US Dept of Energy Study: Fuel Usage Could Drop 80% by 2050 with 74 MPG Cars

not sure if I will have driving license by 2050

 

I guess my first reaction is why is the US Department of Energy using funds to sponsor studies speculating that fuel usage "could" drop 80% by the year 2050?

Yeah, okay it could....but 2050 is a long way off. Might as well fund a study saying that the Aliens will land and share technology that allows us to run vehicles on good feelings and flatulence. Do we really need the government funding works of speculative fiction?

Could drop, should drop, will drop...that's just great. But that's looking a little too far down the road for me to take any study too seriously. Seems to me there are a lot of variables that no study could account for, it's a pretty safe bet things will be considerably different in 2050 by default, and I don't need government funding to reach that conclusion.

 

If you remember the DOE was founded to cut fuel use, mainly oil. Many of the things it did early on were dismal failures. I'll put coal to gasoline and solar water heaters on the dustbin of history of DOE programs that promised much and delivered negligible returns. This report seems much more within the mission. Now you may argue as many republicans do that the DOE should just be killed, it gets involved in things way outside its charter, and the useful parts like engergy star could be folded into other branches of government.

You can download the NRC study pdf for free. If the US government is going to fund a shift to lower oil use either directly through subsidies, grants, loan guaranties, tax credits, or indirectly through regulation, they should have a road map and some analysis on chances of success.
Transitions to Alternative Vehicles and Fuels

They analyse many years in between Three key dates are used 2020, 2035, and 2050. They also freely admit predictive powers and which items are at risk. This report shows that predictions for fuel cell cars and cellulistic ethanol were overly optimistic in past analysis.

On the scale of waste, fraud, and abuse of a government agency, this does not even rate. Analysising the technology landscape so that congress is informed that the bigger money is going to be wasted or put to good use is an important function of the DOE. The question is really did they do a good job this time, not whether its worth their time. Congress, because of their own special interests will often do things in start contrast to NRC assessments. One of the most political was the NRC finding that the 55 mph speed limit only saved a drop of gas, not the huge amount congress was claiming.

 

Whatever....

But I could of whipped up a speculative report that could of come to the brilliant conclusion that fuel usage will drop with the continued advancement of more fuel efficient vehicles, and I would of been willing to do it for far less than the government probably spent here.

Infact listen up Congress...Fuel efficiency...Good. And I predict by the year 2050 all vehicles will be powered by magnetic gyro Hula Dancers stuck on the dashboard of all vehicles. It's my "Aloha Go!" program.

Still sounds like a waste of time to me.

 

I think you are just reading the head line, instead of the report. Its a long report and has many scenarios.

Download and skim the report. It also has costs and risks of how much tax money needs to be spent to get to the drop in oil use.

Really if you think the DOE should just spend money, and not analyse technology, then I think it should be killed. DOE needs to do more of this and less venture capital.

 

I have nothing against the analysis of technology. But how much analysis does it take to conclude that the arc we are on, is an improvement of fuel efficiency and then make the further leap that improvement will lead to a reduction of fuel usage?

I hope, and suspect there is more to the report than the cursory evaluation of some of it's conclusions raised in the headline and article.

Since I'm likely to be dead in 2050, I really won't be here to condemn the report's foresightedness nor applaud it's correctness.

As far as it's value today? I'm skeptical that it will have much influence on Congress.

 

Well that is the opposite of what the report said. It said to reduce enough switching to alternative fuels is necessary.

Now the super car program didn't seem to move us at all.

Well then at least say you want to kill the DOE.

What do they do that is better for the country than this analysis? That headline did not even come from the summary of the report.

 

AG- Just downloaded NRC report...did not have to pay a fee.
I just signed in as GUEST and said I was private citizen.

 

Yes, I thought I said the pdf is free.

 

"US Dept of Energy Study: Fuel Usage “Could” Drop 80% by 2050 with 74 MPG Cars!"
Really? or we could have just multiply 24.1 average mpg by 3.

