1
Introduction
Since the beginning of 2006 sustainability has been on the agenda of many governments
and the automotive sector. On many fronts there have been efforts to lower CO2 emissions,
ranging from downsizing, to hydrogen, electrical power plants and biofuels. OEM’s and
Governments have recently started to slowly synchronize their efforts to achieve lower GHG
emissions by matching policy to the speed of innovation in the sector. Instead of moving
large amounts of grants and subsidies for a ‘winning’ technology there is a more CO2
performance driven policy, where OEM’s try to achieve tail-pipe CO2 targets, regardless of
the technology and carbon intensity of the fuel of energy carrier they use.
Parallel to this target approach, governments concern themselves with a broad approach to
define criteria for sustainable energy sources. The main effort in this field is the introduction of
the Renewable Energy Directive (RED) by the EU. The RED is a broad directive stating a 20%
renewable energy goal with a clear statement on criteria of sustainability to avoid creating a
solution that might cause a whole set of new problems.
These kind policies give OEM’s a wide spectrum of technology choices to achieve these
goals. Parallel to OEM efforts the fuel industry is responding by ensuring that their biofuels
meet the RED criteria.
Situation
The FIA has started various initiatives to make motorsport more sustainable.
Via various powertrain committees and the FIA Institute, sustainability has
begun to be an integral part of motorsports. The main focus has been:
downsizing and climate neutral events.
Challenge
How can the FIA further develop sustainability in motorsports with a minimal
effort and within an existing cost framework?
Solution
With a clear and effective downsizing strategy in place, the next step is
exploration of sustainable biofuels in certain FIA Championships.
In this proposal we make a case for the use of sustainable biofuels in the FIA World Rally
Championship and/or it’s supporting series. We will consider the global impact of sustainable
biofuels, the technical aspects and effects on powertrains and make a concrete proposal.
1
2
Biofuels and their (global) sustainability
Alcohol fuels have the potential to begin the alleviation of the effects of climate change
which are due to transportation in a shorter time. Largely, this is because the internal
combustion engine has the ability to burn many types of fuel, and alcohol fuels in particular
can be made by many different methods with varying degrees of benefit in terms of reduced
carbon intensity (i.e. fossil CO2 release avoided) and from feed stocks which are available
within national borders.
To date alcohol fuel has chiefly been introduced to the mass fleet in the form of ethanol.
Ethanol is traditionally made via biological processes from biomass feed stocks. Some nations,
such as Brazil, are better suited to the mass manufacture of ethanol, and have better
production-to-consumption ratios than others. Indeed, Brazilian ethanol is made in such
quantities that it can be exported for sale in other markets. Such ethanol is made using a ‘first
generation process’ from sugar cane and, because of the geographical situation in Brazil,
has a very low fossil carbon intensity. Brazil also has policies in place to avoid excessive land
use change arising from the production of alcohol, an important consideration when looking
at the long-term effect of supplying renewable alcohol fuel.
Most other nations cannot produce first-generation ethanol as efficiently as Brazil, and so the
carbon intensity and rate of energy return of other first-generation routes is often not as good
as that found there.
Unfortunately, manufacture of ethanol from
biomass feedstock is constrained by a
‘biomass limit’. This is different for each
country, and depends on the amount of
biomass that can be grown there, the
amount of energy required by the country,
any impact of land-use change that may
arise and limits set by any impact on the
food chain. Generally, for countries in the
West, the amount of biomass that can be
converted to energy use is very constrained,
and globally the biomass limit is believed to
exist at around 30% of transport energy
required.
Conclusion
Production of ethanol is technically feasible but restrained by a ‘biomass
limit’. In order to scale up this limit must be resolved.
2
2.1
Beyond the biomass limit: ternary blends of gasoline, ethanol and methanol
As well as ethanol, among the light alcohol fuels, methanol has been extensively investigated
as a transportation fuel, with one particularly successful (from a technical point of view) highprofile trial of high-blend methanol conducted in California in the 1980s and 1990s.
