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

该项目提出了一个技术-经济-组织分析的障碍，阻止纤维素乙醇替代汽油作为燃料的汽车和轻型卡车在美国。他们建议调查美国可以生产的乙醇数量及其生产成本，在何种情况下它可能取代汽油作为汽车燃料，以及使用乙醇的技术，经济和组织障碍。即使纤维素乙醇作为汽车燃料比汽油更有吸引力，但目前数千亿美元的基础设施专用于汽油的使用。巨大的惯性加上具体的技术、经济和组织障碍预计将阻碍向乙醇的过渡。基于先前在替代汽车燃料方面的工作以及与通用汽车、福特、德士古、埃克森美孚和BP阿莫科的工作关系，研究人员将研究乙醇可能成为更有吸引力的燃料的条件，以及采用乙醇的组织和其他障碍。

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.