Flex-Fuel Vehicles: is E85 Ethanol Based Fuel the First Step to Beating “Oil Addiction”?

by: Dana Buttenhoff


During the State of the Union Address on January 31,2006 President George W. Bush presented a plan to the people of the United States and to the U.S. Congress to replace more than 75 percent of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025.He spoke of hybrid cars, hydrogen based fuel cell cars and the expansion of ethanol fueled vehicles. The ethanol-based technology is already here, there are already somewhere in the neighborhood of 5 million Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFV) already on the road in the USA.FFV can run on regular unleaded gasoline or a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent regular unleaded gasoline (known as E85) or any percentage of ethanol and gasoline blend in between.

The expansion of FFV is, in my opinion, an opportunity for General Motors and Ford to step forward and show the American people that they can compete by building vehicles that are friendlier to the environment and not dependent on products imported to us from the politically volatile Middle East.

Ford showed off an ethanol-hybrid SUV this past January at the Washington, D.C. auto show, as reported by USA Today writer James R. Healy. This E85-burning hybrid Ford Escape is part of “a development program, not a research program”, according to Ford Executive Vice President Anne Stevens. This means that the American consumer will find these vehicles in showrooms sooner rather than later.

USA Today writer James R. Healy did a cover story on Thursday February 2,2006 highlighting the message from the States of the Union Address indicating that E85 is not the answer because among other things the infrastructure is not in place, except for the Midwest, and, if you do not own one of the 5 million FFV currently on the road you would need to buy a new car that can use E85. I understand these very valid points but I also must say that it is February 2006 as I write this article and 2025 is still 19 years away. The technology is here; we just need to get on board with the new technology now in order to cut the dependency on foreign oil imports in the future.

In his USA Today feature article Mr. Healy noted that Ford CEO Bill Ford states his company will boost FFV production 25% this year to 250,000. Also noted was that General Motors has pledged to build more than 400,000 FFV annually, starting this year. Noting that a barrel of oil is saved for every 37 gallons of E85 that is used.

Mr. Healy’s feature article raised an interesting point: most cars on the road today in the USA require no modifications at all to run on Gasohol, which is a blend of 90 percent gasoline and 10 percent ethanol. By taking the first step of using the 10 percent ethanol blend we, as the American driving public, can accomplish a couple of things. First we can help the environment by burning a cleaner fuel in our current cars. Second we can give the automakers the acknowledgement that the American consumer is serious about alternative renewable fuel. This perhaps would spur other manufacturers to join General Motors and Ford in offering expanded choices in the FFV line-up. Third this would give production facilities time to tool up as well as a ready and willing market to expand into. Fourth this should help American farmers by boosting the price of corn that is widely used in ethanol production. Fifth this would also give more fuel stations the time to begin making the necessary additions to their storage facilities to accommodate E85 fuel. This will not happen over night but instead slowly over time. The next time you are in the market for a new vehicle a FFV may be a viable choice for you.

The manufacturers will build the vehicles that are demanded by the public. If you feel that an E85 fuel vehicle may fit your needs the next time you purchase a vehicle do your research and do what is right for you. Remember that the flexibility of an E85 fueled vehicle does not restrict your travel to only areas that have E85, because it will also run on regular unleaded fuel. To get additional information you can visit www.e85fuel.com for the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition.


About The Author
Dana Buttenhoff has over 20 years experience in the automotive industry. The past 12 years as an automotive service consultant for a European luxury car dealership in suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Ethanol - The True Green Alternative?

