GM's top boffin, Vice President Research and Development Larry Burns, has urged Australia to kick its petroleum habit and pursue energy independence.
 
Down Under to talk through the car giant's global plans with government, technical groups, Holden staff and the local automotive media, Burns reinforced local boss, Mark Reuss' plans for Holden to follow a multi-fuel strategy (more here), but went one step further -- urging the country to push for a fuel future free of imported petroleum.
 
"When I did my background reading for the trip out to Australia, I was fascinated to see how much coal you have and certainly there are pathways where coal could find its way to automobiles -- whether it's through electrically-driven vehicles or creating hydrogen or coal-to-liquid [fuels]," Burns explained.
 
"I was intrigued by how much sunshine you have and solar energy continues to look promising longer term. I'm intrigued by how much natural gas you have and the potential for LPG and CNG vehicles; and quite frankly I'm intrigued by the amount of bio-mass that could exist -- both in the form of municipal waste, also plants that we don't eat... And so I feel a bit enviable of Australia because I think you're one of the nations that truly can come up with an energy independent strategy and you can find a way to reduce the automobile's dependence on petroleum by finding pathways for this energy to get to the automobile."
 
Burns says Reuss' short-term strategy to push forward with E85 ethanol-fuelled vehicles, in addition to further development of LPG-fuelled vehicles, makes sense. At the same time, he suggests Australia should invest aggressively in natural gas, solar, biofuel and, eventually, hydrogen infrastructure.
 
Quizzed on what his automotive energy policy would be, Burns told the Carsales Network: "I would ask myself, do I need to be importing any petroleum at all into this country... Why might you not want to import petroleum? Well, you have a lot of dollars that flow out of your economy because you have to buy somebody else's petroleum and why wouldn't you want to control your own investment in economy with energy?
 
"I would look at LPG as a starting point [to getting away from oil] -- I think that's a very exciting opportunity that you have here already... I would anticipate compressed natural gas down the road and longer term, I would really go after solar big time. For a longer term bet, I do think it's going to be economically viable."
 
Burns, the executive effectively charged with future-proofing GM said waste and cellulose fibre-based biofuels should also play a large part of Australia's future fuel plans.
 
Commenting on the potential of Australia's million of tonnes of municipal waste as a basis for fuel production, he confirmed GM's investments in companies Coskata Inc and Mascoma Corp were yielding results with the processes proving efficient in terms of ethanol production versus energy and water usage.
 
In addition, he explained the processes could be modified to produce hydrogen to power fuel cell (and internal combustion engined) vehicles.
 
"They [Coskata] take garbage, they grind it up and they burn it in a gasify and they capture the gas (so they don't emit it into the environment). You [then] run it through a membrane, as part of the technology, and then you feed the gas stream to micro-organisms. These micro-organisms love to eat hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, and when they eat it, they excrete alcohol.
 
"All you have left is alcohol and a dirt pile of ash and happy bugs!" the GM research boss joked.
 
"There's a different type of micro-organism that eats the same gas and excretes hydrogen... And you say wow, this is kind of interesting because you have the same supply chain -- collect the waste, gasify the waste, run it through a membrane -- [and] whether the demand is for hydrogen or alcohol, you can make that call at the end of the supply chain."
 
According to Burns, ethanol from waste on a large scale will be feasible in three to five years. Coskata's first scaled pilot plant (in Pennsylvania, USA) is already supplying ethanol to GM, he said.
 
"This is not food-based bio-mass, it's garbage. And here's the facts on it: you get eight times as much energy out as required to create the ethanol; you get 85 per cent reduction in CO2 per mile, versus using gasoline in the same sized car; it can be produced for $1 a gallon -- a buck-fifty gasoline equivalent; and it takes less than a gallon of water to make a gallon of ethanol this way. Corn-based ethanol takes two to three gallons of water -- so this [efficiency] is real."
 
Burns says Australia should "anticipate that fuel cell vehicles and plug-in electrics are going to be very real solutions" and set itself up in anticipation. He says production fuel cell vehicles will be a reality in five years.
 
"We think the next plan of fuel cells is 2012/2013 kind of a time frame. [But] We think the tipping point for fuel cells is the point where we've got sufficient scale and sufficient cost and market learnings; that could be 2018/2020..."
 
In contrast to the myriad discussions and opinions regarding insufficient hydrogen production and transport infrastructure, Burns says there is already enough hydrogen produced and used in gasoline production around the world to power literally millions of vehicles.
 
"Right now in the world today there's enough hydrogen being produced to fuel over 200 million fuel cell vehicles... What's all that hydrogen being used for? It's used to make ammonia for fertiliser - one half of it-- and the other half is used as input to making gasoline.
 
"In fact when you extrapolate that industry, there's a fast growing supply coming onboard -- most of that's at refineries. By 2012 we're estimating that just the hydrogen used at refineries could fuel 175 million vehicles with hydrogen fuel cells and I'd say well why not use the hydrogen directly rather than use it to make gasoline? I think that's an appropriate question... The point is the infrastructure is not a show stopper."
 
Abundant natural gas has huge potential for Australia's energy future, Burns says -- via LPG (which is refined from NG); the use of NG to produce hydrogen in home or service station-based 'reforming' units; or simply as combustion engine fuel in its own right.
 
He says before fuel cells, mid-term future vehicles could be bi-fuel models that use LPG (which can be stored and decanted at higher pressures) for longer trips, with CNG (compressed natural gas) employed as an urban or 'short hop' fuel. Long fill times for CNG are no handicap -- Australian homes could have CNG fillers to allow overnight refuelling now, the GM boss said.
 
Burns says breaking the crude habit and implementing a policy of energy diversity is a matter of "collective will" -- and thinking outside the square.
 
"So this [energy diversity] is a matter of collective will... If this issue really is as serious as it appears to be -- and I think it's serious -- we can solve it, but we can't solve it by being paralysed by all these parochial different views...
 
"What's happening is people who tend to like natural gas over-promote that, and they overly criticise all the other ones. People who tend to like ethanol, overly promote that and they overly criticise all the other ones and next thing you know you've got all these people digging their heels in, thinking there was a single answer and that's the only thing you should invest in.
 
"In fact you have to invest in all of it..."
 

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