The 500 mpg car

I wrote last Friday (Can we cash-starve the oil tyrannies? Probably not) about whether the United States could starve Saudi-funded terrorism by eliminating the petrodollars the Saudis earn from selling us 1.53 million barrels of oil per day. At $90 per barrel, they earn approximately $137 million every day from American buyers.

We would either have to find another source for that much oil or find ways to reduce our demand equivalently. In fact, both are possible but neither would matter. The Saudis are in the catbird seat since worldwide demand for oil is rising more than fast enough for them to sell all the oil they can pump.

Even so, Saudi petrodollars are source of a great deal of the world's misery, including dollars backchanneled by Saudi princes to al Qaeda or its Islamist allies. Even though the Saudis could replace the American export market fairly easily, we should still reduce our dependence on oil as much as possible. Oil is the most important strategic substance in the world today. As demand rises, it will become more so.

So this post will address whether we can reduce our need for oil enough to substantially decrease our dependence on foreign oil.

We import 63 percent of the oil we use. That percentage has risen for many years. When I first started studying this topic, we were importing just more than half. By the end of this year, I am sure the percentage will higher than 63.

Gasoline drives America's oil imports

Year to year, 45-47 percent of the petroleum refined in America is made into gasoline. (The Energy Information Administration has a table of Refinery Yields for the past six years.) More gasoline is produced than any other petroleum product. Second is held by distillate fuel oil, (home heating oils, diesels and bunker oils) that account for 27 percent, a record high conversion that will likely fall since demand for heating oils is actually down.

A barrel of oil has 42 gallons. Presently, the national average of gasoline produced by American refineries from that barrel is 19.3 or so. Some refineries produce less, some more than the average. How much gasoline (or any other refined product) is produced from a standard 42-gallon barrel of oil is mostly a function of refinery design, but not exclusively. Refineries could be designed or converted to produce less gas, but that means they will have to produce that much more of other petroleum products - 42 gallons of raw oil in means about 39.5 gallons of refined product out. (Some raw oil is consumed during refining; that loss is characterized as processing loss, and amounts to a few percentage points).

That means that the less gasoline that is produced per barrel, the more of something else would have to be produced. But there is not now a correspondingly-higher demand for other refined products.

We could, of course, maintain distillates production at present levels while refining less gasoline simply by refining less oil. Hopefully, that would mean importing less oil. At present rate of refining, we need to refine 16.2 million barrels per day (mbpd) to produce the 4,379,000 barrels of distillates used daily. Since we refine just under 21 mbpd now, once we reduce gasoline demand by 2.3 mbpd then oil use will drop by 4.6 mbpd, but will then stabilize to maintain production of distillates. If gasoline demand falls by more than 2.3 mbpd, then more gasoline will be produced than is demanded, and the price of gas will fall, perhaps a great deal.

This is static analysis, of course, while markets and production are dynamic. We could meet the distillates demand with much less raw oil by converting refineries to produce more distillates and less gasoline. If demand for gasoline falls that's what will finally happen. But some gasoline will always be produced from refining raw oil. That is good because to reduce greatly our need of gasoline will require us to continue using gasoline.

Post-hybrids are essential to energy security

Gasoline-only-powered vehicles will not disappear from American roads for a long time, probably a few decades, so we will need to produce gasoline for that period. But we also need to improve existing technologies to greater efficiencies to increase by an order of magnitude the distance one gallon of gasoline now takes a car.

On Dec. 30, former CIA Director James Woolsey plugged (heh!) rechargeable electric cars.

[L]ast month General Motors joined Toyota and perhaps other auto makers in a race to produce plug-in hybrid vehicles, hugely reducing the demand for oil. ...

... dozens of vehicle prototypes are now demonstrating that these “plug-in hybrids” can more than double hybrids’ overall (gasoline) mileage. With a plug-in, charging your car overnight from an ordinary 110-volt socket in your garage lets you drive 20 miles or more on the electricity stored in the topped-up battery before the car lapses into its normal hybrid mode. If you forget to charge or exceed 20 miles, no problem, you then just have a regular hybrid with the insurance of liquid fuel in the tank. And during those 20 all-electric miles you will be driving at a cost of between a penny and three cents a mile instead of the current 10-cent-a-mile cost of gasoline.

[…]A 50 mpg hybrid, once it becomes a plug-in, will likely get solidly over 100 mpg of gasoline (call it “mpgg”); if it is also a flexible fuel vehicle using 85% ethanol, E-85, its mpgg rises to around 500.

Okay, I'm down with 500 miles per gallon. That's super cool. Mr. Woolsey based his estimates on adoption of lithium-ion batteries, which is what GM announced it would work with. But three weeks ago, Toshiba announced the Super Charge ion Battery (SCiB):

According to Toshiba, the SCiB is a safe, fast-charging battery that can repeat the charge-discharge cycle 5,000 times while retaining its effectiveness. This gives the battery a lifespan of about 10 years, even if it’s used every day. In addition, safety features allow the battery to recharge with a 50 amp current, meaning it can recharge more quickly than a standard battery, reaching 90% of its total charge in as little as five minutes. Toshiba has tested the battery in extreme temperatures, as well, and it has maintained its ability to discharge at temperatures reaching -30 degrees Celsius (about -22 degrees Fahrenheit). ... ... Toshiba says it plans to continue to develop a high-performance SCiB to serve electric-only cars.