By Peter Towler
With rising oil costs and environmental concerns has come increased pressure on the motor industry to develop an alternative and greener fuel to power the world's vehicles. But would ethanol be a viable alternative to petrol (gas)?
Ethanol is largely seen as an environmentally friendly alternative to petrol. It is made from crops such as sugarcane in Brazil and soyabean in the US, and it is significantly less polluting than petrol because it doesn't produce sulphur dioxide or lead emissions and, importantly, any carbon dioxide produced can be offset by growing more sugarcane. Cars in the UK, for instance, can currently run on about 10 per cent of ethanol in petrol, but the corrosive effect of ethanol means increasing levels above this can damage the engine if the necessary changes have not been made. Recent moves by Brazil to export biofuels to the European market on a bigger scale have increased interest in ethanol as a possible replacement for petrol. Since signing agreements with Sweden and Japan, Brazil is now interested in developing partnerships with British and European companies. In Brazil ethanol is widely available and it makes up around 40 per cent of fuel consumption and powers over 50 per cent of vehicles. Having spent the last 30 years refining the production of ethanol from sugarcane, Brazil has now become the largest producer and exporter of ethanol in the world.
The technology for creating ethanol has been around since the 1920s, but production only took off in Brazil in the 1980s when the government looked around for alternative sources in the wake of the 1970s oil crisis and rising oil prices. During the 1980s more than 75 per cent of all motor vehicles and around 90 per cent of cars were run on ethanol. But a drop in oil prices and an end to government subsidies meant that ethanol lost it's popularity for a while. However, rising oil prices caused the popularity of ethanol to rise again a couple of years ago, and now over 50 per cent of new cars in Brazil are FFVs (Flexible Fuel Vehicles) that can be run on either pure petrol, pure ethanol or a mixture of the two.
Brazilian production of ethanol is set to rise over the next few years. In 2005 they produced 282,000 barrels of ethanol per day and the expectations are for production to rise to 442,000 barrels per day by 2010. Brazil currently exports 7,200 barrels per day to the US (who also produce their own ethanol from soyabeans). This, of course, is still a drop in the ocean compared to overall US gasoline consumption. And the question is whether or not Europe and, particularly, the UK will become a new customer for Brazil's growing biofuels industry.
We wait to see if becomes the true green alternative and, of course, how much governments - particularly in the UK - squeeze out of us by way of tax!!

Xlcr (Peter Towler) is the publisher of the blog SaveFuel-SaveMoney with hints, tips and articles about how to save fuel, save money, and save the planet
Ethanol - The True Green Alternative

Ethanol - Its Significance In The Stock Market Investing Realm

In the bid for the world's search for alternative sources of energy as time is currently running out given the current scarcity of crude oil, there have been numerous initiatives by companies to develop the potential of different alternatives to crude oil such as natural gas and ethanol.

Ethanol is a colorless, clear liquid with an agreeable odor. This is the natural component of ethyl alcohol. Corn, wheat, potatoes and other plants can produce starch that is made into ethanol by the process of fermentation. It can be used as fuel by mixing it with the regular gasoline and this becomes gasohol.

These sources of alternative fuels are currently one of the faces of future technologies that are being developed and researched on by many technology energy companies listed in the stock market. These technology companies have been popular picks of long-term technology savvy investors for more than 5 years.

The potential of ethanol has been the focus of a lot of technology companies in stock exchanges most commonly those listed in the NASDAQ stock exchange. The popularity of this resource as a future alternative to fossil fuels has been recognized in the stock market and numerous initiatives for research and development to make this a renewable source of energy has been ongoing for quite some time.

Although investment performance returns from these alternative energy companies may not yet be as competitive as the established companies that are currently in the business of the popular fossil fuels, the technology for these alternative fuel companies may still be a long way of waiting as the issue of having the necessary infrastructure to produce and distribute alternative sources of fuel like ethanol will take quite some time.

Investors that are optimistic on the future of these alternative energy companies believe that the technology will still require longer waiting. Aside from the waiting of new discoveries, the infrastructure and distribution of energy products produced from alternative energy sources like ethanol will still be more costly.

It will also not necessarily be competitive at its initial stages of introduction to the stock market investors as compared to the established production and distribution processes of companies producing fossil fuel energy products.

While the wait for the availability of alternative energy sources to the public may still be long and initially costly, the world will still have to push forward the developments of alternative energy sources as the world reserves of fossil fuels are already depleting and sooner or later the alternative sources of energy will have to be much more of a priority not only of companies engaged in its development but also of the general public as well.

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Ethanol In Brazil: Is it the New Global Energy Brand?

By Daniel Yargin

When it comes to energy, Brazil is on its way to becoming a "global brand." Although the United States recently outpaced Brazil in ethanol production, Brazil is by far the leader in sugar-based ethanol. Its exports are growing, and it could become a major energy supplier to the world. But what Brazil is particularly known for is its grand conversion-moving almost 40 percent of its automotive fuel from gasoline to ethanol.

Ethanol in Brazil is used in two ways: either blended, in a mix of 75 percent gasoline and 25 percent ethanol, or as pure ethanol pumped directly into a car's fuel tank. On any given day, motorists across Brazil can stand in front of a pump and decide, based on price, whether they want to put ethanol or gasoline into their "flex fuel" car engine or whether they want to blend them.

