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Hybrid Vehicles Hybrid Vehicles - Archived Discussions Will ethanol E85 catch on in the US? Will we Live Green and Go Yellow? 
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I apologize for the length below, but I could not quickly find a link. I received this as a PDF document earlier this week. Print it out and read it when you get a few minutes. Only the second half deals with ethanol from corn. This is an opinion, to be sure, but a convincing one. Vol.1 No. 24 Peak Oil Review June 19, 2006 Tom Whipple, Editor 1. The International Energy Agency Given the tightness in the oil markets, the release of the International Energy Agency’s Oil Market Report (OMR) has become an event that drives oil prices and leads to much commentary. As the IEA only has two weeks to assemble and assess the previous month's data before releasing the report, subsequent revisions to the OMR’s initial production numbers are frequent. Last month, for example, the OMR had world oil production climbing to a new high of 85.1 million barrels per day during April. This month the OMR has May total world production climbing by 445,000 b/d to 85.0 million b/d. This, of course, implies that the last month’s production number was too high and has been revised downward. The May production increase is said to have taken place despite numerous well-sourced press reports of lower Saudi production during the last two months. The Agency also has reduced its forecast for growth in demand during 2006 to 1.24 million barrels a day, down about 30 percent from its growth estimate in January. Over the longer run, the IEA forecasts that world oil demand will rise 37 percent by 2030 to 115 million barrels a day from about 85 million today. However, it has concluded that because OPEC does not appear to be investing as much in production as expected, global oil supplies probably won't reach the agency's 115-million-barrel target for 2030. 2. The Mexican election. The result of Mexico’s Presidential Election on July 2 nd is likely to play a major role in the future of the Mexican oil industry and its exports to the US, currently some 1.6 million b/d. The key issue is how to replace looming declines from the 2 million b/d production from the giant Cantarell oil field. Conservative Presidential candidate Felipe Calderon had been pushing the idea that Mexico's only solution is to change the law to allow partnerships with foreign oil companies to exploit deep-water deposits, something the Mexicans cannot do by themselves. However, he recently has backed off on allowing foreign investment. Leftist candidate Andres Obrador, who is running about even with Calderon in the polls, opposes the policy change and does not want deep-water drilling. He favors building more oil refineries and chemical plants, and lowering gas prices to help the poor. Neither candidate appears to have a policy that will offset the decline of Cantarell in the next few years. Even if foreign partnerships were allowed, deep-water drilling would take years to yield significant results. Mexico City-based industry analyst David Shields predicts Mexican oil productioncould fall from 3.35 million barrels per day to as little as 2.8 million barrels per day within two or three years, if nothing is done. 3. BP’s 2006 Statistical Review of World Energy U.S. energy use declined last year for the first time in 20 years, while the rate of increase in consumption worldwide slowed, BP PLC reported Wednesday in its annual survey of global trends. U.S. consumption fell 0.1 percent, BP said, due to high prices and the impact of hurricanes. The U.S. Department of Energy had previously reported a drop of 0.4 percent in U.S. oil consumption during 2005. Worldwide, 2005 energy consumption growth was up 2.7 percent, down from a 20-year high of 4.4 percent in 2004, BP said. China's consumption increased 9.5 percent compared to a 15.5 percent rise in the previous year, the report said. The report said coal was the world's fast-growing energy source, almost entirely because of China's enormous consumption. The nation, which burns 36.9 percent of the world's coal, increased consumption by 10.9 percent in 2005, down from 14.4 percent in 2004. BP said global oil consumption rose 1.3 percent last year, compared to a 3.6 percent rise in 2004. 