Importantly, its findings did eventually lead to an acceptance of ethanol as a high-blend
fuel, and the technology developed for flex-fuelling between gasoline and methanol was
directly-transferable to the flex-fuel gasoline/ethanol vehicles now in production.
It is well known that methanol and ethanol
are miscible both with each other and
separately with gasoline. Methanol is often
used to denature ethanol in order to make it
unsuitable for human consumption and both
have separately been used as high-blend
fuels with 15% gasoline – so-called M85 and
E85, respectively.
Regardless of its manufacturing process, and as noted above, there is a ‘biomass’ limit with
biologically-made ethanol (or ‘bioethanol’). However, various governments around the world
wish to promote such ethanol as a transport fuel for energy security and greenhouse gas
(GHG) emissions reduction effects; an example is that with the US Energy Independence and
Security Act of 2007 [12], the US has mandated that by 2022, a total of 31 million US gallons of
fuel be bioethanol, of which only 15 million gallons be from ‘1st Generation’ processes (i.e.
those which use the food component of a feedstock for fuel production), with the balance
being made from ‘2nd Generation’ ignocellulosic processes (i.e. utilising non-food parts of
crops, municipal waste etc.). While such 2nd Generation processes will permit much larger
amounts of ethanol to be produced, there is still an upper limit of suitable feedstock.
It is desirable to find means of extending the amount of renewable fuel that can be
introduced for both energy security and GHG emissions reasons. This can be done by
extending the biomass limit for biofuel that can be used in FlexFuel cars and that can be
achieved by GEM Blend Fuel.
GEM Fuel is a ternary blend where: Gasoline (G), Ethanol (E) and Methanol (M) are mixed in
percentages to achieve higher power output and lower GHG emissions. From a technical
point of view a FlexFuel responds in a similar way to E85 as to various GEM Blends. This
(vehicle) ability creates and opportunity to go beyond the biomass limit by increasing the
amount of methanol. Why?
The fact that methanol can be synthesized from almost any feed stocks containing carbon
and hydrogen ensures that there is no ‘biomass limit’ for this fuel (unlike ethanol). Methanol
can be made from coal, natural gas, glycerine, wood waste, or indeed any of the feed
stocks used for ethanol (mostly with higher energetic and conversion efficiency); it can also
be synthesized from carbon mon- or dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen, ensuring effectively
limitless (low CO2) feed stock availability.
Conclusion
The potential feed stock availability for GEM Blend is thus vast and while it is
desirable that methanol be made from a low-CO2-emissions process, any
such methanol could be blended with gasoline and ethanol as a fuel.
3
3
Alcohol Fuels: Markets and Policies
When the effort for decarbonizing mobility surged in 2006, one of the first the concepts was
biofuels. OEM’s and oil companies jumped on the subject, rapidly developing new biofuels.
These so- called 1st generation biofuels came under scrutiny because of some inherent flaws:
They were expensive to produce
They were putting too much strain on natural resources reserved for food production
The first attempt to use biofuels for decarbonizing mobility was halted. Both the biofuel
industry and the governments across the world started work on a sound framework of policies
and solutions to make biofuels work.
3.1
Europe
EU biofuels policy is based on the 2009 Renewable Energy Directive (RED). Agreed in January
2009, the Renewable Energy Directive (2009/28/EC), or RED, introduced a target of 10% of
renewable energy in the EU transport sector. Due to the limited progress achieved under the
previous Biofuels Directive, the target of this Directive was made mandatory, and therefore
legally binding. Member states issued National Renewable Energy Action Plans detailing how
they will achieve their targets in 2020.
The RED is a revolutionary piece of legislation,
which will shape the future biofuel policies of
the EU member states. It will establish the
necessary investor confidence that will play
a major role in the development of the
European biofuel industry. It is the necessary
prerequisite to bring advanced Biofuels to full
commercialisation.
