Arctic Leaf

USA, USA, USA…The search for competitive fuel choices

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“USA, USA, USA, USA.” No, I didn’t just come from watching the U.S. playing in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. But after reading the glowing, cheerleading, overly enthusiastic, often-nationalistic media accounts of the U.S. overtaking the Saudis in oil production, the win-lose aspects of the soccer chant somehow became embedded in my persona (like counting sheep or gas pumps at night when I can’t sleep). We beat the Saudis at their own game — oil. We’re number one…wow! Next, will we emulate the Saudis and place onerous and discriminatory restrictions on women drivers and, unlike the Saudis, argue that it’s a conservation measure? Of course not! We don’t have to be number one in everything. But oil does make strange bedfellows, and equally strange behavior, as well as policies.

Unfortunately, most of the media stories avoid analysis of what the new oil prominence of the U.S. means to the nation and world. Yes, increased production likely means less dependence on the Middle East, particularly Saudi oil. Indeed, we now import about 33% of oil needs, the lowest percentage in years.

But oil independence remains a myth. Oil interests are pushing for a reduction of regulations concerning exports of U.S. crude oil and have always exported considerable refined oil products allowed by the law. Their motives, despite frequent public comments to the contrary, are generally to sell to the price, which means to the buyer who offers the most return. He, she or it frequently is a global purchaser. Independence is a slogan that often blurs motive and reflects good politics but bad substance and contrary to reality.

The U.S., as the most powerful western nation, irrespective of any mathematical domestic surplus, will continue to extend its role as defender of the global supply chain from the Middle East or elsewhere. While we may be less dependent on foreign oil, U.S. leaders have, in the past, and likely will in the future, use a combination of diplomacy and military threats and action to defend and sustain the flow of foreign oil to allies or assumed allies. In this context, the role we play in the world extends our dependency. Unfortunately, wars will be fought and U.S. soldiers will die because of this felt dependency.

Most of the “USA, USA, USA” chants in the media coverage of our new oil prowess, implicitly neglects the difficult juxtaposition between increased oil production and supplies and higher gas prices. Less dependence hasn’t brought the reduction, or even stabilization, of gas prices promised by the oil industry. Gasoline in California is now generally well over $4 a gallon for regular, and averages over $3.60 a gallon across the nation. Why? We have a surplus, don’t we? Oil companies want to export more, and it appears that they will be able to do just that, soon. As Dr. Pangloss asked in “Candide,” is this the “best of all possible worlds” (let me add, for the U.S.)?

Clearly, the cost of oil at the pump is not strongly linked (at the present time) to the amount of U.S. oil that shows up on EIA calculations and projections. Both price and supply are going up simultaneously. Yes, there is uncertainty, given events in the Middle East and yes, uneven growth around the world has increased demand in some areas and suppressed it in others. The link between high prices and the Middle East is difficult to measure precisely. Consumer costs per gallon are likely affected more by investors, as well as speculation on Wall Street, than the actual numbers concerning increased production of U.S. oil.

So, apart from prayer and penitence, what can we do to get a better deal for consumers, and to prevent gasoline from becoming a negative factor concerning U.S. GDP growth and the environment? How can we help assure that being number one means robust economic growth, more income in the wallets of Americans (particularly low-income Americans), increased security and fewer dirty emissions?

These are not easy questions, and they do not lend themselves to simple ideological responses. Clearly, as renewable fuels and vehicles that meet the incomes and desires of most Americans become available, both will play a vital role in America’s future. But reliance on coal-fired utilities for power in some areas of the nation, battery costs, mileage limitations from single battery charges, and lack of infrastructure impede their ability to have a significant positive impact at the present. The market for renewable fuels and vehicles is relatively small and will remain so until technological advances catch up with potential demand.

Where is the Greek philosopher Diogenes when we need him? We have a path in front of us that would buy time toward a better American future, one that could offer competition to gasoline — competition that would be good for the economy, the consumer and the environment. Increased availability of replacement fuels, particularly natural gas-based ethanol, combined with large-scale conversion of older cars to flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) and increased production of new FFVs by Detroit, would give gasoline a run for the money, if gas-only stations become fuel stations and provide consumers with a choice. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, less than one percent of all gas stations in the U.S. that are branded by the big oil companies offer E15 or E85.

