GM is so confident of ethanol based fuels taking over that it’s expecting half of its fleet in the U.S. to be running on the clean fuel by as early as 2012, according to a report by the Associated Press. The report claimed that GM North America President Troy Clarke confirmed there would be 11 ethanol-capable vehicles on the market by the end of the year and 15 by the end of 2009.
The number of fuel stations stocking ethanol and ethanol blended fuels is set to rise in coming years. Last month, biofuel company Coskata, which incidentally is part owned by GM, said it will be opening a commercial plant to mass produce cellulose-based ethanol by late 2010. Coskata actually sources its ethanol from garbage, which you can read about in our earlier story by clicking here.
Reader Comments
Thu Feb 7 2008 2:59 PM
germandude says
This whole ethanol story only distracts from what is important: hydrogen or electrically powered vehicles.
Thu Feb 7 2008 6:18 PM
Gus says
Nah, I disgree.
Etahnol if far less pie in the sky than a pure electric or hydrogen infrastructure. And electric/hydrogen means using more fossil fuels anyway.
If they can make ethanol easily (key word: easily) from cellulose and even garbage, and the price can be brought down to less than $2 per gallon (some say $1 a gallon is realistic), and that money stays in THIS country, then I am all for it, even if it means refueling more often.
Fri Feb 8 2008 9:42 AM
HECTOR says
Sorry Gus but you're wrong.
Ethanol is a big joke, a swindle, a scam, much like global warming, Y2K, bird flu, the Atkins diet, the 2007 Miami Dolphins or that whole *gravity* thing.
It takes at least a gallon of gas to make a gallon of ethanol. People are already beginning to realize that this is not sustainable because there's simply not enough land to support all of the corn (or sugar or landfills or whatever) that we'd need to produce ethanol to power our cars.
Ethanol is like putting gum on the hole in the dyke, a VERY short term solution to a long term problem. Leave it to the media, some politicians and GM to say that this is the panacea that will bring about the mythical *energy independence*. That is a laughable term considering we aren't building any nuclear power plants, the best, cleanest, safest source of energy known to man today.
And then there's the whole gut feeling thing: the more they try to cram ethanol down my throat the more I am against it.
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