Some Minnesota college students are working to make the cars we drive now run on cleaner energy, without having to buy a brand new car.
They're studying ways to get old engines running on ethanol from plants like corn, and eventually switch grass. However, to get there people will first have to overcome old rules and old ways of thinking.
The wheels are turning and ethanol is burning at the Minnesota Center for Automotive Research at Minnesota State University in Mankato.
"We've tried to look at fuel economy, emissions, performance, things like that," said Bruce Jones of the Minnesota Center for Automotive Research.
Jones and students are putting various blends of ethanol to the test.
Minnesota already has more E85 pumps than any other state and an increasing number of flex fuel vehicles on the road. However, with roughly 200 million passenger cars in this country, even if every new car built was flex-fuel, it would take about 17 years to switch out every car.
The nation could change over from gasoline to ethanol much faster, if people simply converted existing cars to flex fuel. All it takes is adding a small computer to the electrical system.
This practice has already happened in Brazil, a country the imports no foreign oil and runs on an ethanol economy. They use converter kits.
Last summer at a shop in Long Lake, Minn., Project Energy watched as mechanic Kevin Burrell converted a BMW. He works for a company that got its start in Brazil called Flex-Tek.
The converter allows the car to run on ethanol or gasoline and takes 15 minutes to install.
"What is the microprocessor telling the engine to do Kevin?" asked WCCO-TV's Don Shelby.
"It's just telling the injectors to increase the bandwidth which is to stay open a little bit longer and spray a little bit more fuel," said Burrell.
"The kit keeps the injector on for a slightly longer period of time. The computer thinks it turned it off but really the injector's on," said Jones.
However, this engine modification, according to an obscure Environmental Protection Agency memo, is in violation of the Clean Air Act.
The memo written at a time when there were lines at the pumps and gas went from 38 cents to 55 cents. Back then, people started using the highly corrosive fuels: methanol, propane and natural gas. Clean-burning ethanol wasn't even on the radar.
"We don't have to invent the wheel here, Brazil already did it. The company that did it in Brazil also has a presence in the United States," said Gov. Tim Pawlenty, R-Minn last summer. "We could take those kits, we could have the University of Minnesota or the Minnesota State at Mankato do tests on various makes and models of cars about emission, deliver those research results to the EPA and encourage them to use us as a pilot project or change the law all at once."
So by order of the Pawlenty, Jones and his students are testing the converter kits. They have special permission from the EPA to do so.
"The EPA or environmental protection agency says if you're going to put a kit on a car like this that will affect the fuel system, you have to prove to us that it's not gonna adversely effect vehicle emissions," said Jones.
So far, the research is promising.
"The ethanol burns more efficiently at producing power in addition to making slightly more power and lower emissions," said Jones. "We've not seen anything that would lead us to believe that these kits would not be able to meet the EPA standards on the testing we've done."
Critics say using higher mixes of ethanol like E85 on a non-flex-fuel vehicle could ruin the engine. However, vehicles built after 1996 are already made to run on 10 percent ethanol. Still, converter kits might be safer than making your own concoction at the pump.
"It's illegal and it might not necessarily be the best thing. But unless we push the envelope and try to improve things then what are we gonna do, wait until it's catastrophic," said Jones.
The kits cost between $400 and $500 depending on the number of cylinders in your engine. Jones said the energy department would like to have these kits on a fast track, so we might be able to use them soon.
(For the text and video of Don Shelby's story,. go to the WCCO-TV Web site at http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_260225829.html)
Email this article | Permanent link | Topstories news | Topstories news archives
Minnesota State
University, Mankato
Mankato, MN 56001
1-800-722-0544
© 2005-2013 Minnesota State University, Mankato. Minnesota State University, Mankato is a member of
Minnesota State Colleges & Universities system and an affirmative action/equal opportunity university.
