Fuel-Cycle energy and emission impacts of ethanol-diesel blends in urban buses and farming tractors.

About 2.1 billion gallons of fuel ethanol was used in the United States in 2002, mainly in the form of gasoline blends containing up to 10% ethanol (E10). Ethanol use has the potential to increase in the U.S. blended gasoline market because methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), formerly the most popular oxygenate blendstock, may be phased out owing to concerns about MTBE contamination of the water supply. Ethanol would remain the only viable near-term option as an oxygenate in reformulated gasoline production and to meet a potential federal renewable fuels standard (RFS) for transportation fuels. Ethanol may also be blended with additives (co-solvents) into diesel fuels for applications in which oxygenation may improve diesel engine emission performance. Numerous studies have been conducted to evaluate the fuel-cycle energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) emission effects of ethanol-gasoline blends relative to those of gasoline for applications in spark-ignition engine vehicles (see Wang et al. 1997; Wang et al. 1999; Levelton Engineering et al. 1999; Shapouri et al. 2002; Graboski 2002). Those studies did not address the energy and emission effects of ethanol-diesel (E-diesel or ED) blends relative to those of petroleum diesel fuel in diesel engine vehicles. The energy and emission effects of E-diesel could be very different from those of ethanol-gasoline blends because (1) the energy use and emissions generated during diesel production (so-called ''upstream'' effects) are different from those generated during gasoline production; and (2) the energy and emission performance of E-diesel and petroleum diesel fuel in diesel compression-ignition engines differs from that of ethanol-gasoline blends in spark-ignition (Otto-cycle-type) engine vehicles. The Illinois Department of Commerce and Community Affairs (DCCA) commissioned Argonne National Laboratory to conduct a full fuel-cycle analysis of the energy and emission effects of E-diesel blends relative to those of petroleum diesel when used in the types of diesel engines that will likely be targeted first in the marketplace. This report documents the results of our study. The draft report was delivered to DCCA in January 2003. This final report incorporates revisions by the sponsor and by Argonne