Detroit automakers pledge support for "25x25" Initiative
As reported earlier, the CEOs of the Big Three met with Congressional leaders Thursday, pledging their support for U.S. energy security through advanced technology initiatives and alternative fuels.Tom LaSorda, Bill Ford and Rick Wagoner (right) told Congress that they support the "25x25" Initiative, an effort to get 25 percent of U.S. transportation energy needs met by renewable fuels by 2025. The Initiative is led by the Energy Future Coalition, with support from agriculture and forestry groups.
The U.S. automakers say they're doing their part with the production of flexible fuel vehicles, but said that fuel availability is a major obstacle to meeting the 2025 target. With only about 600 retail outlets currently carrying E-85 , the automakers say the figure will need to climb to the 34,000-50,000 to support the increased production of E-85-capable vehicles.
[Source: General Motors]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Razib Ahmed 12:38PM (5/20/2006)
This is a good news for supporters of green fuel. AMericans should learn from Nepal how to make best use of environment friendly fuel. In the recent days, Nepal has come to the headlines for its political crisis and falling economic growth. However, Nepal's success in using biogas has remained virtually unnoticed so far. Nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world but in terms of biogas unit per capita it is way ahead of India and China the two emerging giants in the world economy. In fact now 15% families in Nepal are using biogas and recently got recognition from WOrld Bank (http://www.southasiabiz.com/2006/05/nepals_success_in_biogas_a_gre.html).
American corporate leaders should act more instead of rhetoric.
"With only about 600 retail outlets currently carrying E-85 , the automakers say the figure will need to climb to the 34,000-50,000 to support the increased production of E-85-capable vehicles."
That's a daunting task and I feel that Americans should visit Nepal to learn how to motivate people.
Reply
iQuack 12:41PM (5/20/2006)
Great news! The auto guys and the bureaucrats created a nice new slogan for everyone to ignore.
When gas prices are high enough to bring currently more costly alternative fuels to market, those alternatives will be there whether there's a slogan or not.
Reply
Rastus 1:16PM (5/20/2006)
I with you Quack, these yahoos (both Detroit and beaucrats) are creating "make work"...this is just another buzz word which sounds great but which is completely empty.
Forgive me people, but there is a difference (quite a LARGE difference too): Japan (Toyota in particular) did not create a SPLASH, they did NOT create a bunch of hoopla, they did not create TV ads....
...they just simply created the Prius!!
That's the difference folks. Quiet self-confidence in the ability to make something better, something TANGIBLE...
...vs AHoles which spew forth crap. These guys are standing in crap up to their ears.
Wow, man, 19 more years to go!!! How long did the Apollo program take from inception to landing a man on the moon??
Reply
matt 2:51PM (5/20/2006)
wouldnt e25 make that goal with ethanol much easier?
Reply
Bob Miller 3:56PM (5/20/2006)
Yeah Rastus, because Ford certainly got it wrong with the Escape Hybrid and GM certainly doesn't know anything about fuel efficiency (read; my 98 Z28 got better mileage on the highway than my 02 IS300). ??
Let's face it, the Big 3 need some help right now, and they need to let the public know that they too sell fuel efficient vehicles.
Why are Prius owners/fans so smug and self righteous?
Reply
Heydn 5:08PM (5/20/2006)
Yea--I mean, I drive a Honda Civic Hybrid and I don't smell my farts... well, most of the time, anyways.
Reply
gbh 5:22PM (5/20/2006)
As Rastus mentioned most things that issue forth from Washington and/or Detroit are just more BS to distract you from the real issue at hand.
If you have done a few hours research, you'll find that we simply don't have the infrastructure or the available biomass to reassign. E85 for even 25%incredibly impractical - no ROI for any of us. Maybe for ADM, Exxon, and the House Of Saud - but we aren't going back to $1.50 a gallon gas unless the Chinese and Indians all die from Avian Flu.
Not to mention the fact that E85 is not exactly a BTU king per gallon.
Hydrogen is a complete red herring - until we can obtain hydrogen from water via electrolysis (or some sort of water-based fuel cell scenario) economically - it is just a very inefficent way of delivering fossil fuel.
Also, hydrogen is just a different climatalogical disaster.The tailpipe emissions are great, but, as usual, that's only part of the story. This disaster driven by all that hydrogen leaking into the atmosphere from hundreds of millions of vehicles, fueled millions of times each day.
Reply
Tom Design 6:10PM (5/20/2006)
As everyone is stating, I'll believe it when I see it. These are the dark side of industry and the men who lead it: The reluctant compliance of low emissions and the denial to address the quality of the air we breathe, cars with high accident cost in crashes under 5mph, mismatched bumper height in cars/trucks/SUVs, denial of rollover issues, recall denial and coverup, planned obsolesence, accountanting cost cuts on engineering recommendations, and employee abuse and union busting. Is the dollar so important? Stockholders are more revered than the citizen and customer.
Reply
goat 7:19PM (5/20/2006)
How about some biodiesel in that equation?
Reply
Phydeaux 9:36AM (5/21/2006)
Ratsass must not have been around with all the hype Toyota had when they brought the Prius to market... nor seen the Toyota ads now which tout their hybrid technology. Nor he does he read the articles which states Toyota plans on creating flex fuel vehicles in 2008.
Currently the US imports roughly 25% of its crude from the middle east... so a realistic goal is to reduce our dependecy by 25% and alt.fuels is one method.
