We talk a lot about the electric engine, plugin capability, and lithium batteries when we discuss the Volt. It is time we discussed another very important aspect of the vehicle, the fact that the combustion engine can run on E85.
E85 is a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline, not the other way around!
Due to the explosion in demand for fuel ethanol, America’s farmers have been ramping up corn production, as most of the ethanol is derived from corn. This year, U.S. farmers are expected to produce 15 billion bushels of corn. This translates into about 15 billion gallons of ethanol. The U.S consumes 146 billion gallons of gas per year, 75 billion of this by passenger cars. So right now we are potentially capable of reducing our gasoline consumption by about 15% through using E85. Also, keep in mind, every barrel of oil consumed produces about 20 gallons of gasoline, and the U.S. consumes about 7 billion barrels of oil per year.
Now, we’ve already calculated that if every passenger car was like the Volt, and 50% of drives were less than 40 miles, 30 billion gallons of gas could be saved per year. Of the remaining 30 billion gallons, we could replace half with corn ethanol, which would result in only 15 billion gallons of gas being needed for passenger cars, a savings of 60 billion gallons of gas per year! This would translate to about 3 billion less barrels of oil per year being needed by the U.S, that’s 1/2 what were consuming now.
If we extend the electric E-flex engine to commercial vehicles, we could reduce oil consumption by 90%. Now that ain’t too corny!!
This entry was posted on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at 10:04 am and is filed under Electric Motor, Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
Apr 1st, 2007 (10:48 am)Bio-fuels do seem attractive and the GM-Volt concept car was specially designed to take advantage of the fuel. After all, it does make sense to leverage the sun and plants to help power our mobility.
Unfortunately, corn based bio-fuels don’t make sense for most of the US. A study by the national labs showed that *more* oil consumption may result once the whole corn chain was accounted for.. but there are other good bio-sources to build on.
Keep marching forward!
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Jun 29th, 2007 (11:26 am)The combustion of ethanol has been found to produce MORE carcinogenic byproducts than gasoline.
Of the 15 billion bushels of corn we expect to produce this year, only a small fraction is used for transportation. The majority is needed in food production. Building a transportation infrastructure that requires 15 billion gallons of ethanol (or whatever number you like) will require 15 billion bushels of corn IN EXCESS OF what is being produced today. Given the current level of agricultural intensity, and the disastrous effects it has on natural ecosystems, where is all this ethanol supposed to come from?
Ethanol is not a good fuel source. If I had a Volt, I’d take out the gen-set and add more batteries to give it an 80 mile range, so no liquid fuels would be needed.
Mar 10th, 2010 (10:42 am)thanks for that