Furthermore, this Directive contains an unparalleled and comprehensive list of requirements
to guarantee that only biofuels produced in a sustainable manner are allowed in the EU
energy mix:
Emission savings: To be allowed to count towards the target, biofuels must provide a
35% GHG emissions savings compared to fossil fuels. This threshold will rise to 50% as of
2017, and to 60% as of 2018 for new plants;
No raw material from sensitive areas to be used (no-go areas): land with high carbon
stock (old forest, grasslands, protected areas), wetlands and continuously forested
areas;
Direct land use change effects included in GHG calculation;
Bonus for crops originating from idle/degraded land;
EU biofuels must meet cross compliance environmental rules, part of the Common
Agricultural Policy (CAP);
Social criteria: the European Commission will report on food availability, compliance
with land-use rights and with international labour conventions;
Indirect Land Use Change (ILUC): At the end of 2010 the European Commission will
present a report explaining how the issue should be addressed.
This framework provides a clear and stable environment for the development of a new
generation of biofuels that will support further GHG reduction.
4
3.2
Worldwide
The current global volume of FFV’s is about 22.6 million vehicles and rapidly growing
supported by government policies such the RED and OFS. Leading markets are: Brazil (12.5
million), the United States (9.3 million), Canada (more than 600,000) and Europe, led
by Sweden (216,975).
Over recent years, the US has, through Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFÉ) regulations,
encouraged manufacturers in the production of so-called flex-fuel vehicles capable of
operating on gasoline or E85 or any mixture of the two. There are issues of fuel availability for
these cars which the US Energy Independence and Security Act have mandated.
The Open Fuel Standard Act (OFS) increases this effort
even further. Introduced to US Congress in May 2011, OFS
is intended to promote a massive adoption of flex-fuel
vehicles capable of running on ethanol or methanol. The
bill requires that 50 percent of automobiles made in 2014,
80 percent in 2016, and 95 percent in 2017, would be
manufactured and warranted to operate on nonpetroleum-based fuels. Effectively resulting in an annual
sale of 8 million FFV’s in 2014 to 15 million in 2017.
All flex-fuel vehicles are capable of running on any binary fuel blend with a stoichiometric AFR
between that of gasoline (14.7:1) and E85 (9.7). So any blend within this AFR can run in a
FlexFuel car greatly improving performance and carbon footprint.
Conclusion
Effective policies are in place in the world making sure that alcohol fuels are
sustainable and market volumes grow.
The FlexFuel technology has demonstrated that, within its AFR limit, it can
handle all alcohol fuels and thereby opening up the possibility for a wide
range of feedstock’s that further de-carbonize transport and reduce GHG
emissions. Policies here are also in place to make sure that volumes of FFV’s
in the market are increasing rapidly.
In short: after biofuels had a rough start in the early days the industry has done its homework
and after a few years is gearing up towards a second generation of biofuels. Worldwide
policies on Renewable Energy create stable platforms for OEM’s and the biofuel industry.
5
4
Biofuels and their technical ability
There are various ways to propel a vehicle and for every way one can do this there is energy
needed. This energy must somehow be carried inside the vehicle and to do this there
different options. Every form of energy and/or fuel has its own energy performance and
technical performance: alcohol fuels have some clear advantages compared to other
energy sources.
4.1
The energy performance of (alcohol) fuels
Generally, the light alcohols are extremely good fuels for, in particular, spark-ignition (SI)
engines. They can also be burned, either with modification to the engine or with an ignition
enhancer (or both), in diesel engines. Most of the benefits of alcohols in SI combustion
systems arise from the high octane numbers and octane sensitivity that they possess, coupled
to the very high latent heat in relation to gasoline. This in turn is compounded by the low
stoichiometric AFR they possess.
Whilst the partially-oxidized state of alcohols reduces their energy density relative to gasoline
and diesel, methanol and ethanol give on-board gravimetric vehicle energy storage
capacities which are more than two to three times greater than that of hydrogen and more
than 15 to 20 times greater than state-of-the-art batteries, as shown in this graph:
On a conceptual level in decarbonizing or sustaining transport, the key issue is carrying as
much sustainable energy in the vehicle to get you from A to B. Energy density is key!
