For the benefit of people actually prepared to read this para (which may not include lazs2) here is one of my suggestions. Most countries have an annual tax on cars. In America, there are sometimes two levels of tax – a “city sticker”, and the license plate tags. Other countries have different types of stickers eg. “vignette” in Switzerland and France. What I would do if I was in control of government finance would be to zero rate this tax for all vehicles running on alternative fuel eg. E85 and bio diesel, for the next two years and then review the situation and consider an extension. Most people have never heard of E85 because it’s not being pushed and is subject to the same taxes as other fuels. The zero rate would not cost governments much because only a handful of vehicles run on E85. The zero rate would put alternative fuels into the spotlight and (I believe) would encourage take up. I’m not saying that this single step is going to “solve global warming”, before some smart alec (lazs2?) suggests that’s what I meant. It’s one of a large package of measures that govts could take. Remember, vehicle emissions account for only about 25% of man made greenhouse gas emissions. Of course, my suggestion may not interest drivers of “hot rods”, but the vast majority of drivers just want a car that gets from A to B and don’t give a damn what fuel it runs on as long as costs are within reason.
About the most we can expect biofuels to deliver relative to projected liquid fuel demand by 2025-37 or so is 3 percent. A significant breakthrough in cellulosic ethanol or algae as a biodiesel feedstock "might" impact his somewhat depending upon the yields and how the infrastructure is developed. The reality is biofuels will not solve our problems today in the the near (decades) future.
Currently there is a $.52 cent per gallon tax subsidy on ethanol and about $1 on biodiesel to make them cost competitive with petroleum. Improved technology (feedstock) can help and improved demand and volume can help. BTW, while ethanol is 30 percent less efficient than gasoline (leading to poorer mileage) it is an octane enhancer and can produce improved HP which of course is of interest to hot rodders.
E-85 suffers from this lower energy content, meaning that consumers should see a street price $.20 lower than conventional gasoline to get the same value in the product -- which makes it a tough proposition even with the subsidy (see, it is not taxed the same, you GET tax dollars for blending it in gasoline). Even the ethanol industry is pushing more for e-10 (10 percent blend) which is already in 50 percent of our gas compared to E-85 which barely registers. The energy shortcomings are diluted at this level, it's octane enhancements are a positive, and most critically it represents a volume that corn based ethanol can meet comfortably which goes back to the core economic roots of biofuel legislation.
Then there is "fuel to food," concerns and commodities speculation (like you have with crude and refined products on the other side) creating price volatility comparable to petroleum.
Ethanol is also difficult to transport in pipelines (virtually impossible) leading to high transportation costs (rail, barge, truck) and the need for localized production which in turn really needs to come from cellulosic sources.
Similarly, while biodiesel is cleaner burning than diesel (even ULSD) by a long shot it also has negatives like cold flow issues which rule out blends in the B-20 (20% biodiesel) range or higher in colder climates leaving B-5 about the most viable universal formulation.
These are not my opinions per se, but those of The American Coalition for Ethanol, The National Biodiesel Board, Dr. Lee Lynd at Mascoma who just won a MIT sustainability award for his work on cellulosic ethanol, the API and about 8 or nine other sources I have personally interviewed in the past month or so on an issue I have been covering since it was all about ADM moving more corn-product with congressional help. In fact, there is far more similarities of position than difference between big oil and big agribusiness on this issue. Both big and small oil can now get a piece of that subsidy support.
Biofuels have a "role to play" but are not seen as a solution to our energy consumption even by those on the front line of promoting biofuels. Frankly, IMO, that role has little to do with the environment
You want to reduce transportation emissions? Slap a $2 per gallon tax on fuel not used for commercial purposes. Let's see how much will there is for that even with the Prius set.
Charon
