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He says that a 50-mpg average could be achieved in 20 years with the development of lighter, stronger vehicles and other improvements to auto manufacturing. According to the UCS, a standard of 40 mpg in every car would save more than two million barrels a day, nearly as much as the U.S. imports daily from the Persian Gulf.
It's a start. But oil is an ever-dwindling, nonrenewable resource, and cars and trucks still need to run on something. Is ethanol the solution for the U.S. and other countries seeking to avoid an empty treasury, a decaying planet, and a permanent foreign tether?
A Star Among Fuels
Where Brazil has abundant sugarcane, the U.S. grows a lot of corn. Currently, the corn-based variety now used in the U.S. comes in two main blends. All filling stations in metropolitan areas are required by the government to offer gas with E10, which has 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline, in order to improve air quality.
E85, which comprises 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, is available at more than 630 filling stations in the U.S., according to the Department of Energy, out of a total of about 170,000. Illinois and Minnesota have about half of the E85 stations. California, which is leading the effort among states to promote alternative fuels, will soon subsidize conversions so that gas stations can pump E85, and many other states are jumping on board.
Ethanol -- or "green gold" to its admirers -- has some things going for it already. There are currently about five million "flex-fuel" cars on U.S. roads (out of about 133 million total) that can use E85, and most recent models can use E10. (Check your manual to be certain.) In recent years, major car manufacturers have increased their production of flex-fuel vehicles. Sreekanth Venkataraman, an energy analyst at the research firm Frost & Sullivan, describes the car companies' enthusiasm for flex-fuel models as "a little more than lukewarm," but improving.
To make a car E85-compatible, it needs to be tweaked, not completely redesigned. Among other things, fuel-air mixing and spark-timing are modified, fuel-line sensors are adapted to detect which fuel is present, and fuel pumps and paths are made more corrosive-resistant.
However, older flex-fuel vehicles (2002 and earlier) achieve about 30 percent worse mileage with E85 than with the same amount of gasoline. Newer vehicles appear to be closing the gap, with some current flex-fuel models reportedly having only a 5 percent to 15 percent loss. There are also indications that ethanol use can prolong the life expectancy of a vehicle, because it burns at a lower temperature. (continued...)
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