in the US such as E10 and E85. It discusses consumer issues such as how to compare ethanol vs. gasoline in terms of pricing. It also discusses the industry and its future, given the promise of cellulose-produced ethanol. It provides a basic understanding of green house effects of ethanol. The article also quotes a couple of papers that discuss the answer of how much energy is placed into the production of ethanol vs. how much energy is yielded. It includes very interesting facts, numbers and tables.
Of course Iowa is the #1 Etahnol producer in the US, an Minnesota is the #1 Consumer and growing fast with about a third of the pumps currently serving E85 in America.
Related posts:
- List of Flex Fuel Cars in America
- Living on Ethanol
- Biofuels: Just Mix it
Here is a website that gives you nationwide adresses and in many cases maps about E85 pump locations. As you can see, most of the states are covered now. If you have a Flex Fuel Vehicle you might want to check it out. If you are not sure if your car is an FFV, check the list of Flex Fuel cars in America.
Conversion kits to transform your gasoline car into a Flex Fuel Vehicle (FFV) are now starting to appear thoughout the United States. Here is an article of a shop in the Kalamazoo, Michigan area. They can transform your car into and FFV for a few hundred dollars. The same shop that sells the kits in Kalamazoo has an E85 station. Expect to get news on ethanol and flex fuel vehicles regularly here.
Related posts:
- List of Flex Fuel Cars in America
- Living on Ethanol
- Biofuels: Just Mix it
Last night, at dinner, we were discussing about cars that are very efficient in its energy use. This is a big topic here in Brasil, where most of the new cars coming out every year have flex fuel engines as standard equipment. Flex fuel engines can run on gasoline, ethanol or any combination of the two (see related articles below).
My boss, who lives in the US was very excited about his recently acquired car given its very efficient energy usage. The car he bought in the US is a VW Jetta TDI. The VW Jetta TDI is powered by a 1.9L turbo diesel engine. It is VW’s more energy efficient engine to date. The Jetta TDI delivers a very good 100 hp, very competitive with other mid-sized sedans.
The Jetta TDI delivers an impressive 42 miles on a gallon of diesel on the highway and 35 miles in the city. If we look at this from another perspective, the VW Jetta TDI can run for more than 600 miles without visiting the pump. This is several weeks of independent use for most people. Furthermore, as any other modern diesel engine, it can run on biodiesel mixes such as B20 or other mixes between biodiesel and oil.
For its price, it is a great alternative for an energy efficient car. You can have a very nicely configured Jetta TDI for a bit over $20,000 USD.
Here is a couple of pictures of the Jetta TDI, from flickr photographer Glibaudio. I recommend you to access the pictures since it has some notes of his own (just click on the pictures). As you can see on the first picture he is loading the car at a biodiesel station in Minneapolis. In Glibaudio's words on the second picture: "Cheaper, Cleaner, No Foreign Dependance.....impresses hippie girls". He is loading up the Jetta on a pure biodiesel mix or a B100, 100% biodiesel.
Related posts:
- List of Flex Fuel Cars in America
- Living on Ethanol
- Biofuels: Just Mix it
Flex fuel cars are a huge success in Brazil where about 3/4ths of all new cars are Flex Fuel Vehicles. In the US, the top 3 car manufacturers are building and selling the cars but the fact is not as well known as in Brazil. The infrastructure of gas pumps available in the US is simple very small. However, with the rising gas prices the number of gas stations carrying ethanol should grow in the next few years. Ethanol in the US is commonly called E85, as it is a mix of ethanol and gasoline, with 85% of the mix being ethanol. In Brazil you can run a car on 100% ethanol, since the warmer weather allows for this.
Here are the websites from top US automakers where you can find the list of Flex Fuel Vehicles on each of their line ups:
· Chrysler
· Ford
Want to see other car makers on this list? Just add to the comment stream. I will add more links soon.
