August 1, 2012, 11:41 am21 Comments
A Glimpse of the Alternative Fuel Future
By MATTHEW L. WALD
National Petroleum CouncilThe red bars reflect 2010 consumption and the yellow bars the range of possible consumption in 2050.
While a variety of new fuel technologies are advancing, policy makers can be assured that the internal combustion engine will remain dominant for decades, the National Petroleum Council told the Department of Energy on Wednesday in a report.
The report from the council, an advisory agency, was drawn up in response to requests from the department for counsel on how to accelerate the adoption of new fuels and technologies, from compressed natural gas to fuel cells to biofuels, between now and 2050. One of the nation’s biggest energy problems is that nearly all of its ground transportation fuel is derived from oil.
But looking ahead to 2050 poses challenges. Imagine making prognostications for 2012 in 1974; could we have foreseen the Prius or the Volt in the era of the Ford Pinto and the Volkswagen Rabbit?
The National Petroleum Council tried to sidestep the uncertainty by saying up front that of all the various possibilities – hybridized vehicles, vehicles running on biofuels or compressed or liquefied natural gas, and battery-electric and fuel cell vehicles – it is far too soon to pick winners and losers.
But at a briefing by the council, one member, William Reinert, the national manager in charge of the advanced technology group for Toyota’s American sales unit, put it bluntly. “Internal combustion engines are likely to be the dominant propulsion system for decades to come,’’ he said. Hybrids like his company’s Prius and vehicles running on natural gas, diesel or cellulosic biofuels have internal combustion engines at their heart, he pointed out.
The panel said that substantial increases in vehicle efficiency were possible but that total energy use was likely to grow because the number of miles driven by Americans would increase by 60 to 80 percent. (Note: the study was based on the assumptions of the Energy Department’s 2010 annual energy outlook, which appeared before the recent downturn in vehicle miles traveled became clear.)
Growth in “vehicle miles traveled” has intermittently faltered over the years as well as recently.
Using lightweight materials, improving vehicle aerodynamics, reducing rolling resistance and making other changes could improve the fuel economy of light-duty vehicles by 50 percent, the group found, and hybridization and electrification of vehicles could have far larger benefits. Heavy-duty vehicles could be made to go twice as far on a unit of fuel, which ultimately might turn out to be natural gas and not diesel.
But the news on another front, greenhouse gas reduction, was disappointing. The Energy Department had asked whether the transportation sector, which includes heavy-duty vehicles, railroads and ships, could reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 50 percent by 2050. Even that number would fall short of the White House’s stated goal of a total reduction of 80 percent by mid-century.
S. Sariq Yousufzai, vice president of Chevron, said the industry was “moving tin the right direction’’ on emissions. Nonetheless, “if you draw a line in the sand that says you must be at 50 percent, we don’t get there,’’ he said. The degree of emissions reduction depends on progress in making fuels from cellulosic sources, or the portions of crops that are not food, and on advances in making battery-powered electric vehicles whose energy comes from renewable or nuclear sources.
Converting vehicles to natural gas would be a step towards greenhouse gas reduction and towards energy independence. Yet even though it has been on the agenda for more than 20 years, it has not been successful so far in the light-duty market, where most of the nation’s automotive fuel is burned.
But another member of the study group, Michael Gallagher, a former chairman of Cummins-Westport, a joint venture
