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June 28, 2005
G8 leaders' cars to use eco-fuel made from straw
I hate headlines like this one. It's just plain untrue. The cars are going to be running on 5% cellulose ethanol, that's not the same thing as using eco-fuel. It's not a bad start, but it's hardly 100% which is what we really need to be making progress on. Of course, this also exposed another interesting fun fact that I didn't know, European engines are only made to handle 5% ethanol unlike US engines that are required to handle 10%, but I know for a fact that last statement is not true universally in the US. The American automakers produce models that don't have the improvements to support any ethanol in states they can get away with it, because it saves them a couple of bucks on production costs. I believe my Dad's GM truck had that problem, it could only be sold in the South where they don't have the notion of environmental laws and it's not illegal to sell cars and trucks that don't use a 10% ethanol mix. Anyway I found it interesting the comment made CEO of the cellulose ethanol that a 5% ethanol based fuel requirement could reduce pollution at the same rate as 20% market penetration of hybrid cars. That's a bold statement, but when I do the math I would tend to think that he's not that far off really,but then if you add in the hybrid advantage on top of that you could easily amplify those numbers to a nice healthy level. Of course we see how the Republicans in Congress are trying to block ethanol production levels so we can remain hostage to OPEC till our dying days. So I'm not holding out much hope that we will get our act together anytime soon. What I found interesting is that this new technique actually is cheaper than oil to refine into a usable form. Which is a profound improvement in efficiency of production and considering that it's made with waste products that we were going to throw away anyway it's an even more exciting step forward. I'm hoping to hear more good news about progress on this technology from our Canadian friends.
Read more here.
Posted by ManDrake at June 28, 2005 4:51 PM
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