There are a lot of questions yet to be answered about this battery, but early returns look promising. It may mean that a plug-in, gas-electric car could achieve electric-only ranges far beyond the 20 miles Mr. Woolsey envisions using li-io batteries. But a plug-in car still uses electricity that must be generated somehow. So, would widespread adoption of plug-in electric cars merely shift oil usage from under the hood to inside a plant? Well, it might, but probably not much.

Presently, oil-fueled electricity generation accounts for a mere two percent of electricity. Coal accounts for 50 percent, hydropower and natural gas, 10 percent each. The rest comes from nuclear, biomass, solar, etc.

Converting America's autos to plug-in, gas-electric drives would require a substantial increase in electricity generation. To wean ourselves off foreign-oil reliance will mean that we will have to use our native resources to produce that electricity.

That could mean a lot more domestic oil production, which we could do if we wanted. But the political fight would be huge. Otherwise, we'd already be pumping from ANWR. So the choices come down to coal or nuclear. Suitable hydropower sites are pretty much all in use now, and the other technologies now in use will for a variety of reasons (including environmental restrictions) never amount to much more than they are now. Adding oil-fired electrical generation will probably make sense in some places, too.

Adopting massive use of ethanol fuels, such as E85, to achieve Mr. Woolsey's 500 mpgg necessitates abandoning maize-based ethanol production. The agri-lobby will fight that tooth and nail, but both economy and morality demand it. Presently, E85 used in flexfuel autos gives up only 70 percent of the energy by volume that pure-gas vehicles enjoy. That means that it takes (on average) 1.4 gallons of E85 to drive the same distance as achieved by one gallon of gas. However, engines designed to run exclusively on E85 fuel (rather than both gasoline and E85) show greater efficiencies than flexfuel engines.

Presently we are using about 9.4 millions barrels of gasoline per day. Not all of it is used in cars. Lawn mowers and other gas-powered equipment account for a significant amount. I haven't been able to discover those quantities, but let me say 7 percent. That means that we'd have a base requirement of 660,000 barrels (rounded) of gas per day for non-auto uses. At present refinery rates, that amount requires 1.4 million barrels of oil to produce.

If E85 efficiencies are not improved, the remaining 8.7 million barrels of gasoline used today would be replaced by 12.2 million barrels of E85 (8.7 times 1.4 replacement rate). Fifteen percent of that is gasoline, so that means we'd still have to produce 1.8 million barrels of gas to make E85. Total gasoline requirement: 666K plus 1.8M barrels of gasoline per day, or 2.5 mbpd (all figures rounded to one decimal). That will require 5.4 mbpd of oil at current refinery yields.

Suppose refineries were converted to invert their present refinery yields of gasoline and distillates. Then half our present rate of oil consumption, 10 mbpd rather than 20-plus, would yield 4.6 mbpd of distillates, not much more than present demand, leaving enough "float" to power some new oil-fired electrical plants. It would also produce 2.7 mbpd of gasoline. So using half our present level of oil has the potential to meet all our present gasoline needs. We'd still need to import 2.4 mbpd, but that could be exported by Canada if it only slightly ramped up production from its 2.2 mbpd presently exported to America.

None of this will happen quickly. The challenges of engineering and finance remain immense. So are the political challenges, since enormous swaths of the American economy and most every member of Congress are heavily invested in the status quo. For that matter, most of the US State Dept. will fight it, being heavily invested in Arabist world views.

Nonetheless, my recommendations:

Increase the construction of large nuclear power plants and streamline the approval process. Even so, building new plants will take many, many years. We can't wait that long. However, Toshiba's micro-nuclear reactor is ready now, putting out 200 Kw per unit. Utilities should emplace them where practicable.

Coal is more abundant in America than any other energy resource. Despite the cries of the global warming alarmists, coal will need to supply the majority of electrical generation for a long time. It's the cheapest, too.

Adding oil-fired electrical generation is the least preferable solution when it comes to reducing oil use, but remember that the objective is not to stop using oil, only oil sourced from particular places. The US has been reducing the proportion of oil sourced from the Middle East for 30 years at least. If new oil-fired plants can come online reasonably quickly, without increasing our dependence on oil from the Middle East, then such plants may be an attractive addition to our electrical generation.

What about hydrogen?

The hydrogen-powered vehicle is highly unlikely for economic and engineering reasons. Almost all the hydrogen produced is made by steam reforming, a very expensive process that pulls hydrogen from natural gas. Hydrogen is a fuel, not an energy source, and an expensive fuel to boot. See Gasoline, hybrids and hydrogen.

But that does not mean that hydrogen is DOA for vehicle-power enhancement. Consider this development in Israel:

Summary: Of all the ways to reduce gasoline use that I've read about, plug-in, gas-electric propulsion seems to me to be the best option all around. But we won't stop using oil because the demand for non-gasoline, refined products will still require millions of barrels of oil per day.

Update: Speaking of non-gasoline fuels, Popular Mechanics reports that diesel auto engines are making a comeback, with excellent acceleration and low emissions. In fact, "According to the EPA, if 33 percent of U.S. drivers switched to diesel vehicles, the country would reduce its oil consumption by about 1.5 million barrels a day." That would take care of the Saudi equivalent right there. So what about a diesel-electric plugin car?

Don't think we'd ever get a 33 percent market penetration for diesel? In Europe, diesel autos are half those on the road. In fact, demand for diesel is so high there that they sell excess, refined gasoline to the United States. It's about 1,5 million gallons (not barrels) per day, IIRC. That's about 35,000 barrels per day, out of the 9.4 million bpd we actually use.

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