Reply #11: No one technology is going to solve our predicament. electric cars will take about 20 years to

[JohnWxy]

achieve significant (20% - 30%) reductions of GHGs. Plus electric cars limit will be about 40% to 60% (assuming increased efficiency over the next decades) reductions in gasoline usage and GHGs emissions from transportation. Plugins and pure Electric cars will be limited to about 80% of the light vehicle fleet which is about 80% of the total fleet. That means they will potentially could replace about 64% of the entire fleet (it's possible plugins and electrics may not be cost advantageous for larger light vehicles over conventional hybrids using inertia to recharge a lighter battery pack..this depends upon how efficient these batteries can become.).

The thing is you can replace the fuel (gasoline) faster than you can replace the cars that burn the fuel. We should also import Ethanol from Mexico ( Mexico says they could meet all the U.S. 2022 goal for ethanol themselves(!) using Agaves. This is important as we need to get more GHG reductions in the next several years or reductions in 20 years won't make any difference - it will be too late.

Ethanol is a high octane fuel (E85 = 105) which means it can produce more power under high compression than gasoline. (this is why just compring ethanol to gasoline only on a BTU content basis is nonsense - if we are really interested in reducing GHG emissions from autos and trucks.) MIT scientists designed an Ethanol enabled direct injection engine which achieves 30% improvement in fuel consumption over a gasoline engine of similar power - while using only about 5% ethanol and 95% gasoline! Ford formed a company with these MIT professors to make this engine. It will cost $600 to $1,000 more than a standard ICE engine.

Ford is making it available in it's high end Lincoln MkX model. It should become available in cheaper models but we need more E85 pumps around the country to make it more interesting for the car manufacturers.

The engine is scalable from small cars to large trucks so it's feasible for any vehicle on the road. If all the cars were using this engine you would achieve a 30% reduction in gasoline consumption using a volume of ethanol equal to only 5% of the total fuel supply. (any additinal ethanol would be used to replace gasoline directly adding to that 30% reduction). That's what high octane fuel and super-charging or turbo-charging can do for you - IF the GOVERNMENT WOULD GET BEHIND THIS OPTIMIZATION OF ETHANOL WITH A MAJOR PUSH TO INCREASE THE NUMBER OF E85 PUMPS AROUND THE COUNTRY. This is necessary to interest the auto manufacturers to make this engine available in more cars and in large numbers.

Ethanol won't solve the problem of global warming by itself but it is an important tool in that effort.