Brazil has now achieved energy self-sufficiency. Ethanol is a part of the explanation, but it would be an error to think that it is the only one. There has been great success from drilling in Brazil's offshore waters, and domestic oil output has increased by 40 percent since 2000-from 1.2 million barrels per day (mbd) to 1.7 mbd in 2006. This 500,000 barrel per day increase compares to 240,000 barrels per day of ethanol consumption.

How did ethanol achieve its prominent role in Brazil? It has been made possible by a series of factors: strong government support, especially after the 1973 oil shock; continual adoption of new technologies over more than a quarter century; and the cheapest production costs in the world.

The Brazilian government made a strong commitment to ethanol in the mid-1970s, in response to the first oil crisis. At that time, Brazil was importing more than 80 percent of its oil. The first oil shock had a highly detrimental effect on Brazil's economy, influencing a significant drop in the country's GDP growth, from almost 14 percent in 1973 to five percent in 1975. A program to stimulate domestic production of ethanol as a transport fuel was embraced as the way to reduce the country's exposure to the world oil market.

This Brazilian effort began in 1975. It was championed as the Pro-Alcohol Program, since ethanol is known as alcohol in Brazil. The program consisted of both public and heavily subsidized private investment in ethanol production, together with governmental mandates to blend the fuel with gasoline and incentives to stimulate the sales of cars that ran on pure ethanol.

With government incentives, pure ethanol vehicles comprised 95 percent per cent of domestic auto production in 1984. By 1988, Brazil was consuming 1.7 gallons of ethanol for each gallon of gasoline.
In the mid-1980s, however, ethanol got caught in a vise. Oil prices fell sharply and, at the same time, international sugar prices rose. Ethanol was no longer as attractive as it had been for Brazilian producers and motorists.

By the end of the 1980s, a sharp fall in ethanol production, together with a prevalence of pure ethanol vehicles, led to a shortage, enraging motorists and damaging the credibility of Brazil's ethanol industry. As consequence, ethanol cars fell from 92 percent of total vehicle sales in 1985 to less than 20 percent in 1990. At the end of the 1990s, ethanol production was back to same level that it had been in the mid-1980s. Today, almost no pure alcohol vehicles are being produced, in large part because of an innovation that has recently helped ethanol enjoy a new boom in Brazil. This is the "flex-fuel vehicle."

The flexible fuel vehicle is a simple technological innovation that has dramatically enhanced the attractiveness of ethanol in Brazil by giving consumers choice of the fuel they can use in their cars.

After 2000, stimulated by rising oil prices and a new initiative by the government to encourage consumption of renewable fuels, the Brazilian automotive industry began to produce vehicles that could run on either ethanol or gasoline in any proportion. The previous experience with the Pro-Alcohol Program had left behind a strongly developed ethanol infrastructure, with more than 90 percent of the country's filling stations capable of offering the fuel in its pure form.

Thanks to competitive pricing for the vehicles and for ethanol, flex-fuel vehicles have been widely adopted in Brazil. They represented 80 percent of all light cars sales in 2006, a number even more impressive considering that they only started to be marketed by the end of 2003.

Today, many Brazilian motorists make their fuel choice based on the relative price of gasoline and ethanol. And ethanol is able to compete without any subsidies against gasoline. This partly is because the government taxes gasoline at a higher rate-the gasoline tax burden is 45 percent of the final price, while the tax on ethanol is only 28 percent. But the main reason behind ethanol's competitiveness is that Brazil's sugar-based ethanol has the lowest production costs in the world-estimated at $1.10 per gallon.

Good weather and high land quality are certainly important factors in keeping down the costs of ethanol in Brazil, but they are not the only ones. Sugarcane has been grown in the country since the Portuguese colonization in the early 16th century, and industrial production of ethanol as a fuel goes back to the 1930s.

The 70-year old ethanol industry has invested heavily in new technologies and processes, and biotechnology is now employed to improve the quality and productivity of the sugarcane species. Integration of ethanol production with sugarcane processing has led to significant gains in efficiency and scale. For example, the cane fiber (called bagasse) is burned to generate electricity, which powers the sugar and ethanol production plant, with surplus power sold to the central grid.

The oil input in Brazilian's ethanol production is minimal, restricted to the transporting of the sugarcane to the processing plant and moving ethanol from there to filling stations. The combination of these advantages provides Brazilian ethanol with a comfortable competitive position against oil.