Related posts:
Brasil has a long tradition of building cars that can run on ethanol. In the past, the country was not able to produce the oil that was demanded by its market and therefore gasoline prices were very high (as of 2006 Brasil produces all the oil it demands). During the oil crisis of the 70’s this was taken to the extreme and therefore the Government started a program to build ethanol based cars as a means to reduce it dependence on imported oil.
Ethanol based cars were popular but at the end of the 80’s the end of the Governmental program to provide incentives to ethanol production plus a rise on the prices of sugar caused a rise on ethanol prices (both are produced out of sugar cane in Brasil). Many alcohol based cars became way too expensive to be used. Many people sold their ethanol based cars and switched to gasoline based cars. However, the infrastructure was ready with nationwide distribution of ethanol at gas pumps.
During the 90’s two companies were instrumental to the development of the flex technology: the German autoparts maker Bosch and the Italian autoparts maker Magneti Marelli. The subsidiaries of both companies in Brazil developed the technologies that made the Flex Cars possible. Most of the Brazilian Flex cars on the road today actually use the Magneti Marelli technology. The technology is very affordable, since it basically uses software to constantly measure the mix of fuels coming into the engine and makes any adjustments in the engine behavior, if needed. The technology adds only a few dollars on top of regular engines, but even that cost was reduced to zero by the Brasilian government via a tax exemption at the end of 2002. The first commercial cars came out to the market in 2003.
Flex cars in Brasil are now more than three quarters of the new cars sold in Brazil this year, which is a very remarkable ramp in just three years. Flex cars are coming to other countries as well. GM, for example, has committed to produce and sell about 400,000 vehicles with flex Engines in the United States this year and the number should ramp quickly on the years to come. Oil prices and concerns about GHG emissions from gasoline are two powerful reasons for the renewed interest on ethanol. If the US is serious about cutting its oil addiction and doing its bit about the environment it should go beyond speech and put in place the incentives to develop its own ethanol industry. The time is right for such a move.
Links:
- Washington Post story on GMs Brasilian ethanol cars: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051900550.html
- Exame magazine has a nice article on Ethanol and Flex Cars on its June 15th, 2006 number, but the content is closed and it’s in portuguese. Very recommended read.
As discussed on the recent post on ethanol “Living on ethanol”, Brasil has had an ethanol program over more than three decades. The results of the program are impressive: Brasil is the world leader in the production of ethanol and has a nationwide infrastructure to produce, distribute and consumer ethanol on vehicles.
One could think that for other countries in the Americas building that infrastructure should be a daunting task. However, it is not such a big problem, since ethanol can be a component of the mix in gasoline. In Brasil for example, companies like Petrobras have ethanol as 20-25% of their gasoline mix. Ethanol acts as a substance that helps add oxygen to the gasoline mix and reduces CO2 emissions. Adding ethanol to gasoline is therefore a sound ecological practice.
On small percentages of ethanol in the gasoline, the cars don’t need to be modified to use ethanol. You simply use regular gasoline engines and you don’t need to have Flex cars. In countries like Mexico and the U.S. the substance used today to oxygenate the gasoline is called MTBE. MTBE pollutes the environment and therefore, even though it helps gasoline burn better, it does it with a pollution cost.
In Mexico a country which has a very large potential to produce sugar cane, a law to foster bio fuel production is under discussion. This law could mean the conversion of the old sugar mills into ethanol facilities; the old mills are for the most part broken since Mexico produces far more sugar than what is capable of consuming or exporting. I hope the law passes the senate and finally Mexico starts to develop ethanol production and lower its consumption of oil.
In a similar fashion to the ethanol-gasoline mix, you can also mix bio diesel with regular diesel. You can have a percentage of the diesel from vegetable sources simply added to the regular oil-based diesel. The main challenge to bio diesels in cold weather is that they can turn into a jelly and clog the motors inner ducts. There are solutions to warm the oil before starting the engine, start the engine with regular diesel or even winter diesels for cold weather.
In any case, the mixing ability of bio diesels can be the key for countries like Mexico or the US to quickly jump into ethanol as a viable oil substitute. Just mixing 20% of ethanol can save hundreds of thousands of barrels a day. It is a simple step that is well worth trying.