I remain an optimist that more freedom will reign soon at the pump. The noted people’s philosopher, Charles M. Schulz, creator of “Peanuts” comic strips, lessened my fears about the future when he said, “Stop worrying about the world ending today. It’s already tomorrow in Australia.” USA, USA, USA. Fuel choice, fuel choice, fuel choice!

Arctic Leaf

Attention Investors: Opportunity for an oil change

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What would you say about an investment opportunity where your product is four times cheaper than the commodity it is trying to replace and there are 77 million potential customers waiting to use it?

Does that sound like something that you would like to put your money into? Well that’s the opportunity that awaits anyone willing to invest in the infrastructure and technical changes needed to substitute natural-gas-based ethanol for foreign-fuel-based gasoline in our cars.

A full-fledged prospectus was presented this month by Miles Light, professor at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder, in a report called “Natural Gas Based Liquid Fuels: Potential Investment Opportunities in the United States,” written for the recent Goldman Sachs Energy Summit.

Professor Light lays out the situation in very clear terms: “Low natural gas prices and new technology present an opportunity to market and sell liquid fuels in the form of ethanol and methanol to U.S. consumers. Per unit of energy, oil is almost four times more expensive than natural gas. This implies a potential arbitrage opportunity to convert natural gas and natural gas liquids into a liquid fuel. In the U.S., 14.5 million vehicles can currently utilize ethanol fuels. These are the so-called ‘Flex Fuel’ vehicles. Another 16.1 million FFV ‘Twins’ can utilize ethanol with a software upgrade, and 46.9 million conventional fuel vehicles can potentially be converted for $150-$250 each. In all, this presents 77.75 million light duty vehicles, or 31.8% of the national light duty fleet, that would potentially purchase natural gas liquid fuel, if prices were attractive.”

You’ve undoubtedly heard the phrase, “If we can capture just 2 percent of this market…” Well, this is it. There are opportunities up and down the line, from auto mechanics performing flex-fuel conversions on conventional engines to major corporations building plants to convert natural gas to ethanol.

What Light is talking about here is the wholesale substitution of a portion of our natural gas resources for the oil we import in order to run our transportation sector. True, we’ve cut down on imports so they now make up less than half of our consumption for the first time since the early 1990s. But what people are missing is that we still pay the same amount for that oil because the price keeps rising. This continues to put a $380 billion dent in our trade balance every year — not to mention that much of this money goes to countries that actively support hostile actions against America and its friends and allies around the world.

So what would it take to make this transition? There’s certainly been a lot of activity to date. However, most of it has concentrated on utilizing compressed natural gas (CNG) and liquid natural gas (LNG). T. Boone Pickens’ Clean Energy Fuels is in the process of building a “CNG Highway” to service long-haul trucks from coast to coast. He’s already completed the first leg from Los Angeles to Houston. Those big 18-wheelers have room for the larger gas tanks and travel fixed routes along the Interstate Highway System that can be serviced by relatively few filling stations.

But passenger vehicles are a completely different matter. They travel everywhere and would require a whole new national infrastructure to fill their tanks. The auto companies have already offered a few CNG models but they haven’t sold well. It’s the chicken-and-egg problem — people won’t buy cars before the stations become common and the stations won’t be built until there are enough cars on the road.

With ethanol, however, there is already an infrastructure in place. The country is presently outfitted with 2,394 gas pumps dispensing E85, a mixture of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. (The gasoline is there just to start on cold mornings.) Most of these are concentrated in the farm belt but they’re starting to make their way into major cities on the East and West Coasts as well.

The point is this: these stations have been set up to handle corn ethanol. This is the result of the 35-year government effort to promote biofuels. But Light suggests that these stations could just as easily dispense ethanol made from natural gas. No new technology would be necessary, nor would it require any special permission from the government. (Methanol, which is a little easier to synthesize than ethanol, has a greater toxicity and would require some additional approval from the Environmental Protection Agency.)

So according to Light, this is where the investment opportunities lie. The conversion of natural gas to ethanol is the first and most important step, but Coskata, Inc. already has a working facility and Celanese Corporation is converting coal to ethanol in Indonesia. Light estimates that, at current and foreseeable prices, the return on investment could be as high as 46 percent.