6
Next to an optimal energy density, the cost of achieving this energy density is very important.
Consumers and OEM’s alike are simply not willing to make large financial sacrificies to optain
the maximum energy density.
Their miscibility with gasoline and each other
means that alcohol blends can be
contained within the vehicle in a single
easily-packaged liquid fuel system at a
minimal on-cost compared with hydrogen
storage and battery systems. Additionally,
internal combustion engines provide lowcost vehicle powertrains. The US DoE cost per
unit power target for fuel cells is $50/kW. The
fuel economy potential of internal
combustion engine / hybrid systems may
improve significantly at US$50 / kW.
The manufacture of internal combustion
engines and their fuel systems places low
demands on scarce materials – they are
made from cheap, abundant raw materials
at concomitantly low costs and contain low
embedded energy levels.
Conclusion
4.2
Alcohol fuels contain an effective and (cost) efficient energy density and
are therefore very suitable as a sustainable fuel in transport. Combined with
the minimal energy level and costs involved with producing vehicles with
combustion engines, alcohol fuel are cost effective means of decarbonizing
mobility
The technical performance in internal combustion engines
The potential of alcohols as fuels for the internal combustion engine was noted as early as
1907 in the literature. Because it can be synthesized from a wide range of renewable and
alternative fossil-based feed stocks methanol was the subject of many studies during the oil
crises of the 1970s and 1980s. More recently the focus has shifted to ethanol made from
biomass. Both alcohols are liquid fuels which can be stored in low-cost fuel systems. They also
have the enormous advantage of being miscible with gasoline so that a single vehicle fuel
system can be used and an infrastructure relatively similar to that which exists currently can
be used to distribute them.
Unusually for ‘alternative’ fuels, ethanol and methanol have the potential to increase engine
performance and efficiency over that achievable with gasoline. This is due to a variety of
factors:
-
including their higher octane rating,
heat of vaporization,
flame speed,
energy per unit mass of air,
molar ratio of products to reactants,
heat capacity of combustion products due to a high ratio of triatomic to diatomic
molecules.
7
8
So increased torque and power when correctly applied, alcohol fuels give these higher
performance figures by their unique characteristics:
The higher heats of vaporization of methanol and ethanol, combined with their low
values of stoichiometric air fuel ratio (AFR), lead to high degrees of cooling of the
cylinder charge as the fuel evaporates.
In addition to increasing intake charge density this has an appreciable effect on
reducing the propensity of the engine to knock and is a supplementary effect to that
of the high octane numbers of the fuels.
This enhanced knock resistance of methanol and ethanol
makes them especially well-suited to pressure-charged
engines where improvements in fuel economy achieved
by ‘downsizing’ may be compromised when using
gasoline by the requirement to use a relatively low
compression ratio to avoid excessive knock at high loads.
The lower exhaust temperatures obtained, using alcohol fuels, also reduces the requirement
for component protection over-fuelling. Low-carbon-number alcohols give inherently low
particulate emissions, particularly methanol which has no carbon-carbon bonds.
There are secondary benefits in relation to lower flame temperature (which reduces wall heat
losses), a higher ratio of products to reactants (leading to higher pressures during the
expansion stroke) and in particular a high laminar flame speed. This latter property permits
operation with high proportions of diluents, which in turn extends the knock limit further. There
is significant scope to improve the thermal efficiency of engines optimized to burn high
alcohol concentrations to levels beyond those which diesel engines currently attain, while
maintaining the significant cost advantages of spark-ignition engines and their exhaust gas
after-treatment systems.
In a future transport energy economy where well-to-wheels energy efficiency is a key
criterion, the clear benefit of only synthesizing alcohols is plainly apparent: they will require
less energy to create and will provide higher thermal efficiency in use.
