Word: ethanol
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Gaffney and his cohorts have envisioned a clever solution: a hybrid car that combines gas-free plug-in technology with the boost of made-in-the-U.S., ethanol-based fuel to give it range. The plug-in hybrid could run for short distances on batteries charged by the same grid that powers our home appliances. On longer drives, it would use a fuel mix of 80% ethanol--alcohol, in the U.S. made mainly from corn--and 20% gas. Given that half the cars on the road travel fewer than 20 miles a day, such hybrids would travel mostly...
...m.p.g.-of-gas car may sound like a pie-in-the-sky dream. But in fact, it is technologically possible. Green-car enthusiasts in California are experimenting with innovative plug-in technology, while DaimlerChrysler will soon be testing its own plug-in van. And ethanol has long been used as a fuel. Indeed, Domenici's committee last month adopted a measure in the energy bill requiring gasoline refiners to increase the ethanol they use each year to 8 billion gal. by 2012, up from 5 billion gal. mandated by the House...
That's bound to raise hackles. Ethanol has always been controversial (see box). Most car companies, meanwhile, have little interest in any electric vehicles beyond the standard hybrid because they consider them too costly and limited in range for American tastes. "I don't think [electric cars] will ever be a significant percentage of the vehicles out there," says Sam Shelton of the Georgia Institute of Technology, citing such obstacles...
...ETHANOL DREAMS...
DAVID WIMPY, 49, CULTIVATES 800 ACRES OF CORN AND OTHER crops in Kentucky's hilly Amish country. As a member of the 2,300-strong Hopkinsville Elevator Cooperative, he is also part owner of the hottest new thing to hit town, Commonwealth Agri-Energy, an ethanol plant that started up a year ago in a stream-fed rock quarry a mile south of his land. The cooperative has a 94% stake in the $32 million plant, which has made an estimated $40 million in sales over the past year from ethanol and its by-products. Plant manager Mick Henderson says...