Assessment of costs and benefits of flexible and alternative fuel use in the US transportation sector. Technical report eight: Impacts on home heating costs of incentives for alternative-fuel vehicles

摘要

The Alternative Motor Fuels Act of 1988 (AMFA, Public Law 100--494) offers incentives in the form of fuel economy credits to manufacturers who produce vehicles capable of using natural gas or alcohol fuels. Specifically, Section 6 of AMFA allows manufacturers to count 1 gallon of alcohol fuel or 1 gallon equivalent of natural gas as only 0.15 gallon of ''fuel'' when calculating the manufacturer's corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) number. Substitution of natural gas or alcohol fuels for gasoline in the transportation sector is likely to affect the prices of natural gas and distillate oil, which are important sources of energy for home heating. Therefore, Section 9 of AMFA calls for a study of the impact of the manufacturing incentives provision on the cost of home heating. This report provides that analysis. It evaluates and quantifies the possible effects of the CAFE provisions in terms of the following: (1) numbers of alternative- and dual-fuel vehicles that might be built as a result of this provision; (2) consumption of alcohol and natural gas by these vehicles; (3) whether the alcohol or compressed natural gas (CNG) is likely to be derived from domestic resources; (4) the effects on domestic natural gas and home heating oil prices; and, (5) the resulting impact on home heating costs. Only the impacts of manufacturing incentives for dedicated and dual-fuel alcohol-powered automobiles and dedicated and dual-fuel natural-gas-powered automobiles, as described in Section 6 of AMFA, are considered in this study. This report also contributes to the Department of Energy's comprehensive technical analysis of a flexible-fuel transportation system in the United States. The DOE Altemative Fuels Assessment is aimed directly at questions of energy security and fuel availability, but covers a wide range of issues. (ERA citation 17:028565)