The Oak Ridge Laboratory concluded that biomass could produce 30% (corrected on edit) of our total fuel requirements
(once cellulosic ethanol becomes fully exploited). It will take a couple decades for plug-in hybrids to
make much of an impact on the demand for gasoline
(probably 12 to 15 years to get to 3%-3.5% of total demand - where ethanol is right now). The rate at which gasoline is rising in price will put us into a depression unless we replace
gasoline with another fuel. This does not need to be 100% replacement.
A Merril Lynch commodities strategist has said that ethanol being available has kept the price of gasoline down about 15%. This means that when gasoline hit $4.10 a gallon, without ethanol it would have been $4.70 a gallon. This is because of something called the Demand Elasticity for gasoline. (Actually, I don't know if it would
have hit $4.70 because I think the drop in demand would have been enough to stop it before it got that
high. But I think we would have been going into a depression as a result (probably around $4.40 - $4.50
would have been enough to do it.) Ethanol is needed to hold down the price of gasoline so we do not go
into a depression before the plug-ins and fuel cells can be widely adopted.
Getting back to how much ethanol is needed to have a given impact, ethanol is a high octane fuel
(113 vs high test gas at 92-93) and as such, can be used in highly pressurized engines (using turbo-
charging or super-charging). Ford has formed a company with three MIT scientists who designed an
ethanol enabled direct injection engine
which achieves 25% to 30% better gas mileage while only using only 5% ethanol with 95% gasoline. This is possible because the engine produces so much power it can be downsized about 50%.
Plus this engine can be made for $600 to $1,000 more than a typical ICE engine currently being
used in cars now. Ford expects to introduce this engine in 2010.
Note: If all the cars and light trucks on the road were using this engine we could achieve 25% to 30% reduction in total gasoline demand WITH A QUANTITY OF ETHANOL EQUALLING ONLY 5% OF THE TOTAL FUEL SUPPLY.
We should be producing that much ethanol in 2 years or less - just in time for the ethanol direct injection engines introduction!
Note that GM has started talks with Ford about sharing engines. GM needs something to
sustain adequate sales until the Volt starts selling 'in numbers' and bringing in cash. I think GM would like to
get its hands on Ford's ecoBoost Engine (that's what they call the ethanol enabled direct injection engine).
from the article about the direct injection ethanol enabled engine:
"To actually affect oil consumption, we need to have people want to buy our engine, so our work also
emphasizes keeping down the added cost and minimizing any inconvenience to the driver."
- Daniel Cohn, MIT senior research scientist and CEO of EBS
Now if the Oak Ridge Laboratory is right and we can produce 30% (corrected on edit) of our fuel requirements from biomass
and 5% (as a percent of the total fuel requirement) went to use as E85 in the direct injection engine then
25% (as a % of the total fuel requirement) would be available for blending with the gasoline. That would
result in 25% - 30% gas savings by using the direct injection engine plus 25% savings by blending the rest
of the ethanol with gasoline for a total gasoline demand reduction of 50% to 55%.
NOTe I checked to article re Oak Ridge estimate - ORL said we could produce 1/3rd of our CURRENT requirements and
30% of future requirements. see
http://www.ornl.gov/info/press_releases/get_press_release.cfm?releasenumber=mr20050421-01 I shouldn't work on memory - not reliable. sorry. total savings then would be 50% -55%__JW