Gasoline Consumption Research Articles

Elasticity Analysis of Fossil Energy Sources for Sustainable Economies: A Case of Gasoline Consumption in Turkey

The current paper investigates the gasoline demand relationship in the case of Turkey, utilizing different econometric techniques and using quarterly data spanning from 2000Q1 to 2019Q1. The estimation results revealed that income and gasoline price are the main drivers of consumption. The found long-run income, price and auto stock elasticities are 0.25, −0.27 and −0.80, respectively. In addition, it is concluded that in the short-run, gasoline demand does not respond to changes in income, price and car stock. The estimation results also showed that the contribution of commercial and public car stock on gasoline demand is higher than that for private auto stock. Based on the finding of the study it is concluded that to achieve the optimal use of gasoline in line with providing high quality transport services, firstly, policies before the 2012 period can be followed. Secondly, channels such as pricing mechanism and taxation policies can be used in this framework.

Gasoline Yield Enhancement in Fluid Catalytic Cracking by Coprocessing of Petroleum Gasoil with Refined Bleached Deodorized Palm Oil and Palm Fatty Acid Distillate

Gasoline is liquid hydrocarbon fuel used for spark-ignition engine. Most of gasoline production is carried out in the petroleum oil refinery through several stages of process and fluid catalytic cracking (FCC) is an important process that can convert some of heavy oil fractions like vacuum gasoil (VGO) and residue to be cracked into gasoline and lighter products. Consumption of gasoline for transportation fuel in Indonesia is higher than its production capability, so this gap has compelled to search the alternative process route using renewable feedstock. Coprocessing of petroleum gasoil with crude palm oil in fluid catalytic cracking had been investigated previously resulting in lower value of conversion as well as gasoline yield when applying co-feeds at higher level of vegetable oils. Cracking feedstock containing triglyceride and fatty acid from vegetable oil is supposed to be the other possibility as a reason of conversion and yield changes. The research work is aimed to find out another way for gasoline yield upgrading in fluid catalytic cracking process using available catalyst by coprocessing of VGO with refined bleached deodorized palm oil (RBDPO) and small amount of palm fatty acid distillate (PFAD). The experimental work of cracking reaction was performed on fluid-bed reactor of ACE unit at temperature of 530 °C, nearly atmospheric pressure and catalyst-oil ratio of 5.5 g/g. Three kind of oil feeds were tested namely VGO, VGO mixed with 5% RBDPO and VGO added with 5% RBDPO-PFAD of mixing ratio 9:1. The cracking reaction results in gaseous and liquid products. The gaseous phase product was analyzed using online gas chromatography to detect light hydrocarbon components of C1, C2 and H2 as dry gas and hydrocarbon components of C3 and C4 as LPG. The liquid item was investigated through gas chromatography of simulated distillation to separate fluid components including gasoline, light cycle oil (LCO) and slurry oil. Carbon material placed on catalyst through cracking reaction was analyzed at regeneration step of spent catalyst passed through catalytic converter by online Infrared method. Coprocessing of VGO with 5% RBDPO and VGO with 5% RBDPO-PFAD can alter conversion and product yields. The presence of triglyceride and fatty acid in oil feeds during cracking reaction influence signifi- cantly to gasoline enhancement. Although this coprocessing work has shown initial phenomenon in accordance with hypothesis, further investigation is necessary to explore deeper in order to obtain an optimized process condition by various levels of coprocessing feed.

Design and Fabrication of PV/Gasoline Hybrid Drive Propulsion for Fishing Hull

In recent years, the utilization of photovoltaic (PV) array in harnessing the electric energy from the Sun is widely replacing the fossil fuels. Nowadays, the Indonesian fishing hulls still commonly consume fossil fuel, i.e. gasoline, for their propulsion energy. Combining with PV array, it is expected to reduce the consumption of gasoline. This paper presented the design and implementation of PV/Gasoline hybrid power as propulsion energy of the fishing hull. The hybrid system uses automatic switch for choosing PV or gasoline as energy source based on the level of battery power. Eight PV modules (@200 W) are arranged and placed on the ship roof top and combined with 3 kW generator. Mechanical and electrical instrumentations are fabricated and assembled as a prototype for the experiments. The prototype is implemented on a fishing hull with 7 m length and 2 m breadth. The experiment shows that the hull has maximum speed 8.1 km/h and consumes maximum power 1425 Watt with either generator or battery. PV array supplies 220 Watt to the battery when DC/DC converter is set to 50% of its maximum power. If the converter is set to 70%, the battery delivers 166 Watt to the DC motor. Comparing the economical aspect, the hybrid PV/Gasoline needs only one tenth in price compared to conventional gasoline engine.