4. Energy Briefs •Offshore oil and gas drilling contractor GlobalSantaFe said it has signed a contract with Saudi Aramco to provide four jack-up rigs for four-year terms commencing in the first half of 2007. The Saudi Aramco agreement is believed to be the largest jackup agreement in the history of the offshore drilling industry. •Japan consumes 22 percent of Iranian oil exports and is slated to begin development this year of the largest and most modern onshore petroleum fields built in Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution. Last month Japan's producer prices rose the fastest in 25 years on surging fuel and commodity costs. •Thailand’s demand for diesel is down 9% over the last 12 months. Crude oil imports during January-May this year fell 1.9 per cent to 831,000 barrels daily, compared to the same period of 2005. •China's imports of crude oil leapt 19 percent in May from a year earlier. The Chinese plan to cut fuel exports for a fourth consecutive month to meet domestic demand. The number of civilian vehicles on China's roads rose 21 percent last year to 43.29 million, the National Bureau of Statistics said in February. •The Uppsala University Hydrocarbon Depletion Study Group has examined a crash program scenario for the Canadian oil sand industry. Even in a very optimistic scenario, Canada's oil sands will not prevent Peak Oil. If a crash program were immediately implemented it may only barely offset the combined declining conventional crude oil production in Canada and the North Sea. •There were 101 US ethanol-processing plants online in early June plus 40 more under construction. Ethanol futures prices still climbed from $2.70 in early May to $4.50 by mid-June. (A gallon of ethanol contains roughly 30% less energy than a gallon of gasoline.) Commentary: Ethanol from Corn A Contrarian Investor’s View of the Potential By E. Brian Smyth (Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent ASPO-USA’s positions; they are personal statements and observations by informed commentators.) Ethanol fever is sweeping the land. A boomtown atmosphere has gripped the farm belt, in a manner that has not been seen there in a long time. With gas at the pump stubbornly fixed at $3 per gallon, the time seems to be right for ethanol. Lobbyists are in full battle dress. Washington is showering billions in tax incentives. GM has launched a “Be Green, Go Yellow” campaign. Over 200 ethanol plants are sprouting up all over the Midwest, many financed directly by farmer co-ops and private placements. PowerPoint presentations and press releases now breathlessly proclaim that ethanol can provide 25% of our liquid fuel needs by 2025. The ethanol consensus is so great that it has brought together automakers and union leaders, national security strategists and environmentalist |
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Replying to: markcincinnati (Jun 22, 2006 9:56 am) I, personally, would like to see a transition to EVs even if there was unlimited supplies of cheap oil. They are 3 times as efficient as an ICE, much lower maintenance, potentially much faster than ICE vehicles, and offer home recharging capability, maybe even home-grown recharging. Another plus is that it allows auto designers greater flexibility in terms of design because they can start from what represents a skateboard platform as opposed to having to build around a large engine. I've said it a million times on this thread, I believe EVs are the future. How fast we get there depends a lot on how long gas stays expensive.
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Replying to: seniorjose (Jun 22, 2006 8:21 am) To locate E85 fuel, I needed to search the web and then drive out of my way to fill up with the alternative fuel. I have not done a controlled test yet, but the word on the street is ethanol contains less energy than gasoline, so MPG will be adversly affected. But I am still willing to use it for the following reasons: Ethanol comes from renewable resources. Ethanol helps keep the fuel system clean. Ethanol helps keep the air clean. Anytyhing that will help agriCULTURE (family owned and operated farms) is good... this is exclusive of agriBUSINESS (corporate run farms) which leave alot to be desired. But my original question still remains ... Why is E85 so hard to find? I have been driving E85 capable vehicles for 12 years. There are millions of them on the road today that have never been run on E85. Perhaps the answer is promotion by an energy retailer that has a trusted and familiar name. gearhwed4
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Replying to: tpe (Jun 22, 2006 10:36 am) But you still haven't addressed the range and refueling problem, aside from claiming that it doesn't matter, even though the market clearly doesn't agree with that position. There's no question that electric cars work to some degree, but they don't work well enough to provide benefit to the consumer. The batteries are another barrier, although I presume that R&D related to hybrids will ultimately lead to a solution to this problem. There hasn't been much incentive to spur great leaps forward in battery technology, but hybrids ought to be popular enough to offer the needed kicker. Despite its complexity, the hybrid is a good concept, because it hurdles the main barriers of a pure EV while providing a lot of the benefits. My sense is that hybrids will evolve so that the internal combustion engine does relatively less work than it does today, which will effectively do the same thing. It also serves as a good platform for evolving other products that could eventually use hybrids, such as heavy trucks that run on a combination of diesel/B20 and hybrid technology.
