LubeTrak Newsletter

Curious about alternate fuels... at least educate yourself about these fuels, since much depends on how we embrace these technologies. Start by investigating alternative fuel sources in your business and personal practices. Let's take a look at the leading contenders one by one:

Ethanol
Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) is usually produced from corn, but other grains like wheat or barley can also be used. There’s a strong attraction for this clean burning, renewable fuel since these feedstock’s are abundantly available here in America. Today, most ethanol is sold as E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. The small amount of gasoline is used to improve engine starting and for safety reasons since pure alcohol burns with a colorless flame.

Ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles (FFVs) represent by far the most successful alternative fuel vehicle introduction on this continent. In recent years, automakers have sold more than three million FFVs that run seamlessly on any mixture of gasoline or E85 (85% ethanol/15% gasoline) in the same tank. But there is a hitch since only about 150 E85 stations are found in the entire country, and the majority of these are in Minnesota. The result is that ethanol-capable cars almost always run on gasoline because it’s readily available, and E85 is not.

A variety of mainstream flexible-fuel models are sold in most, but not all, states. These include the Chevrolet Silverado and Suburban, Dodge Caravan, Ford Taurus, Isuzu Hombre, Mazda B3000 pickup, and Mercedes-Benz C320, equipped with specific engines that come with the ability to run on this alternative fuel as a matter of course, at no additional charge. Interestingly, FFVs may use more fuel since ethanol has less energy content than gasoline, but they contribute less to greenhouse gas emissions.

Ethanol is transported by barge, rail, or truck to reach retail outlets since alcohols cannot be moved easily through the existing petroleum distribution pipelines. As the refueling infrastructure expands, there is huge potential for wider use of E85 as an alternative fuel since so many ethanol flexible-fuel vehicles are already on American highways, with millions more FFVs to come

Methanol
Today, methanol (methyl alcohol) is largely produced from natural gas, although it can be made from non-petroleum sources such as landfill methane gas, wood waste, dedicated biomass crops, and coal. Currently, most methanol is used as M85, a blend of 85% methanol and 15% gasoline, for light-duty vehicles. Like ethanol, methanol cannot be moved easily through the existing petroleum distribution system.

While there are about 20,000 methanol flexible fuel vehicles on the U.S. roads, including conversions and flexible fuel vehicles offered by automakers in the early 1980s, this number will not likely grow since emphasis in alcohol fuels has turned to ethanol in recent years. Virtually all M85 refueling stations are located in California.

Power, acceleration, and payload are generally not compromised when running on methanol, but methanol's lower energy content means that fuel economy will be slightly lower. Because methanol is quite corrosive, M85 compatible parts must be used and special lubricants are required.

Some fleet experiences with methanol have been discouraging because of durability problems. While methanol probably never will be a major fuel for use in internal combustion engines, it is a leading contender as a feedstock for fuel cell vehicles, where it would be converted by onboard reformers to hydrogen.

Biodiesel
Biodiesel is a cleaner-burning diesel fuel made from domestically produced, renewable feedstock’s including vegetable oils from soybeans, peanuts, cottonseed, sunflower seeds, and canola. It also can be made with used vegetable oils such as frying oil and waste animal fats. Biodiesel is biodegradable, requires minimal engine modification, and maintains the payload capacity and range of diesel.

The primary biodiesel now in use in this country is methyl soyate, or SoyDiesel, which is made by reacting methanol with soybean oil. Just about any diesel engine can be run on biodiesel with a minimum investment, although biodiesel is not yet readily available to those who wish to make the switch since just 75 stations are in the country dispensing this fuel, not all of them open to the public.

When used in a conventional diesel engine, combustion of biodiesel results in substantial reduction of unburned hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, and particulate matter (the familiar black soot seen coming from diesel exhaust). Emissions of nitrogen oxides are often slightly increased. There is no sulfur in biodiesel, so it works well with catalysts, particulate traps, exhaust gas recirculation, and other systems designed to reduce diesel emissions.

Biodiesel is not presently cost competitive with conventional diesel fuel. But with government incentives comparable to those provided for ethanol, biodiesel’s price could compare favorably with conventional diesel. Biodiesel’s most likely initial role will be in bus fleets and heavy-duty trucks, blended with conventional diesel in a 20% biodiesel/80% diesel blend.

A wild card in the “clean” diesel arena is that cleaner conventional diesel fuel formulations are being mandated in the next few years. This will result in significantly cleaner-running diesel vehicles fueled by low-sulfur conventional diesel fuel.

Automakers have very active plans to bring a growing number of diesel passenger cars to American highways because of these vehicles’ average 30 percent higher fuel economy. While this interesting twist does not address alternative fuels directly, exponentially larger numbers of diesel cars and light trucks on our highways offer greater potential for biodiesel use as a matter of course.

Hydrogen
Of all the alternative transportation fuels, hydrogen represents the greatest potential but also faces the greatest obstacles for widespread use since there is no infrastructure in place for its distribution and use. Hydrogen is typically created from steam reforming of natural gas, a process that represents the most straightforward and economical way to extract hydrogen for fuel. Other hydrocarbons, such as biomass and coal, can be substituted in this process.

The greatest promise is that hydrogen can also be produced by the electrolysis of water (H2O), in which the bonds of the molecules that make up water – our planet’s most abundant resource – are split to create hydrogen and oxygen. That process, however, requires significant energy to occur and is not currently cost competitive with other methods.

All of this means that hydrogen could be produced virtually anywhere in the world, though often not economically, and these days not at a cost approaching that of gasoline. But tremendous effort is being expended to overcome cost and technology issues since hydrogen not only represent an environmentally sound direction for transportation, but for all facets of fueling a modern society as well.

As we’re headed toward that hydrogen future, there’s an array of other alternative fuels we can turn to as a way to soften dependence on imported oil and improve our air quality, and a ready supply of vehicles available to run on these fuels. The challenge is to put the two together in meaningful ways so buying and driving these vehicles makes sense.

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