What Is Ethanol?
Ethanol, or ethyl alcohol, has been used as a fuel for more than a century.
In fact, the first motor vehicles built by Henry Ford were either ethanol-powered or "flexible-fueled," capable of running on ethanol or gasoline or a combination of both. The lower cost of manufacturing gasoline from crude oil eventually led to its dominance as a motor fuel.
Today, ethanol, a biofuel produced from food crops such as corn and sugar cane, is growing in popularity because it offers some advantages over petroleum-based fuels. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center, ethanol-blended gasoline can reduce carbon dioxide and other tailpipe emissions from vehicles. In many areas of the United States, low-level ethanol/gasoline blends are already helping to meet pollution reduction mandates. These blends may be 10 percent ethanol (E10) or less and can be readily burned in standard automobile engines. Higher concentrations, such as E85, are officially classified as alternative fuels and can be used only in specially designed engines. Chevron currently blends about 350 million gallons of ethanol each year into the gasoline it sells in the United States.
New Sources of Ethanol
Another important advantage of ethanol is that it is a renewable fuel — it can be replenished year after year, unlike fossil fuels, which are depleted over time.
First-generation ethanol is derived from corn, sugar cane, and other sugar- or starch-based crops whose chemical bonds are relatively simple to break down and convert into alcohol. However, because these crops are also important sources of food for people and livestock, we face natural limitations in using them to replace petroleum-based fuels on a large scale.
Second-generation ethanol — made from nonfood sources — holds significant promise as a low-carbon, renewable transportation fuel that can complement traditional petroleum-based fuels in meeting the world's future energy needs. Research into this experimental process is focused on developing technologies that can convert cellulosic biomass, often regarded as a waste material, into transportation fuels. Examples of cellulosic biomass include:
- Agricultural wastes, such as corn stalks and husks
- Forestry wastes, such as wood chips and tree trimmings
- Fast-growing trees and grasses grown as energy crops
- Waste paper
- Food processing wastes
Although using cellulosic biomass as a source of new transportation fuels has obvious advantages, these materials have different chemical structural bonds than food-based crops and are difficult to break down, especially on a large scale. Chevron is working to overcome this challenge.
What Chevron Is Doing
Chevron has been bringing high-quality transportation fuels to market for more than a century. We are using our extensive experience in molecular conversion, product engineering, advanced manufacturing and fuels distribution to build a new biofuels business focused on the development of nonfood biofuels. To help build a strong, sustainable biofuels industry, we have formed strategic research alliances with industry, universities, national laboratories and government. These partners and efforts include:
- A five-year, $10 million partnership with the Georgia Institute of Technology to pursue advanced research into viable cellulosic biofuels and hydrogen transportation fuels
- A five-year, $25 million research collaboration with the University of California at Davis to develop transportation fuels from such renewable resources as rice straw and agricultural waste
- A five-year research and development agreement with the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory to advance the development of renewable transportation fuels
- A four-year research alliance with Texas A&M University focused on the production and conversion of nonfood crops into renewable transportation fuels
In addition, Chevron is a founding corporate member of the Colorado Center for Biorefining and Biofuels. The center's research focus is the identification of biomass energy crops and the development of advanced conversion technologies. In 2008, Chevron and Weyerhaeuser Co. created a joint venture company — Catchlight Energy LLC — to develop the next generation of renewable transportation fuels from nonfood sources.
Updated: March 2008