Reply
Bob Miller 10:22AM (5/21/2006)
Nothing wrong with owning a Hybrid car. And yes, the idea that a lot of hybrid car owners are "smug" (Prius specifically) did spawn from South Park (that episode, along with many others, was hilarious).
Frankly, I applaud the technology from Toyota, Honda and Ford and I'm glad to see that GM, BMW and DCX are jointly working on a version of their own.
And yes, the executives of the auto manufacturers and the oil companies are probably downright evil when it comes down to it. But lets not forget, Toyota (and the rest of the Japanese group of car companies) aren't over here in the United States just to help make the world a green, happy place by selling Priuses to wealthy yuppies living in gentrified urban areas. They enjoy hefty profits from Sequoia and Tundra sales too, and those vehicles are just as crazy as the new Tahoes, Yukons and Expeditions when it comes to fuel inefficiency.
Reply
Rastus 1:42PM (5/21/2006)
http://thetruthaboutcars.com/content/1148142465484771235/index.php
My oh My... Yes Robert, I agree wholeheartedly with you. The "truth" is, most fools with a lick of sense can see this grovelling for what it is:
Pathetic!!!
Reply
mike 8:25AM (5/22/2006)
What about Butanol? It yields the same thing as Ethanol fromt eh same amount of bio material but has almost the same energy density as gasoline, it can be shipped via pipeline without any problems (unlike ethanol) and can run in any car that runs on unleaded fuel. Seems like most people are unaware of Butanol for some reason.
Reply
amp 12:54PM (5/22/2006)
Fargo is nothing more than a low self-esteem kook with a blog. He wants to see GM file for bankruptcy for no other reason than being able to pat his own back publicly if it happens. And now that GM has come out with some positive news in the last few months, he has stepped up his bias ranting. Obviously he?s trying to do everything in his power to see that his own self-prophecy is fulfilled. If this Delphi thing is resolved, I can guarantee that you?ll see him redoubling his efforts.
Reply
amp 4:46PM (5/22/2006)
Back to the post at hand. A lot of people see ethanol being promoted by the big three and then make the incorrect assumption that it’s a waste of time. It’s unfortunate that this sort of ‘domestics=bad, imports=good’ mentality has handicapped a viable energy solution. I’m not so naive to think that ethanol will totally replace fossil fuels, but I believe that it has viable future.
There are three big arguments that I constantly hear against ethanol. They are: it’s not widely available, it doesn’t provide as good of fuel economy as gasoline, and we can’t possibly grow enough corn to fuel all of our vehicles.
I’ll give you the third one. There are not enough farmable acres in the U.S. to fuel all of our vehicles and still produce enough grain for our food supply. But is there enough land available to fuel 10% of our vehicles, how about 20%? I can’t answer those questions for you, but I’m sure the fall-out of this 25x25 agreement will include the relevant studies that will provide those answers.
Let’s take a look at the fuel economy argument. Just because ethanol contains less BTU’s per gallon than gasoline doesn’t mean that it isn’t possible to design an engine that delivers the same amount power and torque as a gasoline engine while still providing equal fuel consumption. All you have to do is exploit the fuel’s strong points to make a more efficient engine.
No one is going to argue the fact that E85 has a higher octane rating than conventional gasoline. Then why do people get worse gas mileage with ethanol? The problem is that today’s current flex fuel engines were designed to run primarily on gasoline. So when you fill you’re tank with E85, your engine is not taking the full advantage of ethanol’s higher octane rating. If you were to design an engine around burning ethanol, it could match or beat a gasoline engine in almost any performance vs. economy comparison. With some calibration changes, you could even burn gasoline in that ethanol-optimized engine, but you wouldn’t see the same power or fuel economy as when you fed it ethanol.
Today’s engine designers have to make a choice between ethanol and gasoline. They’re not two mutually exclusive fuels, but compromises have to be made along the way that will favor one fuel over the other. Obviously current flex fuel engines are biased towards gasoline since it’s the most wide-spread fuel available. Which brings us to the first argument, ethanol availability.
The issue of ethanol availability follows the traditional chicken versus the egg debate. Here’s how I see the issue playing out. First, the government subsides the price of ethanol so that it’s cost per mile is equivalent or even slightly cheaper than gasoline. If it costs me 15 cents per mile to fill up with gasoline versus 14 cents for ethanol, I’ll choose the ethanol even if it means having to fill up somewhat more frequently. As a result, more people will drive flex fuel vehicles because they’re cheaper to run. Also, as more ethanol plants come on line, the economies of scale will start to shrink the subsidy on ethanol. Finally, after a decade or more, the ethanol infrastructure will have developed enough so that automakers are able to offer engines designed primarily for ethanol use. These engines will still be able to run on gasoline, but they’ll be most efficient using ethanol. At this point there will be no need to further subsides ethanol because it’ll be mature enough to stand on its own two legs.
There will probably be a lot of people bemoaning the subsidies on ethanol, but in order to get any alternative fuel off the ground, whether it be ethanol, hydrogen, or bio-diesel, will need some sort of subsidy either at the pump or in the research arena. That’s where agreements like this 25x25 initiative come in to play.
With out more research, it’s impossible for anyone to tell which alt fuel will power our cars thirty years down the road. For the next 15-20 years you’ll see a whole suite of alternative fuels available. Some will become major parts of our infrastructure, while others drift to the fringes.
Reply