xcel
04-18-2007, 05:17 PM
"The challenge we face is that a vast majority of our customers choose fuel based on cost and convenience… even over concerns such as green house gases." (http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070418/UPDATE/704180488/1148/AUTO01)
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Ethanol_as_oils_replacement_moved_back_to_2030.jpgEric Morath - Detroit News - April 18, 2007
Congress passed energy legislation in 1992 mandating that 30 percent of the fuel used to run U.S. cars and trucks by 2010 come from ethanol, natural gas, hydrogen, electricity or other replacement fuels. It appears that target will be missed.
DETROIT -- Moments after a top Environmental Protection Agency official called on automakers and oil companies to work more closely together to cut emissions and improve fuel economy, representatives from both industries widely disagreed on the means by which to reach those goals.
"The most effective way to lower carbon levels is to take a system approach … improvement can be made to both the fuel and the engine," said Margo Oge, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality. She spoke today at a panel discussion regarding polices and issues surrounding future fuel choices at the SAE World Congress held at Cobo Center.
Considering increases in vehicle traffic, to reduce carbon emissions to those seen in 1990, either the auto industry would have to more than double its average fleet gas mileage to 56 mpg or fuel companies would have to produce 15 times as much renewable fuel as they do today, Oge said.
She suggested that working together the industries could achieve the overall goal of pollution reduction, but lower their industry targets to more realistic levels of fuel efficiency and renewable production.
Four representatives from the automotive and fuel industries, however, seemed worlds apart on whether ethanol, gasoline or hydrogen would be the future of vehicle propulsion, as well as on how future fuels would be taxed and regulated.
BMW AG's Christoph Huss shook his head as Samantha Slater of the Renewable Fuels Association said the nation's ethanol producers would "blow away" government mandated production levels.
Huss, BMW senior vice president for science and traffic policy, said the German automaker still sees hydrogen as the long-term answer to the energy and pollution challenges of the automobile. He acknowledged that hydrogen appears to be losing ground to the biodiesel and ethanol in the minds of many Americas … http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070418/UPDATE/704180488/1148/AUTO01
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/data/501/Ethanol_as_oils_replacement_moved_back_to_2030.jpgEric Morath - Detroit News - April 18, 2007
Congress passed energy legislation in 1992 mandating that 30 percent of the fuel used to run U.S. cars and trucks by 2010 come from ethanol, natural gas, hydrogen, electricity or other replacement fuels. It appears that target will be missed.
DETROIT -- Moments after a top Environmental Protection Agency official called on automakers and oil companies to work more closely together to cut emissions and improve fuel economy, representatives from both industries widely disagreed on the means by which to reach those goals.
"The most effective way to lower carbon levels is to take a system approach … improvement can be made to both the fuel and the engine," said Margo Oge, director of the EPA's Office of Transportation and Air Quality. She spoke today at a panel discussion regarding polices and issues surrounding future fuel choices at the SAE World Congress held at Cobo Center.
Considering increases in vehicle traffic, to reduce carbon emissions to those seen in 1990, either the auto industry would have to more than double its average fleet gas mileage to 56 mpg or fuel companies would have to produce 15 times as much renewable fuel as they do today, Oge said.
She suggested that working together the industries could achieve the overall goal of pollution reduction, but lower their industry targets to more realistic levels of fuel efficiency and renewable production.
Four representatives from the automotive and fuel industries, however, seemed worlds apart on whether ethanol, gasoline or hydrogen would be the future of vehicle propulsion, as well as on how future fuels would be taxed and regulated.
BMW AG's Christoph Huss shook his head as Samantha Slater of the Renewable Fuels Association said the nation's ethanol producers would "blow away" government mandated production levels.
Huss, BMW senior vice president for science and traffic policy, said the German automaker still sees hydrogen as the long-term answer to the energy and pollution challenges of the automobile. He acknowledged that hydrogen appears to be losing ground to the biodiesel and ethanol in the minds of many Americas … http://www.detroitnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070418/UPDATE/704180488/1148/AUTO01