National and sub-national estimation of benzene emission trend into atmosphere in Iran from 1990 to 2013

Introduction: Exposure to benzene has been associated with a range of acute and long-term adverse health effects. We aimed to estimate national and provincial level of benzene emissions from 1990 to 2013 in Iran. Materials and methods: Benzene emission was estimated through two main sources: unburned benzene content of fuel and evaporated benzene. Unburned benzene content of fuel estimated by gasoline consumption rate, kilometers traveled by non-diesel-based cars, and benzene emission factor. Evaporated benzene estimated by evaporated gasoline and volumetric percentile of benzene. Results: The estimated provincial annual mean benzene estimation range was between 5.9 (ton) and 1590 (ton) from 1990 to 2013. Our results showed that maximum benzene emission over the past 24 years occurred in Tehran, (Mean± SD) (1147.2±308.5) (ton)), Isfahan (423.4±132) (ton)), Khorasan Razavi (410.4±122.2) (ton)) provinces, respectively. There was an upward trend in the benzene emission into atmosphere at national and subnational level from 1990 to 2007. Also a significant decrease trend is observed from 2008 to 2013. Conclusion: The findings of this study will provide an insight into the extent of emitted benzene in the atmosphere at different regions of Iran for policy makers and scientists and may be a groundwork for field studies on benzene concentration estimation.

Petroleum’s Park: How Oil Shaped the Palisades Interstate Park, 1900–1960

This article argues that oil played an important role in shaping park landscapes in the United States. Scholars have shown how early road building sought to integrate the view of the natural landscape from the driver's seat. The acceptance of roads as a major feature of parks, like in the Palisades, shows the primacy of oil as a foundation of American life in the twentieth century. This article goes a step further and analyzes in depth how oil, oil wealth, and road technologies changed how people experienced nature. The Palisades Interstate Park, located in New Jersey and New York in the United States, became known by the parkway it contained. Philanthropists, notably John D. Rockefeller Jr., park authorities, and public planning officials all believed the park should contain a parkway made specifically for leisurely drivers who could take in the scenery from the comfort of their car. In the first half of the twentieth century, they reshaped the Palisades into a motorist's paradise. At the Palisades, the consumption of gasoline was written both on the landscape and into the cultural practice of exploring the natural beauty of the cliffs.

Distributional impacts of gasoline supply constrained in Iran: application of input-output mixed price model

Iran has always been the importer of gasoline over the last decade and international sanctions have made imports of this commodity potentially constraint. This condition as a supply constraint can damage the production of other economic sectors through rising in production prices and changing Iranian household welfare. Thus, a key question in this regard is how Iranian household expenditures will be affected in different consumer groups if the gasoline supply is constrained. To answer this question, the mixed-variable input-output price model and a symmetric Iran 38 × 38 input-output table for the year 2005 were employed. The results showed that most of the poor urban groups, especially the first eight groups, show a high sensitivity to the rise in gasoline prices and reduction in their overall expenditures. Nevertheless, rural households, unlike urban households, are heavily dependent on gasoline consumption, and do not reduce their expenditures in response to price changes.

The Impact of COVID-19 Outbreak on Turkish Gasoline Consumption

This paper investigates the effects of COVID-19 outbreak on Turkish gasoline market by employing daily gasoline consumption data covering 2014-2020 periods. The forecast performance of benchmark ARIMA models are evaluated for both before and after the outbreak. The best fit model forecasts fail miserably after the COVID-19 outbreak. Then, the volatility dynamics of the daily gasoline consumption is examined by employing ARCH family models. As a result, the forecast performance improves after taking the conditional volatility into consideration. Finally, recommendations are presented to minimize economic impact on Turkey in case of a pandemic.

