Alternative Fuels: Take Two

The Detroit auto show is humming with alternative-fuel vehicles, from plug-in hybrids to diesels.  All a logical response to higher gas prices, tougher fuel-economy standards, and climate-change hobgoblins.

But havenÂ’t we heard this one before?
 

Compliant in New Delhi. (Wikipedia)

The U.S. government tried to jump-start alternative fuels at the time of a previous oil-price scare, under Bush 41. It hasn’t been a roaring success. The 1992 Energy Policy Act sought to boost the use of natural gas in transportation, aiming to replace 30% of motor - fuel consumption by 2030. The allure is that burning natural gas in vehicles produces lower greenhouse-gas emissions than burning gasoline or diesel. But there are big practical downsides: The vehicles cost more, and because the average corner filling station doesn’t dispense natural gas, the vehicles have to refill at special, centralized locations.

Detroit now is talking big about a retail alternative-fuel rollout, but the reality is that in the past, the infrastructure problem has led policy-makers to start small. They targeted the 1992 natural-gas rollout on the 600,000-strong federal vehicle fleet. That law said that 75% of new cars and light-trucks acquired by state and federal governments had to be capable of running on alternative fuels.
 
So what happened? Federal agencies say they have a stellar compliance rate—109% of their new vehicles met the alternative-fuel standard in 2005, the last year data is available. (Government agencies get extra credit for biofuel vehicles, explaining the weird math.)
 
The problem is not all federal fleet vehicles are covered: emergency vehicles aren’t, nor are those that go home at night with their drivers, or those outside metropolitan areas, or more than 15 minutes from an alternative-refueling center. And local government and private fleets were never included—and won’t be anytime soon.
 
Only about 42% of the federal government’s 44,000 new light vehicles had to be alternative-fuel capable in 2005. The easiest way to comply? Not with vehicles that do run on natural gas, as intended by the 1992 law, but by “flex-fuel” vehicles – those that can run on ethanol blends. Some 99% of the 16,947 alternative-fuel vehicles acquired in 2005 were flex-fuel. Compressed natural gas vehicles totaled 187. How many electric cars, you ask? 13.
 
And while natural gas vehicles “are going gangbusters around the world,” says Rich Kolodziej, president of Natural Gas Vehicles for America , a Washington, D.C., lobby, the outlook isn’t too bright at home. The DOE says the lack of compressed natural gas vehicles will further dampen their share of the federal fleet, about 15% in 2005. A lack of nationwide refueling infrastructure (sound familiar?) also makes it a tough sell to replace diesel in the trucking fleet.
 
So whoÂ’s going to be the natural gas vehicle leader in five years? Says Mr. Kolodziej: Iran.
 

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