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

本项目提出了一项技术-经济-组织分析，分析了在美国阻碍纤维素乙醇替代汽油作为汽车和轻型卡车燃料的障碍。他们建议调查美国可能生产的乙醇的数量及其生产成本，乙醇可能取代汽油作为汽车燃料的情况，以及乙醇使用的技术、经济和组织障碍。即使纤维素乙醇作为汽车燃料比汽油更具吸引力，目前仍有数千亿美元的基础设施用于汽油的使用。巨大的惯性加上特定的技术、经济和组织障碍预计将阻碍向乙醇的过渡。在之前对替代汽车燃料的研究以及与通用汽车、福特、德士古、埃克森美孚和BP Amoco的合作关系的基础上，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.