Conclusion
Alcohol fuels have great characteristics when used in (pressured) SI
engines:
High RON and MON
High heats of vaporization (contributing to high RON and increased
charge density) lead to higher power outputs
Lower heat loss in the combustion process due to lower burned gas
temperatures (due higher ratio of tri-atomic to diatomic molecules in
the combustion products)
Small thermodynamic benefits due to ratio of number of moles of
combustion products to number of moles of reactants.
These benefits can be used in two directions:
1. To further increase the power output within the FIA WRC engine rules and reduce
GHG emissions
2. To improve the FIA WRC downsizing strategy even further by reducing engine size
while maintaining overall power output of the engine and reducing GHG even further.
9
5
Alcohol fuels and their role in motorsports
We are not the first ones to discover the possibilities of alcohol fuels in racing, there many
people who did this before. In numerous motorsport series, countries, races, crews and ASN’s
the use of alcohol fuels is well known or being explored. Some interesting references:
WTCC
From 2009 onwards WTCC runs a small percentage
of second generation alcohol fuels for their petrol
engines.
ALMS
As the worlds only major motorsports series to blend
real-world automotive technologies and alternative
energies, the ALMS has a progressive stance on the
role motorsport has to play. ALMS regulations
currently allow for five forms of alternative energy –
E10, E85, sulphur-free diesel, isobutanol and hybrid
technologies.
A Nielsen survey conducted for ALMS showed an
increased enthusiasm of the American Le Mans
Series’ audience for new technologies as they make
their public debuts.
The survey also found that ALMS fans wanted car
manufacturers to be innovative and were willing to
be early adopters; 90 percent said it was
important/very important for car manufacturers to
develop technology through racing, and a majority
(52 percent) were willing to pay premium for that
technology.
IRL
Since 2006 the IRL is using Ethanol in various blends
as their fuel. For the 2006 season, the fuel was a
90%/10% mixture of methanol and ethanol. Starting
in 2007, the league advertised "100% Fuel Grade
Ethanol", the first competitive series to utilize
renewable fuel in the US. The mixture is actually 98%
ethanol and 2% gasoline for races held in the United
States. Prior to 2006, the fuel used was methanol but
not from bio-sources.
10
V8 Supercars
In 2009 V8 Supercars switched to Sucrogen E85 and
have been running the complete field of V8’s ever
since.
NASCAR
Started using E15 at the start of the 2011 season,
meeting their sustainable targets and improve
performance.
Le Dakar
Le Dakar has invited constructors to join the
competition by creating a category reserved for
vehicles running on alternative fuels. Some
competitors have already made this choice for
2011: their undertaking will serve as an example for
the forthcoming years.
So some references to the use of alcohol fuel have been made in the world of motorsports,
they provide a knowledge base for technical, policy and marketing aspects of the use of
sustainable fuels.
5.1
FIA and The FIA Institute
The FIA has taken steps in creating low carbon motorsports and have adopted a clear stand
on energy efficient motorsports mainly based upon a downsizing strategy. In 2009 the FIA
Commission for Environmentally Sustainable Motorsport stated in its policy: “Motor sport must
move from a power per unit of a combination of one or more of: swept volume/RPM/boost
pressure/sonic orifice diameter, as a basis for engine performance regulation, to one of
’efficiency base competition’ This would automatically put the technical emphasis on energy
efficiency, and enable all efficiency technologies to be embraced. This approach,
combined with appropriate fuels, will also minimise the emissions of CO2. In order to enable
the public to easily understand this efficiency concept applied to motor sport, it is also
necessary to limit the amount of fuel/energy consumed by a competitor during a race. For
reasons of the cost of development, technologies may need to be restricted depending on
the nature of a given championship/series. “.
The latest development is the approval of the FIA to use GEM Fuel in the 2013 Junior WRC,
where they stand to explore and learn this future sustainable fuel as an effort to make the
sport future proof and long lasting.
Kind regards.
Edward Goossens
11
12