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Wouldn’t having hybrid cars run on E85 or
biodiesel solve many problems?
Environmental advocates would love to see carmakers
mass-produce a biofuel-electric hybrid. From a technology standpoint,
it’s a no-brainer: Major automakers already turn out vehicles that
can run on E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol, derived from corn and other
crops, and 15 percent standard gasoline — Ford’s light-duty
F-Series pickups are an example of such “flex fuel” vehicles
— and gasoline/electric hybrids, like Toyota’s Prius, are all
the rage and beginning to be ubiquitous on the roads. Cost, however, is an issue, says Jim Kliesch of the
Web site Greenercars.org. Traditional cars and trucks powered by diesel,
biodiesel, or ethanol cost more to manufacture than do equivalent
gasoline-power vehicles, and gas/electric hybrids also cost more than
conventional cars, largely because their market share is still small and
economies of scale have not yet kicked in. Therefore combining two costly
technologies in a biofuel/electric hybrid would constitute “a double
whammy,” says Kliesch, “limiting the vehicles to a very small
slice of the market.”
Nonetheless, Ford last year unveiled a prototype of
its popular Escape Hybrid SUV that runs on E85. Like the gas/electric
hybrids now on the road, the E85/electric hybrid Escape maximizes fuel
economy by alternating between its internal-combustion and electric
engines, and it never needs to be plugged in because its high-capacity
batteries store electricity generated from braking and other in-car
processes. Ford estimates that if only 5 percent of U.S.
vehicles were powered by ethanol/electric hybrids, oil imports could be
reduced by 140 million barrels a year. Such vehicles would also produce
about 25 percent less carbon dioxide (CO2) — a chief contributor to global warming —
than traditional cars and trucks. What’s holding up mass production,
says Ford, is a lack of E85 fueling outlets — only 1,200 exist across
the U.S. Not to be outdone, General Motors has its own
ethanol-electric hybrid in the works via its Sweden-based Saab subsidiary,
which unveiled a prototype in 2006. The company claims that whereas
Toyota’s gas/electric Prius emits 104 grams of carbon dioxide per
kilometer, Saab’s E85-based hybrid should emit just 15 to 20 grams.
Industry insiders don’t expect to see such a vehicle available to the
public until 2010 or later. With regard to diesel/electric hybrids, though diesel
spews particulates and other nasty ground-level pollutants into the
environment, it contributes significantly less carbon dioxide to the
atmosphere than does gasoline. Biodiesel, a form of the fuel derived from
plants, is both carbon-neutral (burning it contributes no additional carbon
to the atmospheric balance of the pollutant) and cleaner-burning with
regard to particulates. It can be used interchangeably with regular diesel
in most diesel engines. The combination of biodiesel with an electric motor
in a hybrid car or truck would yield one of the cleanest-burning engines on
the road.
GM and Chrysler have already collaborated on the
development of a diesel/hybrid platform that combines dual electric motors
with a diesel engine to offer unparalleled fuel efficiency, but whether
such vehicles ever see the showroom floor — and whether consumers
will be able to even afford them — is anybody’s guess.
For more information:
GreenerCars.org, www.greenercars.org; E85vehicles.com,
e85vehicles.com.
Send questions to Earth Talk, care of E/The Environmental Magazine,
P.O. Box 5098, Westport, CT 06881, or e-mail earthtalk@emagazine.com.
This article appears in Oct 18-24, 2007.
