A Technological-Economic-Organizational Analysis of Ethanol as an Automobile Fuel

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This project proposes a technological-economic-organizational analysis of the barriers preventing the substitution of cellulosic ethanol from replacing gasoline as a fuel for automobiles and light trucks in the United States. They propose to investigate the amount of ethanol that could be produced in the US and its cost of production, the circumstances under which it might displace gasoline as a motor fuel, and the technological, economic, and organizational barriers to ethanol use. Even if cellulosic ethanol were more attractive than gasoline as a motor fuel, hundreds of billions of dollars of infrastructure are presently dedicated to gasoline use. Enormous inertia together with specific technological, economic and organizational barriers would be expected to hamper the transition to ethanol. Building on prior work on alternative automobile fuels and working relationships with General Motors, Ford, Texaco, ExxonMobil and BP Amoco, the researchers will examine the conditions under which ethanol might become a more attractive fuel, and the organizational and other barriers to its adoption.