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Saab Backs Ethanol As Next-Step Towards Sustainable Mobility Review

April 2005
Filed under: SAAB Car News | SAAB Headlines
As the automobile motors into its second century, it is fast approaching a crossroads where crucial decisions must be made about the future direction of fuel requirements. To initiate the move towards sustainable mobility and to overcome our dependence on fossil fuels, Saab believes that ethanol is a viable direction in which to move.
Saab Automobile Managing Director Jan-Ake Jonsson believes Sweden is in a position to lead Europe's switch to the wide-scale production and use of BioEthanol, a renewable energy carrier that has the potential to meet the fuel requirements for sustainable mobility.

Saab 9-5 Wagon, 2.0t BioPower

The brand is supporting EU and Swedish government initiatives to encourage ethanol consumption by launching its first flexible-fuel vehicle (FFV) on the Swedish market. The Saab 9-5 BioPower runs on BioEthanol-based E85 fuel or pure gasoline in any combination. First customer deliveries begin in June.

"In the near-term, I am convinced that ethanol is a viable solution to our transport needs," says Jonsson. "It does not require the introduction of expensive new technology, cars can and are already using it, and it can be easily distributed within our existing supply infrastructure."

BioEthanol-fuelled vehicles are part of three-pronged approach in General Motors' overall propulsion strategy. In the near-term, improvements to its gasoline and diesel engines and transmissions, as well as the use of renewable fuels – like BioEthanol – provide the first step. Energy efficient hybrid vehicles will be the next step and fuel cells powered by hydrogen - preferable to renewable sources such as BioEthanal - will offer the ultimate environmental answer.

Global perspective

Saab considers there to be two non-negotiable driving forces behind the adoption of a renewable fuel such as BioEthanol: the environmental need to combat the so-called 'greenhouse', or climate change, effect and the need to overcome our dependence on oil, a finite resource where the rapid growth of global demand will exceed supply.

Emissions of fossil carbon dioxide (CO2) from road transportation are widely recognized as a major cause of the 'greenhouse' effect, which is responsible for climate change and all its associated problems. In Sweden, for example, close to 40 per cent of CO2 emissions are due to transport. And globally, this trend is accelerating as vehiclenumbers continue to grow. The World Business Council for Sustainable Development estimates that in the next 25 years the world's vehicle population will double, largely due to huge growth in China and developing economies.

Why Ethanol

Cars running on BioEthanol, which is produced from agricultural crops, sugar cane or bio-mass, are governed by the same law of physics as those using gasoline. That means both emit CO2, as an inevitable consequence of the combustion process. But there is a crucial difference: burning ethanol, in effect, recycles the CO2 because it has already been removed from the atmosphere by photosynthesis during the natural growth process. In contrast, the use of gasoline or diesel injects into the atmosphere additional new quantities of CO2 which have lain fixed underground in oil deposits for millions of years.

A long-standing natural balance in global CO2 levels began to change more than a century ago, with the advent of industrialization built on the use of fossil energy. A UN body, the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), estimates that this process is largely responsible for today's predicament through generating a 35 per cent increase in the global level of atmospheric CO2.

In seeking alternative energy sources, a reduction of such 'fossil CO2' is therefore essential. Saab believes the adoption of BioEthanol can play a crucial role. It is already produced commercially from corn in the United States and from sugar cane in Brazil, where General Motors do Brazil markets its unique Chevrolet Astra 2.0i Multipower sedan, which can run on ethanol, gasoline and even compressed natural gas (CNG).

Brazil, as the biggest and most advanced producer of BioEthanol, has already shown the world how to produce large volumes of ethanol, without any subsidies, at a lower cost than the world market price of gasoline. In Sweden, ethanol is currently produced commercially from wheat and at ETEK's (Etanolteknik AB) R&D pilot plant at Örnsköldsvik, an industrial process for producing it from wood and forest residues is being developed for large-scale commercial applications. The Canadian company, IOGEN, with support from Shell, is also developing new production processes for biomass-based ethanol. In a comprehensive 2004 study, the International Energy Agency, an OECD organization, estimates there is enough global resource of biomass for biofuels such as ethanol to meet two thirds of the world's current energy needs for transport.

To remove fossil CO2 completely from the environmental loop, emissions during the commercial production of ethanol must also be minimized and modern processes are already moving towards a zero emission status. Success in achieving this will depend on the type of biomass raw material and production processes that are used. The ETEK plant isl targeting, from a life cycle perspective, the zero fossil emission production of BioEthanol.

Europe's role

The EU's latest directive on energy taxation, effective from 1 January last year, calls on member states to apply reduced taxation or a complete exemption for bio-fuels in pure or low blends. It follows a parallel directive requiring member states to introduce measures by the end of this year that will ensure bio-fuels account for at least 2 per cent of total gasoline and diesel consumption in the transport sector, increasing steadily to 5.75 per cent by 2010.

"The generally high environmental awareness within our society, together with the work at ETEK in Örnsköldsvik and other Swedish initiatives, place Sweden in a position to lead the European development of BioEthanol as a near and mid-term solution," adds Jonsson.

Current developments in Sweden include the introduction of city buses running on pure ethanol, tax incentives and free parking for users of flex-fuel cars and the market-driven establishment of more than 160 filling stations selling E85 fuel. The government has also announced that, by 2008, 25 percent of the country's filling stations will be mandated to offer renewable fuels. And from this year, governmental agencies are required to source at least 50 percent of cars as eco-friendly vehicles.

"The Swedish government and its agencies are to be congratulated in rising to the challenge. At Saab, we too are making a contribution in developing our 9-5 BioPower model for the Swedish market," says Jonsson. "We will also be providing demonstrator cars for promotional activities in other European markets as a way of stimulating infrastructure development.

"Ethanol provides an effective first step. It is a bridge that can lead us from obsolete fossil fuels towards new, sustainable technologies that are still under development, such as BioHydrogen fuel-cell vehicles.

"We have reached a turning point where action must be taken if we are to avoid a crisis in meeting our future, sustainableenergy needs for transport."

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