Then there are all the intervening steps. “Alongside the core ethanol production opportunity, there are several related supply-chain developments projects, such as production facility development, ethanol fuel marketing, fueling station upgrades, blending facility expansions, and vehicle update kits,” he writes. All are well within the range of private investment. No government subsidies or mandates would be required.

In other words, the conversion of significant portions of our auto fleet to natural gas presents a whole world of opportunity just waiting for imaginative, ambitious investors to take advantage.

Anybody interested?

Arctic Leaf

Resources for the future and an alternative vehicle and fuel pathway

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I have been a fan of Resources for the Future (RFF) since my early days in Washington many years ago. While the organization’s reports won’t keep you awake at night nor can they easily convert into a Bollywood movie, they generally provide sound nonpartisan analyses of resource and environmental issues. In this context, the Fuel Freedom Foundation (FFF) retained RFF to independently study the potential economic, environmental and national security gains from replacing a portion of domestic gasoline use in the light-duty fleet with various natural gas-based fuels such as ethanol or methanol.

The request reflected the relatively large price differential between the growing supply of natural gas and gasoline and FFF’s assumption that natural gas-based fuels (ethanol and methanol) could not only offer the U.S. security benefits, they would be cheaper and cleaner than gasoline. If FFF’s assumption was right, public and private sector strategies to encourage the conversion of older vehicles to FFVs and to increase the production of new FFV vehicles in Detroit would seemingly be in order. Similarly, finding financially feasible ways to produce, develop, distribute and successfully market natural gas-based alcohol fuels would appear quite sound.

RFF’s study was completed last September and is available online.

I have read the document many times. It is compelling because it honestly portrays gaps in information and uncertainties concerning public policy and regulation, technology, geography, price trends, competition, and availability as well as access to natural gas-based fuel. Indeed, embedded in the report is the fact that policymaking in public, nonprofit or private sectors or predictions concerning consumer behavior is never perfect. As complexity increases, decisions often require reliance on perfectibility over time, rather than perfection in the present time.

Apart from RFF’s marshalling of available, relevant data and its related analysis, the study’s conclusions are supportive of leadership groups and leaders who seek an “alternative path” in support of the use of natural gas-based fuels and the conversion of older cars to flex-fuel vehicles.

What RFF concluded is that the only replacement fuel currently available to the more than ten million FFV E85-capable vehicles “does not have a cost advantage at the pump over conventional gasoline.” But assuming companies like Coskata, Inc. and Celanese are able to deliver on their financial modeling, live tests and price predictions concerning the production and distribution of natural gas-based ethanol, owners of FFVs, including owners of new and older converted vehicles could see cost benefits near $1 per GGE (gasoline gallon equivalent) in the very near future.

This is no small benefit. It will be particularly important to low and moderate-income folks, permitting them more choices when it comes to jobs, housing and other basic needs. It will also reduce the strain caused by reduced economic and income growth on middle class households. RFF also indicates, with somewhat less certainty as to how much, that there will likely be environmental benefits.

Making this new replacement fuel path viable will require the EPA to lower the costs of certification of kits that help convert older cars to FFVs, and to sanction relatively simple software adjustments, particularly for newer FFVs and their twins (not the human kind but automobiles whose engines reflect FFF characteristics. This path will also need the EPA and advocates of natural gas-based ethanol to work together to develop a vehicle-testing procedure for older cars that is both cost efficient, sound and hopefully, relatively quickly. Finally, it will necessitate a fuel market that reduces, if not eliminates, the almost monopolistic conditions generally imposed by oil companies and often supported, at least implicitly, by government policies and regulations.

Consumers, clearly, would benefit from more competition at the pump and from more pumps devoted to replacement fuels. Auguste Comte, the great 19th century philosopher and founder of positivism, never saw a gasoline station, but his simple motto, “Love as a principle [need for increased natural gas-based flex fuels and need for flex-fuel cars], the order as a foundation [development of policies and infrastructure for natural gas-based fuels and increased FFVs] and progress as a goal [extend consumer choice]” nicely frames RFF’s narrative. In turn, RFF’s study, while recognizing the value of renewable fuels, supports an alternative, natural gas-based replacement fuel as well as a vehicular pathway to help achieve national, regional and local economic, social welfare and environmental benefits. It’s near July Fourth. Let’s move toward freer increased choices among fuels and increased vehicular capacity to use them.