State of the Union and the Importance of Alternative Fuels

 

SAN LUIS OBISPO, CA  02/03/2005; As President Bush made a brief but important
mention of hydrogen and ethanol in his State of the Union address, there
surely were millions of Americans wondering just what these fuels could
offer the U.S. as it battles a growing dependence on oil, much of it
imported from unstable regions of the world. 

While but a subtle backdrop to the President's larger discussion of Iraq,
Afghanistan, and the Middle East in general, energy dependency is an
interrelated and important issue. 

According to the Energy Information Administration, the U.S. consumed 25% of
the world's oil consumption in 2003 but was responsible for only 10% of the
world's oil production, and held but 2% of the world's oil reserves. This is
contrasted by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC),
which held 68% of the world's oil reserves in that year and produced 41% of
the world's oil. 

"These stark statistics illustrate how important it is that we use oil as
intelligently as possible," says Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of the
Green Car Journal, a magazine that focuses on the intersection of
automobiles, energy, and the environment. "High fuel efficiency cars like
hybrids and advanced diesels that make the most of a gallon of conventional
fuel are an important part of this equation," Cogan adds, "as is a growing
inclusion of renewable fuels like ethanol, biodiesel, and ultimately,
hydrogen." 

In his State of the Union address, President Bush pointed out his support
for leading-edge technology such as hydrogen-fueled cars and renewable
sources like ethanol. The President renewed the strong commitment he made in
his 2003 State of the Union address, in which he pledged a total of $1.2
billion to develop technologies and infrastructure to support the
commercialization of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles. 

Today, with the aid of this government funding, the process is underway with
various consortia of automakers, energy companies, and others now opening
the country's first hydrogen fueling stations and fielding demonstration
fleets of fuel cell vehicles to use them. Still, the transition to a
hydrogen economy that many envision has a long road of research and
development ahead, with the commercially viable hydrogen vehicles that will
help drive this economy a decade or more down the road. 

"The use of ethanol as an alternative fuel to supplement gasoline supplies
is a potentially promising near-term solution, but one not without its
challenges," says Cogan. "Nearly four million flexible-fuel vehicles made by
half-a-dozen automakers are now on American roads, all capable of running on
any mixture of gasoline or E-85 ethanol (a combination of 85% ethanol and
15% gasoline) in the same tank. The problem is, the number of ethanol
stations can be counted in the hundreds, while conveniently-located gasoline
stations number about 170,000 nationwide." The result, Cogan points out, is
that most flexible-fuel vehicles are running on gasoline. 

Considered by many the "auto magazine of today," Green Car Journal has
achieved critical acclaim with 16 International Automotive Media Awards
since its launch in 2003, building on the expertise of 14 years of
publishing the authoritative, auto industry-focused Green Car newsletter.
Excerpts from Green Car Journal's print edition can be found on the
magazine's companion website, Green Car Journal Online, at www.greencar.com.