Pathway to Advanced Ethanol: build, sustain, E30-optimized network of pumps, engines

July 26, 2011 |

In Maryland, Advanced Biofuels USA today detailed an action plan for creating sustainable markets for advanced ethanol in the automotive and light duty truck sector.

“The Pathway to a Sustainable Total Biomass Advanced Ethanol Industry,” itemizes six steps cellulosic and advanced ethanol producers could take to build a long term high (30% and higher blend) ethanol market.

The key points of the Advanced Biofuels USA action plan include:

1. The advanced ethanol community must adopt a long term plan to greatly increase the number of North American cars and light duty trucks that can run on E30 and higher ethanol mixtures while achieving parity mileage wtih current gasoline.

2. The advanced ethanol community must have the patience to stick with this long term plan even if the results are, at first, slow.

3. To build a long term high (30% and higher) blend ethanol market, the ethanol community should make clear the benefits of ethanol as a very good primary fuel, not just as an additive.

4. Ethanol producers must work closely with motor vehicle manufacturers and governments, both state and federal, as “First Adopters” to bring “Optimized Flex-Fuel Vehicles” to market using two approaches:

A. Optimized E30 Flex Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) Based on Current FFVs: Test data has shown that existing computer controlled/fuel injected FFVs can get the same mileage on E30 as E0 or E10 with minimal modifications to the on-board computer software.

B.  Optimized E30+ Vehicles: Introduce E30+ optimized EcoBoost and Ecotech engines in limited production, high performance models.

5. In conjunction with government fleets buying optimized E30 vehicles, those fleets (and nearby fuel stations) should also begin replacing aging pumps with blender pumps to fuel all vehicles with blends ranging from E10 to E85.

6. As the number of these optimized FFVs and new tech E30+ vehicles increase, the advanced ethanol community should identify where concentrations of those vehicle are located and work with stations and governments in those areas to get more blender pumps installed.

These integrated initiatives combining optimized ethanol vehicles and blender pumps will create a steady, sustainable growth path that will lead to a large, long term ethanol market where demand increases to exceed total ethanol values in the Renewable Fuel Standard.

The full paper is available online here.

Category: Fuels

Thank you for visting the Digest.