The Kansas Lottery has launched a "Truck & Bucks" scratch-card game, the second-chance prize for which is the flex-fuel version of the 2007 GMC Sierra Crew Cab Pickup. Flex-fuel vehicles can burn ethanol-gasoline blends containing up to 85% ethanol (normally abbreviated as E85). The game was developed by the Lottery, in partnership with the 3i Show and the GMC Division of General Motors.
According to a story on Infozine, Kansas's Governor Kathleen Sebelius said the choice of a grand prize is a good one. "By offering an E85 vehicle as a grand prize, the Lottery and its partners are helping promote an industry that is increasingly important to Kansas," said the Governor. "Demand for ethanol is creating a growing market for Kansas grain."
Good for the ethanol industry, perhaps, but of questionable value as a way to reduce gasoline consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. According to official EPA fuel-economy ratings, a 2007 GMC Sierra Classic 1500 4WD (Crew Cab) gets 15 mpg in city driving and 19 mpg in highway driving when operating on straight, unleaded gasoline. Operating on E85, those numbers drop to 11 mpg and 14 mpg, respectively. That is about the same as a Hummer H2 (flex-fuel versions of which will become available starting with the 2008-year models).
Even were the truck to run all the time on E85, it would still burn 61% as much gasoline (in the form of the 15% gasoline contained in E85) as a Honda Civic hybrid would running exclusively on gasoline. That's assuming the E85 being consumed actually contains the full 85% ethanol: ASTM standards for E85 allow its ethanol content to drop as low as 70% during winter months, in order to improve performance attributes.
Of course, in practice, the amount of ethanol consumed by owners of FFVs in the United States is much, much less than 85%, and still in the single digits. It is easy to understand why: besides having to hunt around to find a filling station that sells E85, the "lucky" winner of the truck would (according to the EPA) have to shell out $889 more each year to keep the vehicle tanked up on E85 instead of unleaded gasoline.
One has to wonder also whether the profits from the Lottery will provide a net gain for Kansas. In addition to offering income tax credits for installing E85 fueling equipment (up to 40% of total cost, to a maximum of $160,000 per station), the State Government also pays a tax credit of 7.5 cents per gallon of ethanol produced from plants located in the state.
Comments
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Icelander Posted 4:52 am
03 Jan 2007
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Bob from ALAMN Posted 6:38 am
03 Jan 2007
Let's get this straight -- the pickup uses 39 percent LESS gasoline than the hybrid, and that's supposed to be a bad thing? Look, if many American drivers are going to choose large pickups and SUVs anyway (and we all know they do), isn't it a good thing that they can use a cleaner-burning, largely renewable fuel?
Here in Minnesota (where we have more than 300 public E85 outlets) many farmers, ranchers, construction workers, etc. need those larger vehicles. Sure, I want to see smaller, more efficient FFVs -- in fact, I want to see a plug-in hybrid FFV on the market soon -- but in the meanwhile, what's wrong with making some of the big vehicles on the road (and showrooms) now a little "greener?"
Bob from ALAMN
http://www.CleanAirChoice.org
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Ron Steenblik Posted 8:00 am
03 Jan 2007
The gasoline consumption by the FFV itself running on E85 exclusively (still 61% of a hybrid) does not count the energy required to produce the ethanol that constitutes the bulk of the E85. That requirement is at least 65 Btus for every 100 Btus of ethanol produced. "Largely renewable" might be appropriate when used to describe cane-based ethanol using bagasse as the primary energy input in the fermentation and distillation stages (e.g., from Brazil); it is inapt for most corn-based ethanol.
Let's look at the numbers. On the basis of EPA assumptions of typical miles driven in a year (15,000) and the spilt between city and open-highway driving (55:45), the Sierra's annual (pure) ethanol consumption would be over 1200 gallons -- that is, in addition to the 185 gallons of gasoline consumed. That 1200 gallons costs U.S. taxpayers over $600 per year per vehicle in federal tax credits to ethanol blenders.
Adding the life-cycle emissions of CO2 associated with the ethanol to those associated with the gasoline yields total CO2 emissions that far exceed those from the hybrid. According to an authoritative study undertaken by researchers at the University of Minnesota last year "the production and use of corn grain ethanol releases 88% of the net GHG emissions of production and combustion of an energetically equivalent amount of gasoline." (page 11207) Even using the slightly more favorable ratio (82%) reported by the U of C Berkeley research group, the life-cycle CO2 emissions from the Sierra FFV (again, assuming only E85) would still be 2.7 times those of the hybrid.
Offering a big beast like a 2007 GMC Sierra Crew Cab Pickup as a grand prize is therefore hardly setting a good example.
True, many farmers, ranchers, and construction workers need large vehicles. But most people are not employed in those occupations. And in this case, we are talking about a presumably random draw. According to USDA figures, 62% of Kansans live in urban areas. There is therefore better than a 3:2 chance that the truck will be won by a city dweller.
The technology exists, of course, to build any spark-ignition engine as an FFV. The main reason Detroit has concentrated on large vehicles is because of the generous credit they get towards their corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) when those vehicles are built and sold as FFVs.
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willa Posted 8:02 am
03 Jan 2007
Also, what he's saying about the 15% is that the truck uses so much more fuel than the car that even at 15% gasoline, the truck uses 61% of the gasoline the car would use, plus all the ethanol, and given how much gas you could have made from the petroleum used to grow the corn, it's really a lot worse than that.
I get that people need trucks (I do--I have horses, and the Prius won't haul the horse trailer). But no one needs to drive around town in a truck, or an SUV, all the time. If you need a truck, it seems like it's better to drive it only when you actually do need it, and drive something else (or better yet, not drive) the rest of the time.
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Tom Philpott Posted 9:22 am
03 Jan 2007
Victual Reality
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mihan Posted 4:52 am
04 Jan 2007
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amazingdrx Posted 5:31 am
04 Jan 2007
Fuel farming can never supply more than a few percent of current liquid fuel use. Thanks to the internal combustion engine. Flex fuel is an excuse to keep the gas guzzling going. And delay the electric car.
Fuel farming destroys land that we need to act as a carbon sink in order to stop global climate disaster.
Liquid fuel can be made from solar collector grown algae, algae that absorbs cO2 from power plants. It can easily supply 10% of our present liquid fuel consumption. That is what we would need if serial plugin hybrids with solid oxide fuel cells replace the internal combustion engine.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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