Distributional impacts of gasoline supply constrained in Iran: application of input-output mixed price model

Iran has always been the importer of gasoline over the last decade and international sanctions have made imports of this commodity potentially constraint. This condition as a supply constraint can damage the production of other economic sectors through rising in production prices and changing Iranian household welfare. Thus, a key question in this regard is how Iranian household expenditures will be affected in different consumer groups if the gasoline supply is constrained. To answer this question, the mixed-variable input-output price model and a symmetric Iran 38 × 38 input-output table for the year 2005 were employed. The results showed that most of the poor urban groups, especially the first eight groups, show a high sensitivity to the rise in gasoline prices and reduction in their overall expenditures. Nevertheless, rural households, unlike urban households, are heavily dependent on gasoline consumption, and do not reduce their expenditures in response to price changes.

World trends in bioethanol and biodiesel production in the context of sustainable energy development

The article outlines the current state of increasing consumption and demand for primary energy resources due to exhaustion and avalanche-like growth of their world prices. The effects of excessive use of non-renewable energy resources that have led to global climate change and deterioration of the natural environment are highlighted. The priority of sustainable development of the world energy sector is based on increasing consumption of renewable energy resources. The processes of the general world consumption of various types of primary energy and the dynamics of indicators of world bioethanol and biodiesel production during 2000-2018 are analysed. The forecast of consumption of the primary world energy and the production of liquid biofuels has been made for 2019-2025. The results indicate that the world market of bioethanol and biodiesel tends to expand, providing from an economic point of view rational use of energy resources, reducing gasoline and diesel consumption.

Application of additives with gasoline fuel: A review

Alternative fuels have become very important nowadays and proving their importance in both positive ignition engines and compression ignition engines, so as to reduce the consumption of gasoline and diesel respectively. Also, blending of these alternative fuels (additives) into gasoline has been proved important in improving various performance parameters and reducing emission parameters. Various studies have been carried out in the field of using additives in gasoline to see the effects on performance parameters like Brake power, Brake thermal efficiency, Volumetric efficiency and brake specific fuel consumption. Also, this study emphasizes reducing the emissions to the ambient. The aim of this review is to compare and study various additives which can be blended with gasoline and study their effect on performance and emission characteristics of Spark ignition engines.

Recurrent Neural Network-Based Adaptive Energy Management Control Strategy of Plug-In Hybrid Electric Vehicles Considering Battery Aging

A hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) is a product that can greatly alleviate problems related to the energy crisis and environmental pollution. However, replacing such a battery will increase the cost of usage before the end of the life of a HEV. Thus, research on the multi-objective energy management control problem, which aims to not only minimize the gasoline consumption and consumed electricity but also prolong battery life, is necessary and challenging for HEV. This paper presents an adaptive equivalent consumption minimization strategy based on a recurrent neural network (RNN-A-ECMS) to solve the multi-objective optimal control problem for a plug-in HEV (PHEV). The two objectives of energy consumption and battery loss are balanced in the cost function by a weighting factor that changes in real time with the operating mode and current state of the vehicle. The near-global optimality of the energy management control is guaranteed by the equivalent factor (EF) in the designed A-ECMS. As the determined EF is dependent on the optimal co-state of the Pontryagin’s minimum principle (PMP), which results in the online ECMS being regarded as a realization of PMP-based global optimization during the whole driving cycle. The time-varying weight factor and the co-state of the PMP are map tables on the state of charge (SOC) of the battery and power demand, which are established offline by the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm and real historical traffic data. In addition to the mappings of the weight factor and the major component of the EF linked to the optimal co-state of the PMP, the real-time performance of the energy management control is also guaranteed by the tuning component of the EF of A-ECMS resulting from the Proportional plus Integral (PI) control on the deviation between the battery SOC and the optimal trajectory of the SOC obtained by the Recurrent Neural Network (RNN). The RNN is trained offline by the SOC trajectory optimized by dynamic programming (DP) utilizing the historical traffic data. Finally, the effectiveness and the adaptability of the proposed RNN-A-ECMS are demonstrated on the test platform of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles based on GT-SUITE (a professional integrated simulation platform for engine/vehicle systems developed by Gamma Technologies of US company) compared with the existing strategy.