 

Oh yes you did say free, my eyes are bad...I am verifying you are correct its free

 

For what it's worth, Haley's Comet is going to be a dud next time too. So that's not a good excuse to stick around either.

I am going through the NRC report. One technology the NRC report did not seem to consider is converting natural gas-to-methanol and/or gasoline. If you add this technology into the mix, it is probably possible to reduce oil imports by 80% by 2050.

In other words, I think 80% reduction in gaso use is readily feasible. This is not to say I actually think we should try do so, just saying we could do so if we wanted to.

As the report points out, it is a lot easier to reduce oil use 80% than it is to reduce GHG by 80%. Reducing GHG 80% means most vehicles cannot use fossil fuels, and all electric/H2 plants must capture and sequester CO2. If we say GHG reduction is the primary goal, then using nat gas in vehicles (as gas or converted to gaso) does not solve the problem. Thus 80% GHG reduction is a harder future to envision. One wonders if it necessary, since the report points out light duty vehicles only make 17% of GHG anyway.

 

Methanol is discussed in G-8, but not used in the body and they discuss but not well why it was not considered but may be important in the future.

natural gas to gasoline is labeled GTL (gas to liquids) and they have it making an impact in 2035. I know there is one new plant being constructed to go from natural gas to diesel in Louisiana.

+1

 

WJtracy,
IIRC the GHG breakdown in the US is ~
one quarter residential
one quarter transport
one quarter manufacturing
one quarter business

As someone who has used conservation to cut my home GHG 90% over the last few years, and who drives a Prius which produces about 1/3rd the GHG as the average US personal vehicle, I'm not too cowed by an overall 80% GHG reduction. Business can manage what I can, and manufacturing can be covered with clean energy. We just need carbon taxation to motivate the other 99% of the population.

 

In 37 years from now, I'll likely be dead and my energy use will be down 100% percent.

 

Not so fast Walter...your electrons left on PriusChat posts will be reverberating around the universe. They will be assigning a portion of GHG to your name for every post re-read.

 

Good summary of GHG sources in USA

 

Yes I know related to the Renewable Fuel Standard there are many small start-up companies looking at biomass to fuels. I put my resume in one place, they were doing wood to methanol to gasoline.

 

We can go to ethanol or biodiesel, but there is that other pathway through biomatials on GTL that is almost the same as natural gas.

Biomaterial like wood/corn stalks/food processing waste go through a digester to produce methane. Or it may go through a enzymatic process to ferment into methanol. There is a new process getting developed that takes land fill gas and turns it to methanol, that hopefully will be more economically viable.

Then it can enter the GTL (gas to liquids cycle). methane goes through steam reformation, compression, then distilation to get methanol.

Once the gas has been converted to methanol it could be added to gasoline, or burned directly if cars could.

Other wise the methanol goes through FTP to create gasoline, diesel, or fuel additives. These facilities are expensive, and really on the spread between the methanol price and the price of gasoline.

According to the report if we start with natural gas and end with gasoline, that gasoline will produce more ghg than making it from oil. That is because even though the process is efficient, it still produces more ghg than refining. Only if you start with biomaterials will ghg be reduced.

It is more efficient to burn the methanol directly instead of using ftp to create gasoline, and that produces fewer ghg. It would require that we have cars capable of burning methanol blends. Supposedly from past studies this would only cost $100-$200 / car. If we got to the point of averaging 50% methanol M50(methanol has half the energy of gas, half methanol half gas would have 75% of the energy), you need 1/3 more M50 to go the same distance, but the price should be lower than gasoline or E10 to go that same distance. M50 would use 1/3 less oil in the same cars we use today. It would require congress pass the open fuel standards law, which would have automakers make cars compatible with M85/E85 and lower blends of methanol, but that is opposed by the ethanol lobby, hydrogen lobby, and the koch brothers. Car makers are already making cars that could handle this for brazil and china.

The fear that the hydrogen and ethanol lobby want to spread is that if you make methanol the fuel of choice it will be made with natural gas or coal instead of renewably. That will not reduce ghg. This is absolutely true, but the question is how much do you want to pay for lowered ghg?