Glady Reign asked:


The increasing harmful effects of greenhouse gases from car emissions are being felt by almost every country in the world. Due to this, effort has been put to the development of cars that will use alternative fuels for it has been proven that such vehicles would be actually able to help produce less or no harmful emissions at all.

The choice of alternative fuels is great but the efficiency of these possible energy sources is still in question. Problems still arise from the use of alternative fuels to which dedicated companies are investing time, effort, and money to find solutions to. One of the first mass produced cars to address the problem is the Toyota Prius which uses an electric motor to drive the car though in a very limited capacity only. Other companies are also developing cars which will not only provide good performance but, at the same time, help in the campaign to protect the environment.

One such company is Volvo - the Ford Motor Company subsidiary based in Sweden which is known for their safety-first attitude towards the production of their cars. The company has developed a Flexi-Fuel system that allows the car’s engine to work on a combination of ethanol and gasoline. This technology is already being employed by some of their car models available in selected European market. These models are the newly unveiled Volvo C30, the S40 sedan and the V50 wagon. Their fuel of choice is the E85 - the 85 denotes the percentage of bio-ethanol in the engine’s fuel with the other 15 per cent being gasoline. The combination reduces the cars’ emission of harmful greenhouse gases by as much as 80 per cent without endangering the cars’ performance level.

The engine of the cars which employs the FlexiFuel technology has been modified slightly to accommodate the corrosive nature of ethanol. The different components which come in direct contact with the fuel have been fortified to increase their resistance to the corrosive effect of the biomass-derived fuel. Parts such as the Volvo valve cover gasket, fuel hoses and different seals have been also modified for use with the ethanol based fuel. The injection valves are likewise reinforced and increased in size due to the fact that E85 has lower energy content than gasoline. Hence a larger amount of fuel needs to be burned to give the engine the same power produced by gasoline-only engines.

The use of ethanol as fuel is a good step towards harnessing alternative renewable sources of energy but it has its drawbacks. Problems experienced by ethanol powered vehicles includes, but is not limited to, the negative effect it has on electric fuel pumps by increasing internal wear due to the fuel’s corrosive nature. E85 is also not compatible with capacitance fuel level gauging indicators which may result on erroneous fuel quantity indications. Another question on the ethanol’s use as fuel is the manner by which it is produced. While cars which use this kind of fuel decrease our dependency on fossil fuels, the process to produce ethanol actually means having to use fossil fuels.

Whether the decrease in the emission of car is greater than the release of harmful greenhouse gases from the process of producing ethanol remains to be seen. While ethanol is priced lower than gasoline, the ethanol’s energy content is lower than that of petrol which means that the engine will need larger amount of fuel in every intake stroke. This fact poses a question whether using E85 will increase the cost incurred by the consumer on their fuel consumption.

The use of ethanol on a mass produced car is just a small step in harnessing alternative sources of energy. This technology alone cannot single-handedly resolve the global community’s dependence on the fast-depleting reserve of fossil fuels but it is a significant step forward.



MOSHE

Glady Reign asked:


US President George W. Bush outlined in his State of the Union Address his administration’s aim to reduce the country’s dependency on foreign oil. The “Twenty in Ten”, essentially reducing gasoline consumption by twenty percent in ten years time, has received the support of the Big Three as the heads of General Motors, the Ford Motor Company and Chrysler Corp. attended a meeting with the President recently.

Good news for the administration is the use of alternative fuels by large vehicle fleets. The President inspected the alternative fuel vehicles used by large fleets in the United States.

Among the largest fleet in the country using fuel efficient vehicles are the U.S. Postal Service, FedEx, UPS, and the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. These large fleets are contributing to the country’s energy independence by using different types of alternative fuel vehicles on their fleet. These fleets use a variety of alternative fuel vehicles which includes hybrid electric vehicles, biodiesel engines, compressed natural gas or CNG, liquefied natural gas, propane, and hydrogen fuel cell units.

All these technologies are known to be good substitute to gasoline since they all come from renewable sources and have limited greenhouse gas emissions as when compared to petroleum gasoline or diesel fuel.

Among the large fleets in America, the U.S. Postal Service has the largest number of alternative fuel vehicles being used. The 13 percent of the 289,000 vehicles in the fleet represents the biggest fleet of alternative fuel vehicles in the world. Hybrids, biodiesel, compressed natural gas, and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles composed thirteen percent of the U.S. Postal Service’s fleet.

UPS, meanwhile, has the biggest alternative fuel fleet in its class with over 1,500 alternative fuel vehicles. Its alternative fuel vehicle fleet is composed of compressed natural gas, liquefied natural gas, propane, hydrogen fuel cell, and hybrid electric vehicles.

FedEx operates about a hundred hybrid electric diesel vehicles in its alternative fuel vehicle fleet. The Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority or METRO, like FedEx, also takes advantage of the hybrid electric diesel technology. It has already 50 units of alternative fuel vehicles on the road and being used as part of their service.

These large fleets clearly support the Clean Cities Program which promotes the use of alternative fuel vehicles to reduce gasoline consumption. The program is in connection with President Bush’s “Twenty in Ten” goal. The vehicles used by these fleets are as reliable and safe as Volvo S60 parts and at the same time provides the fleet operators good fuel economy.

The production of greenhouse gases is also reduced thereby lessening the negative impact of their fleets on the environment. With the plug-in hybrid still in development, these fleets have the potential to even expand their alternative fuel vehicle fleet.



TONY