Alternative Vehicle Fuels Strategy in China: Well-to-Wheel Analysis on Energy Use and Greenhouse Gases Emission

Abstract

Oil consumption and import of China increase very quickly in recent years. Because of vehicle population growing in a tremendous speed, nearly 40% of oil has already used in transportation sector in today's China. Many kinds of alternative fuel vehicles are introduced, demonstrated and used in cities to reduce the traditional gasoline and diesel not only to reduce the regulated emissions, but also to improve the oil security of China. When the Kyoto Protocol became effective in last year, Chinese government and experts began to focus on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of alternative vehicle fuels. In order to comprehensively evaluating energy and global warming impact lead by production and utilization of alternative vehicle fuels in China, Well-to-Wheel analysis is used in this paper to quantitatively calculate energy use and GHG emissions of recovery, production, transportation and distribution, and end-use of compressed natural gas (CNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), ethanol, methanol, dimethyl ether (DME) and Fischer-Tropsch diesel (FTD). The feedstock of ethanol includes corn and wheat. The energy use and GHG emissions of alternative vehicle fuels are compared with traditional gasoline and diesel. The results show that CNG and LPG is good choice from energy saving and GHG reduction in China. NG-based and coal-based methanol, DME and F-T diesel have lower lifecycle petroleum consumption than traditional gasoline and diesel, so that they may be an answer to Chinese oil security. The lifecycle total energy use, fossil energy use and GHG emissions of NG-based synthesized fuels are lower than coal-based fuels, but obviously higher than traditional gasoline and diesel, so that utilization of them will lead to potential pressure to China GHG reduction responsibility. The GHG emissions performance of China ethanol fuel is not as good as U.S. ethanol. The main reason is abuse of agriculture chemical in corn farming, especial the nitrogenous fertilizer, which is caused great N20 emission