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Alternative Fuels Still Significant Barriers

Posted on: Saturday, 10 May 2008, 06:00 CDT

The bad news is as close as the nearest gas station: Record fuel prices continue to pinch consumer spending and the nation's economy.

One side effect of the gloom and doom, however, is renewed interest in and research into alternative fuels that could help wean the country from its oil dependence.

Unfortunately, in many cases, the technology behind today's most-feasible alternative-fuel vehicles is still costly or not widely available.

Sam Spofforth, executive director of Clean Fuels Ohio, said that no one alternative fuel will provide the answer to high gas prices or the nation's dependence on petroleum. Instead, the answer lies in choosing among a range of fuels depending on specific transportation needs, he said.

Here's a look at some of the available options:

Natural gas

One entrepreneur hopes that high gas prices will rejuvenate the market for his compressed natural-gas cars and fueling stations. Clayton King, who owns Royalty Enterprises with his wife, recently opened Ohio's fourth such filling station, in Newark.

Natural-gas cars are indistinguishable from their gasoline counterparts as far as performance, and the fuel sells for less than $2 for the equivalent of a gallon of gas.

But try finding a place to fill up. That's key in several of the alternative fuels' drawbacks.

There's only one publicly accessible natural-gas fueling station in the Columbus area. Also, the addition of a natural-gas tank limits cargo space, and the tank holds less fuel than the standard gasoline tank, which limits a vehicle's range.

The cost to convert a vehicle to run on natural gas is about $8,000. Although such vehicles are not widely available, Honda has released the Civic GX, a car built to run on the fuel. It costs $6,000 to $7,000 more than a comparably equipped sedan.

At those prices, it would take several years to recoup the initial investment. For example, if you paid $6,000 more for a Civic GX, which gets an estimated 28 miles per gallon, and you averaged 15,000 miles per year, you would save almost $1,000 a year in fuel costs at today's prices. That means it would be six years before you broke even.

The cars are eligible for a $4,000 federal tax break, however.

That's why King says natural gas could be an option for a company with a close-range fleet of service vehicles. The lower a vehicle's fuel economy, the more sense the switch makes, he said.

Electricity

One of the most promising new technologies, Spofforth said, is plug-in hybrid electric vehicles outfitted with more-powerful lithium-ion batteries.

The vehicles save gas in two ways: With a higher initial battery charge, they run on the electric motor longer, and the battery gets its initial charge from a household current, not the car's gasoline engine.

The downside? Cost.

Ohio Rural Electrical Cooperatives recently bought and converted a 2008 Ford Escape hybrid to test its effectiveness and estimate what effect widespread use of the technology would have on the rural electric grid.

The co-op paid about $30,000 for the vehicle, and an additional $36,000 to have the factory-installed battery replaced with 1,600 lithium-ion batteries soldered together.

"It's not something your average homeowner is going to go out and do," said Bernie Woller, facilities director at Buckeye Power in Columbus.

Still, the research should help manufacturers mass-produce more-economical versions of the vehicles in the future.

Ethanol

Often billed as the answer to the country's dependence on foreign oil, ethanol has garnered a lot of bad news coverage lately because it is made primarily from corn.

Increased demand for corn has driven up the crop's price and, some say, translated into higher costs at the grocery store.

Limited competition has kept the price of ethanol comparable to that of gasoline.

Only about 60 stations in Ohio sell E85, a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline that is burned in flex-fuel vehicles.

Don't count ethanol out of the picture, though. The technology exists to make the fuel out of nonfood sources, such as switch grass and wood chips. Once those techniques are refined enough to make them economically feasible, Spofforth said, ethanol should re-emerge as an alternative to petroleum-based fuel.

Source: The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio

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