Regulating Automobile Air Conditioning Efficiency Can Save Megatons of CO <sub>2</sub> Emissions for Free

Improving fuel efficiency for on-road vehicles is crucial to reducing the environmental impacts of the transport sector. However, fuel efficiency is regulated based on laboratory tests that usually do not consider the performance of on-board air conditioning systems. Therefore, car manufacturers are not fully incentivized to improve the efficiency of air conditioning. By analyzing one million real-world fuel efficiency records from Chinese light-duty passenger vehicle drivers, we show that gasoline consumption increases by 1.3% annually due to air conditioning use at higher temperatures. This response differs across car models with models produced by Chinese manufacturers showing the lowest efficiency. We estimate that regulating air conditioning efficiency could save 1.6 million tons of CO2 emissions annually for light-duty passenger vehicles in China, and this potential is essentially free to achieve. We suggest that expanding the regulation to more vehicle categories in more countries will further increase the saving potential substantially.

Contemporary trends in power electronics converters for charging solutions of electric vehicles

Electrifying the transport sector requires new possibilities for power electronics converters to attain reliable and efficient charging solutions for electric vehicles (EVs). With the continuous development in power electronics converters, the desire to reduce gasoline consumption and to increase the battery capacity for more electric range is achievable for EVs in the near future. The main interface between the power network and EV battery system is a power electronics converter, therefore, there is a considerable need of new power converters with low cost and high reliability for the advance charging mechanism of EVs. The rapid growth in power converter topologies brings substantial opportunities in EV charging process. In view of this fact, this paper investigates the significant aspects, current progress, and challenges associated with several power converters to suggest further improvements in charging systems of EVs. In particular, an extensive analysis of front-end as well as back-end converter configurations is presented. Moreover, the comparative properties of resonant converter topologies along with other DCDC converters are discussed in detail. Additionally, isolated, and non-isolated topologies with soft switching techniques are classified and rigorously analyzed with a view to their respective issues and benefits. It is foreseen that this paper would be a valuable addition and a worthy source of information for researchers exploring the area of power converter topologies for charging solutions of EVs.

Speed humps and speed tables: Externalities on vehicle speed, pollutant emissions and fuel consumption

Abstract Speed hump/table are devices used on roadways with the objective of reducing vehicular speed. Nevertheless, the effects of said devices on traffic streams are not that clear. Therefore, through descriptive statistics and approximations of linear models, an analysis was carried out on a collector street, as a case of study, taking into consideration the shapes and spacing of bumps, and pollution and fuel consumption of vehicles. The results indicate that the shape and size of the speed control devices are the most important factors for efficiency in reducing maximum speed between devices, achieving a reduction of 50%–75% with speed humps, and a 10%–65% reduction of maximum speed in those which are trapezoidal shape (speed tables). The spacing between speed control devices does not significantly effect a vehicles speed upon passing over said devices, but it does have an impact on pollutant vehicle emissions and extra gasoline consumption. The estimated models to calculate the speed control device characteristics can help to determine which geometric shapes to use when deciding about type and placement of the device, depending on the requirements of a particular thoroughfare.

Waste to Energy Production from Agricultural Waste of Paddy (Oryza Sativa) Industry in Malaysia: Life Cycle Cost Exploration

Due to rapid expansion in road transportation, a more environmentally benign fuel is required in order to control the air pollution. More competent and feasible development of the transportation sector has attracted many interests from various countries including Malaysia. Ethanol fuel is cleaner and sustainable compared to gasoline fuel. Although first generation bioethanol has been utilized globally, it raised the concern about food versus fuel issues. The solution for this is by utilizing agricultural waste as feedstock for bioethanol production. Therefore, this paper investigated the rice straw bioethanol production and its effect on economy and environment when rice straw bioethanol is utilized as a gasoline substitute in Malaysia. Approximately 6% of total gasoline consumption could be saved if rice straw is utilized for bioethanol production, while reducing 92% of air pollution. Based on the life cycle cost model, it was found that the total production cost for 50 ML rice straw bioethanol production plant with a lifetime of 20 years amounts to nearly 200 million USD, which the unit production cost is 0.16 USD per liter of bioethanol, which is Lower than the gasoline price. Therefore, Malaysia should consider bioethanol as a potential alternative fuel to address the problem of depleting fossil sources and global warming.

Google Search Explains Your Gasoline Consumption!

