Gasoline blends are produced using a refined process that includes a mixture of feedstocks such as biomass and ethanol. The purpose of this process is to lower production emissions as well as emissions from the tailpipe. According to Andrew Madden, Exxon's vice president for strategy and planning, these fuels could one day cut carbon emissions by as much as 75 percent compared to regular gasoline.
The fuels are currently being tested and have been shown to work well with Toyota vehicles. If the program is successful, it could offer an alternative to battery-powered cars in the future. This would allow drivers to keep their current cars or switch to a cleaner hybrid or other internal combustion vehicles.
Once these alternative fuels are viable commercially, the next hurdle is government policy support. “Having a solution for liquid fuels that we can use in the existing fleet, having it in the kind of policy construct where we allow the market to innovate, is the lowest cost way to decarbonize transportation,” Madden said.
In the US and many other countries, new EV buyers currently receive tax credits. Exxon and Toyota argue that a better policy would be to focus on lifecycle emissions which account for EV reliance on an electrical grid powered by greenhouse gas sources while rewarding low-carbon fuel production.
Exxon and Toyota have a track record of working on technologies that aim to lower emissions in the transportation sector. Before dropping the idea, Exxon previously touted algae as a sustainable alternative to diesel fuel. Meanwhile, Toyota invested heavily in hybrid technology and hydrogen fuel as part of a multifaceted approach to reducing emissions. Both companies agree that reducing carbon emissions on their current vehicle fleets is important to meet climate goals, despite the increasing demand for new electric vehicles.
“No matter what you think the pace of electrification transition might be, there will be a billion, if not hundreds of millions of vehicles on the road for quite a long time,” said Tom Stricker, vice president for sustainability and affairs at Toyota. Lower-carbon fuels are “quite important in achieving those greenhouse gas reductions quickly.”
Source: Automotive News