Politics and Economics Slow Transition to Gasoline Substitutes

Source: Columbus Dispatch
[May 14, 2006]

We have the technology right here, right now to move away from high-priced gasoline.

We can build a battery-powered car that can recharge overnight on household current. And we have the technology to begin to create enough alternative biofuels to significantly reduce oil imports.

So what’s standing in the way?

Economics and politics, experts say.

Bridging the gap

"What comes first, the chicken or the egg?" said Giorgio Rizzoni, the director of Ohio State University’s Center for Automotive Research. "Building a new auto plant costs $300 million to $600 million."

Still, rising fuel costs are pushing change — slowly. Carmakers are introducing hybrids that run on gas and electricity, ethanol is in the news again, and President Bush is talking up hydrogen fuel-cell technology.

Experts say that liquid fuel alternatives might bridge the next 20 years to when hightech, low-polluting electric and fuel-cell cars fill the roads.

Within a decade, scientists in labs at OSU and elsewhere plan to equip a vehicle with a hydrogen fuel cell that could power a car and supply electricity to homes.

"Your car could become an emergency generator for your house," Rizzoni said.

Major automakers are slow to make the huge investments needed to build new plants for technology still considered to meet a niche demand, he said.

Still, DaimlerChrysler recently announced a test fleet of plug-in hybrid vans that it says can travel as far as 20 miles on one charge.

"Really, for the commuting public, the majority of trips are 10 to 15 miles. It makes a lot of sense for those types of trips," said David Abel, coordinator of the Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission’s air-quality program.

Far more advanced vehicles are approaching. An advanced lithium battery in Hybrid Technologies’ electric vehicle lasts for 300 miles on a fivehour charge, the company says.

But at $35,000, the price is steep.

Like a gas-powered engine, batteries in a standard electric hybrid may someday need to be replaced. But the vehicle may get 200,000 or more miles before that happens, said Sam Spofforth, executive director of Clean Fuels Ohio.

"If the battery life were that big of a concern, you would see the hybrids paying a penalty for the battery life," Spofforth said. "But you don’t see that, in terms of the resale value."

Proponents say plug-ins will be able to compete with gas or hybrids in five years.

"The biggest factor is going to be how aggressive the automakers and the U.S. government are willing to be in terms of research and development," Spofforth said.

Wondering about ethanol

The choice of the alternative fuel of the future is not obvious yet.

Ethanol is made from renewable resources such as corn and switch grass. In a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, called E85, it fits relatively easily into the existing refinery and transportation structure.

E85 burns cleaner, emits less and, proponents say, would reduce dependency on imported oil. On the downside, it contains less energy per gallon.

Last year, about 12 percent of the 11 billion bushels of corn produced in the United States went to ethanol production, with about 18 percent going unused.

"All that says is we can keep increasing the production of ethanol without any concern of us as a world running out of corn," said Tadd Nicholson, director of programs for the Ohio Corn Growers Association.

But critics say the current corn supply will not meet our fuel needs.

Mark Thomas, an Ohio farmer and drag racer, doesn’t have to be sold on the virtues of ethanol. The five-time International Hot Rod Association world champion uses it to fuel his drag-racing car.

"If you take 10 percent ethanol, it reduces pollution 25 percent," Thomas said. "Just imagine what that 85 percent does."

Just a few stations in Ohio sell E85. That could change if the governor approves legislation that would create incentives for retailers to convert existing pumps to E85 and blended biodiesel.

With or without the pumps, the cars are coming.

Since 2000, General Motors has built 1.5 million flexiblefuel vehicles, which can run on gas, E85 or other alternative fuels.

In 2006, it will build an additional 400,000, said Ed Cordon, regional commercial product trainer for GM in Ohio, Michigan and Indiana.

Meijer Inc. recently announced that E85 will be available at 40 of its stores in Michigan and Indiana.

"If you could get a major retailer to come on board like that, suddenly you could have E85 in your neighborhood pretty darn quick," Cordon said.

Alternatives will have to battle competition from traditional gasoline and diesel engines, which will be made more efficient as the price of gasoline increases.

"We don’t really need hybrid electrics," said John Maples, an analyst for the federal Energy Information Administration.

Automakers already know how to produce more fuelefficient engines, but consumers don’t notice it because the technology is used to boost horsepower rather than fuel efficiency, he said.

"Someday, maybe zero to 60 won’t be quite so important," he said.

Upping the ante

All of this, however, will depend on oil prices, which could drop as production expands from tar sands, coal and other nontraditional sources, said Mike Griffin, executive director of the Green Design Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh.

A complete switch to biofuels would require not only a lot of land, but also a doubling of average fuel efficiency, he said.

Here’s the magnitude of the challenge: In 2004, Americans used 140 billion gallons of gasoline. Last year, about 4.3 billion gallons of ethanol were produced.

The economics for drivers also are not yet obvious. Even at $3 a gallon for gas, it would take five or six years of savings to make a gas-electric hybrid cost effective.

At $4 a gallon and up, however, hybrids really begin to make sense, said OSU’s Rizzoni.

Some are looking even further into the future.

At OSU’s Center for Automotive Research, scientists are trying to adapt vehicles to run on hydrogen fuel cells, which many believe will be the most pollution-free alternative.

A fuel cell combines hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, and oxygen to produce electricity to run a motor. Water and heat are byproducts.

Researchers say they are three times as efficient as internal combustion engines.

That means an electricity source could be as close as the car in the driveway in case of an emergency or blackout.

"When you get home at night, they would continue to run. Just plug them into the house," said Bradley Glenn, a fuel-cell scientist at Battelle.