We show that including Google Search Volume Index (GSVI) for bus and train, as proxies for the willingness of the consumers to use public transportation services, improves the explanatory power of the estimated demand for the United States retail gasoline. We find that gasoline consumption is negatively related to the search for public transportation services. Our results demonstrate a showcase for utilizing real-time data to improve quantitative energy policy analysis.

Robust signed-rank estimation and variable selection for semi-parametric additive partial linear models

A fully nonparametric model may not perform well or when the researcher wants to use a parametric model but the functional form with respect to a subset of the regressors or the density of the errors is not known. This becomes even more challenging when the data contain gross outliers or unusual observations. However, in practice the true covariates are not known in advance, nor is the smoothness of the functional form. A robust model selection approach through which we can choose the relevant covariates components and estimate the smoothing function may represent an appealing tool to the solution. A weighted signed-rank estimation and variable selection under the adaptive lasso for semi-parametric partial additive models is considered in this paper. B-spline is used to estimate the unknown additive nonparametric function. It is shown that despite using B-spline to estimate the unknown additive nonparametric function, the proposed estimator has an oracle property. The robustness of the weighted signed-rank approach for data with heavy-tail, contaminated errors, and data containing high-leverage points are validated via finite sample simulations. A practical application to an economic study is provided using an updated Canadian household gasoline consumption data.

The Impact of Climate Change on Passenger Vehicle Fuel Consumption: Evidence from U.S. Panel Data

Climate change is around us today and will affect human life in many ways. More frequent extreme weather events raise mortality and car accident rates, global warming leads to longer growing seasons for crops, which may change farmers’ crop choices, and the relationship between energy demand in residential buildings and weather is widely investigated. In this paper, we focus on the impact of weather on energy consumption, in particular, gasoline consumption through the more frequent use of both vehicles themselves and the air conditioner of the vehicle that decreases fuel economy, which has not been paid enough attention in the literature. We estimate the relationship between fuel consumption and weather using unique U.S. panel data. We find that hot days increase gasoline consumption, but in contrast to the results of residential energy consumption literature, there is no statistically significant effect on cold weather. With climate prediction data from General Circulation Models (GCMs), we simulate the impact of climate change on fuel energy consumption. The results show that the fuel consumption in the transportation sector may increase by up to 4% under the “business-as-usual” (RCP 8.5) scenario. Also, climate change has heterogeneous impacts across the continental United States.

Relevance of LACAf biofuels for global sustainability

Bioenergy is critical to combat climate change, an ominous threat to life on earth as we know it. The strong political appeal of measures to combat climate change provides a unique opportunity for realizing the potential of sustainable bioenergy in Latin America, Caribbean and Africa via production, consumption and free international trade. This paper focuses on the development prospects of sustainable biofuels markets in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa - LACAf, regions with large potential to become global suppliers of biofuels, where 500–900 million hectares of land are available for bioenergy production while simultaneously enhancing food security and biodiversity. Biofuels markets are evolving fast and at rates higher than conventional fossil fuels. Currently, bioethanol and biodiesel provide about 3% of the world’s transportation fuels. In the most promising scenario, most of Latin American countries could implement at least E10. In Africa, ethanol could displace at least 15% of gasoline consumption. Life cycle analysis (LCA) is the method of choice used for sustainability certification. A Biofuture Platform was created to serve as a political and policy forum.

Consumer responses to gasoline price and non-price policies

Gasoline consumption in emerging economies have been rising rapidly due to economic growth and increasing urbanization rate in recent years. However, the development has brought about new socio-economic and environmental challenges leading governments to adopt various policies to control the trend. Although the impacts of price changes on gasoline consumption are well-researched in the literature, studies on different policies in a specific country is limited. In this paper, we investigate the impact of three distinct policies (price reform, rationing, and fuel-efficiency) on consumer responses in Iran. We estimate price, income, and efficiency elasticities across household characteristics, income groups, and provinces using the AIDS model and the household expenditures data for the period 2005–2016. The results show that the average price elasticity is -76, however, it varies across household characteristics, time, and space. The price responses are greater in provinces neighbouring the countries with high price differentials and welfare losses of price reform are more sever for lower income families. The estimated elasticities under different policy regimes show that energy price reform has led to significantly higher elasticities, while rationing has led to decreased elasticities. The more stringent efficiency regulation and increasing imports of fuel-efficient cars have also increased elasticities.