There is an increased interest on the USA about alternative fuel sources. From the preeminent mention on the last presidential state of the union all the way into mass media, there is definitively interest on alternative energy sources. The reasons for this raise on interest are many and very relevant: the ever growing oil prices, instability in the Middle East, green house effect concerns are among the most relevant here. Of course, we also have to remind ourselves that petroleum is a non-renewable resource. Petroleum will go away someday for sure; the only real question is when.
One of the very exciting things about living in Brazil is to get to experience alternative fuels as a part of your everyday life. Here Ethanol, Compressed Natural Gas, Diesel and Bio diesels are easily available everywhere. In fact Ethanol is pretty much available in every single gas station from any of the vendors that serve this market (there are about 29,000 gas stations that sell ethanol vs. 600 in the US). And most cars are ready for Ethanol too. Something around 70% of all new cars sold in Brasil have what is called a Flexible Fuel engine (in the US this is called FFVs or Flexible Fuel Vehicles, in Brasil they are commonly called “Flex”). A flexible engine accepts ethanol or gasoline or any mix of them. You can run it fully on gasoline or ethanol or any mix of them. Here is an article on Brasilian Flex Fuel cars: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5829046/ .
Flex cars give you the power to choose which fuel you’d like to put at the pump every time you refuel. This is a very powerful proposal: your can switch between fuels according to the fluctuations of their prices. In the case of Brasilian Ethanol, its efficiency is 70% of that of gasoline. This means that if you have a flex car it will be economically advantageous to you if the price of a liter alcohol is at the most 70% of the gasoline liter. Today, this is true in some Brazilian states and cities, Ethanol (or alcool as it is called locally) is cheaper. However, in most states the ethanol price is very close to the 70% threshold (as in Sao Paulo, which is a very nig Ethanol producing state). In many other states the price of Ethanol exceeds the 70% and therefore is more expensive to run the car on it. Folha de Sao Paulo, one of the main Sao Paulo newspapers recently published a little table to make it easier to decide on what to buy at the pump (please note that the table is expressed in Brasilian Reais). Link to the table: http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/dinheiro/ult91u105646.shtml .
In my case, I have two cars, one that runs only on gasoline and one that has a Flex engine. I strongly prefer to fill the flexible car on alcohol, even if there are no savings to be made. I think that contributing to the environment and to keeping the oil prices stable are well worth the effort. There are a few things you need to get accustomed to, for instance you end up going to the gas station more often if you use alcohol. However on other fronts such as performance on the road Ethanol behaves extremely well. Its octane measures are typically well higher than gasoline.
A lot of this sounds awfully uneventful and it is. Once you have the production capacity for ethanol and the ubiquitous distribution, there is nothing special about filling your car with alcohol. The Flex engine as greatly enhanced the power for consumers to choose the fuel they want to use depending on the prices, lifestyle, environmental concerns and many other variables (you can even travel the countryside in Brasil and fill with a different fuel in the middle of the road if prices in the gas station favor alcohol or gasoline). Flex cars are coming to other markets as well. In the USA Ethanol is typically produced out of Corn and is mixed with Gasoline (corn is less efficient than sugar cane to produce ethanol by the way, so the US is a more expensive producer than Brasil). The most common Ethanol in use in the USA is called E85 – a mix that contains 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. The gasoline in the mix helps cars start on cold days (in Brasil you can buy pure Ethanol for your tank and flex cars have a small repository for gasoline to do the starts in cold weather).
There are many other exciting fuel alternatives becoming popular today: CNG, Electrical, Hybrids, and Biodiesel. We strongly need our country leaders to embrace a future in which oil is not the only fuel available to power our countries. Decisive action today will enable a more clean, efficient and sustainable future.
More Links:
- USA Today, “Brazil hopes to build on its ethanol success”: http://www.usatoday.com/money/world/2006-03-28-brazil-ethanol-cover_x.htm
- Yale University article on Brazilian Ethanol: http://yaleglobal.yale.edu/display.article?id=6817