The success of Brazil's domestic industry poses an important question: Can Brazil go global with its ethanol? Brazil is already the largest ethanol exporter in the world, shipping 20 percent of it annual production abroad.

International demand for ethanol is expected to keep growing in the years to come. The main ethanol consumers outside Brazil are the United States and Europe, which are seeking to increase their domestic sources of ethanol supply. But, at least with current technology, their prospects are constrained.

High volume ethanol exports from Brazil to both the U.S. and Europe are also currently impeded by import duties, though some believe that growing demand for bio-fuels could lead to loosening of these barriers. But what happens to those barriers will be highly political, both in terms of domestic politics and trade negotiations.

If trade barriers fall, Brazil's industry has much room to grow. Even excluding the rain forest and other protected areas, Brazil still has large areas that could be used to grow cane. Only two percent of the country's total endowment of arable land-and ten percent of currently cultivated land-are now under sugarcane cultivation with half of that dedicated to ethanol production.

Advances in bio-technology have substantially enhanced plant types, improving their ability to thrive in a wider range of soils and climates. All this means that there is potential to expand Brazil's ethanol production substantially and make it a major global energy supplier.

Furthermore, expansion of ethanol production in Brazil is unlikely to create the kind of food versus fuel conflicts that can be expected in other developing countries with agricultural potential.

How large a role Brazil will play in global markets will depend on many factors-the ability of the Brazilian industry to expand; the nature of fuel mandates and domestic industries of the large industrial countries; and international trade rules. Brazil's ethanol industry will continue to play a large role in meeting Brazil's domestic energy needs. It also has the potential to grow beyond the domestic market and to create large scale exports-and definitely make Brazil an energy brand around the world.

About the Author:
Daniel Yergin, chairman of CERA, received the Pulitzer Prize for "The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money & Power" and the United States Energy Award for lifelong achievements in energy and the promotion of international understanding. Vist CERA at cera.ecnext.com.

read this! - Unique Fuel Conversion System For Ethanol Power Cars

It is a product of sugar metabolism in certain species of yeast in the absence of oxygen. The process of culturing yeast under conditions to produce alcohol is referred to as brewing. Yeasts can grow in the presence of up to only about 14% alcohol, but the concentration of alcohol in the final product can be increased by distillation.

Ethanol contains oxygen that provides a cleaner and more efficient burn of the fuel. When used in ethanol power cars, it reduces carbon dioxide, a major contributor to global warming. Although burning ethanol still releases carbon dioxide during production and combustion.

The use of ethanol blended fuel is very popular in the United States. One of the most popular is e85 fuel a mixture of conventional gasoline and ethanol. The result is a much cleaner burning fuel that is just as efficient as standard fuels. This mixture is optimized for a combination of clean exhaust and efficiency and will function properly in almost any non-diesel car or truck.

So, what is ethanol? Ethanol is ethyl alcohol which needs to be 100% pure. Ethanol is the highest performance fuel on the market and keeps today's high-compression engines running smoothly. Ethanol-blended fuel (such as e85) keeps your fuel system clean, cause it does not leave gummy exhausts.

And because ethanol burns cleaner, it produces fewer emissions. Today, all ethanol cars manufacturers approve the use of ethanol blended fuels and even recommend to use ethanol for its positive environmental impacts.

The use of an ethanol will allow to increase the performance of ethanol cars in general. Initial tests showed that ethanol may also extend from 20 to 80% the engine's maintenance. The conversion of existing engines is not only feasible, but also cost effective.

One of the most convenient ethanol-gasoline mixtures is called e85 and consists of 85% ethanol to 15% gasoline. Ethanol fueled cars are specially designed to run well as on the mixture of ethanol to gas as on alcohol fuel, moreover, they are able to detect the specific ratio of ethanol to gas and adjust themselves accordingly to run as efficiently as possible. Ethanol cars that run on ethanol can also run on regular gas, too, that's how flexible they really are!

Using flex-fuel converter system AutoFFV, will allow you to refuel your ethanol cars with alcohol, gasoline or a mixture of both E85.

From now you don't need to use only gasoline to run your car as there are a lot of different alternative fuels. The choice of alternative fuel sources is larger today than it has ever been before. Take advantage of flex-fuel conversion system and run your ethanol cars on economic alcohol or ethanol fuels instead of traditional gasoline

Vidar Lura write articles about to operate with ethanol-based fuels, which reduces our dependency as a nation on foreign oil, improves our environment. More info visit website http://www.abcesso.com