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Replying to: gearhead4 (Jun 22, 2006 10:36 am) We consume around 140 Billion gallons of gasoline per year, and currently produce around 4.4 Billion gallons of ethanol. So total ethanol production = a smidge over 3% of our gasoline usage. I don't have the numbers, but I'd wager that much more ethanol is earmarked for E10 production since MTBE is being phased out as an allowed oxegenate in gasoline. Therefore, you don't have much ethanol 'left over' for E85. |
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 10:43 am) http://www.auto123.com/en/info/news/news,view.spy?artid=63626&pg=1
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Is this a "we're running out of stuff argument or a pollution argument?" The pollution argument seems to be getting us nowhere as the use of E85 seems to be heading in the direction of being insignificant to reducing pollution, to say nothing of the folks who claims there are few, if any, pollution benefits to using E85 in the first place. Ethanol does reduce air pollution to a significant extent, but I agree with you that the oil shortages and prices being set by the dictator oil cartel is driving the renewable fuels position of the United States. We started down this path in the 1970s and got sidetracked by the then presidents who did not want to disturb the status quo. We have now reached the point that renewable fuels delevoped and manufactured in the United States are necessary, in whatever form, to cut our dependence on the dictators oil cartel. This time was coming and now it is here. Costs of the renewable fuels are in a large part, irrelevant. There will be dislocations in availability and prices, of course, that is the normal flow of any business model that uses renewable fuels. But we will not be caught up like Europe that charges $5-$6 a gallon fuel...Europe uses these terribly highly taxed fuels to propel their socialist economies, which we do not. Our democracy does not provide the womb to tomb benefits that Europe had/has to provide. The had to fight the spectre of Communism in their countries for many many years and could only placate many of their openly communist unions by welfare programs that we will never stand for here in the United States. Many monetary raises in places like the Scandinavian countries are eaten up by 80-90% taxes, so they are more interested not in wages but in perks like autos, homes, vacations etc. It sure changed my company's business model for these countries. This is the first time that I can remember in my lifetime where we are preparing a US energy policy custom made for Americans by Americans. It is a unique opportunity to merge many normally opposing factions to generate a national renewable fuels policy. You know the TREE-HUGRs will delay any oil drilling in ANWR, the coast of CA and the Gulf Coast and any other place we discover oil in the USA for decades, ditto new refineries and Nuclear power -- even our wind farm generation of electrical power is being stopped. In some places like New York State US Senator Charles Shumer leads the charge to refuse to allow any siting of Ethanol plants, wind farms or renewable fuels -- purely an obstructionist tactic, yet many upstate New York areas look like urban ghettos, only farm style. The renewable fuels crowd that depends upon growing our way into a better form of energy independence for the current type of automobiles allows us a lot of flexibility but is anathema to people looking to stop any solution. President Carter had the gas rationing coupons printed and ready to go and thank goodness he did not implement his plan...however, it would have fueled the changes necessary to implement a renewable fuel resources plan back in the 1970s. |
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Replying to: tpe (Jun 22, 2006 11:03 am) Which, assuming the percentage is that low, is still a deal killer. What am I supposed to do the other 10% of the time, stay home, or run around my office trying to borrow 500' of extension cords from the building maintenance guys, then wait 6 hours, just so I can go home? That's a recipe for failure. Cars have to suit our needs, not the other way around. No alternative is going to work unless it allows for convenient and quick refueling, or else doesn't need refueling at all. Since we don't have perpetual motion machines, the latter isn't feasible, which leaves us with the former requirement.
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Replying to: socala4 (Jun 22, 2006 11:31 am) Thats why he said "today's EVs would represent a second car" and not a primary or only car. For someone like me the EV1 would have been the perfect car to commute in with, at the most, a mid week recharge in the garage. It would also work for errands and heading out to see friends or family. With a gasser as a primary car that the wife uses for her commute, that could be used for the times when the range of the EV is not enough.
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Replying to: snakeweasel (Jun 22, 2006 11:49 am) In the US, these second/ additional cars seem to be either some sort of fun toy, or else some hauler of people and/or equipment (boats, jetskis, etc.). An electric car with minimal range and long refueling times doesn't make for a very good first or second car for most of us, otherwise they would already be marketed as such. Let's remember -- there is a reason why they aren't being sold today in large quantities. Automakers make cars in order to make money, and they would be betting on electric if they thought that the profit potential justified the risk. They don't see it, which is why they aren't doing it.
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