The potential for alcohols and related ethers to displace conventional gasoline components

The United States Department of Energy is required by law to determine the feasibility of producing sufficient replacement fuels to replace 30 percent of the projected United States consumption of motor fuels by light duty vehicles in the year 2010. A replacement fuel is a non-petroleum portion of gasoline, including alcohols, natural gas and certain other components. A linear program has been used to study refinery impacts for production of ``low petroleum`` gasolines, which contain replacement fuels. The analysis suggests that high oxygenation is the key to meeting the replacement fuel target, and major contributors to cost increase can include investment in processes to produce olefins for etherification with alcohols. High oxygenation can increase the costs of control of vapor pressure, distillation properties, and pollutant emissions of gasolines. Year-round low petroleum gasoline with near-30 percent non-petroleum might be produced with cost increases of 23 to 37 cents per gallon, with substantial decreases in greenhouse gas emissions in some cases. Cost estimates are sensitive to assumptions about extrapolation of a national model for pollutant emissions, availability of raw materials and other issues. Reduction in crude oil use, a major objective of the low petroleum gasoline program, is 10 to 17 percent in the analysis