President Bush's energy budget slashes 'advanced petroleum-based fuels,' pushes hydrogen

Diesel Fuel News, Feb 17, 2003 by Jack Peckham

U.S. President George Bush's proposed 2004 U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) budget to Congress not only slashes most fossil-fuels based research, but also would slash the clean-diesel-oriented "advanced petroleum-based fuels" (APBF) program by 70% -- from $13.3 million last year, to just $4 million this year.

What's more, APBF for "clean" heavy-duty diesel research won't get a dime in fiscal 2004. "APBF for heavy-duty vehicle applications is terminated because it is largely within the capabilities of industry, which must meet future EPA emissions standards," the DOE budget message says.

However, "non-petroleum based fuels and lubricants" R&D would get a boost -- from $2.3 million last year, to $2.8 million this year -- to promote "biomass" and "non-petroleum fossil-based feedstocks (coal and natural gas)."

What's left in APBF: A program to "evaluate near-term NOx adsorber aftertreatment systems of light-duty platforms to determine fuel effects on the durability of these systems," the DOE budget message says. The R&D also will "evaluate the use of diesel fuel blending agents as a means of enhanced emission control device efficiency and regeneration capabilities."

APBF also will perform "testing of prototype inline fuel-sulfur removal technology to determine its ability to remove sulfur from diesel fuel in the fuel line just upstream of the engine" (see Diesel Fuel News 1/20/03, p6).

Elsewhere, the DOE budget proposes to eliminate coal-to-diesel pilot-plant or demonstration projects from the "Vision 21" program and instead redirect those funds to "high-value" fuel pilot plants -- meaning hydrogen. Diesel, methanol and dimethyl ether (DME) from coal are termed "low-value" fuels, says National Research Council's (NRC) official recommendation for future DOE coal-to-fuels R&D.

The 2004 DOE budget request thus squares with the NRC recommendations, despite a recent $100 million DOE grant for a coal-to-diesel-and-power plant in Pennsylvania (see Diesel Fuel News 1/20/03, p7).

While DOE wouldn't put more money into ultra-clean coal-diesel plant demonstrations, it will put up $800,000 for "non-petroleum based fuels and lubricants" R&D including tests of "high hydrogen-to-carbon ratio diesel fuel blending agent" made from biomass, natural gas or coal.

The agency also will boost funds to monitor fleet compliance with Energy Policy Act (EPAct) mandates. This forces certain fleets buy vehicles capable of running on "alternative fuels" (meaning anything but gasoline or diesel). It also boosts DOE funds to evaluate petitions for "new" EPAct fuels (gas-to-liquids diesel being among these). DOE also would "issue a final rule on the private and local government fleet mandate" that could force costly purchases of "alt-fuel vehicles."

While slashing many clean-diesel R&D programs, DOE's proposed budget greatly increases R&D funds for light-duty "Freedom-Car" hydrogen fuel cells and hydrogen infrastructure development.

This redirection will result in another 21% loss of funds for "APBF," on top of the 70% slash from the over-all program.

What's more, APBF's entire $8.2 million that last year went for the related "21st Century Truck Partnership" is eliminated.

Another 39% slash is made to DOE's "advanced combustion engine emission control" program (down to $2.2 million, from $3.6 million in last year's DOE budget request). "Fuels technology" R&D also gets a 62% cut, to $6.8 million, from $18 million last year.

However, funding continues for the "pneumatic truck" program (see Diesel Fuel News 2/3/03, p11). This is part of the "heavy vehicle systems R&D" funding, which would remain flat in 2004, at $10.7 million. The same program also aims to boost R&D for locomotive energy efficiency and emissions reduction (see Diesel Fuel News 3/5/01, p13).

A separate "combustion and emission control" program gets another cut (to $15 million, from $17.5 million last year). This cost-shared R&D program will continue to investigate homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) technologies; hydrogen combustion engines, and laser diagnostics of in-cylinder soot formation.

This program also will continue "combinatorial chemistry" R&D techniques to find catalyst materials for a high-efficiency NOx adsorber (see Diesel Fuel News 5/27/02, p3; 10/15/01, p13).

* Light, Heavy Truck Engines

Meantime, DOE's "light-truck engine" program would continue at last year's funding level ($13.1 million), with research partners Cummins, DDC, Cat, several DOE-funded national laboratories, "quantum-well thermoelectric" developer Hi-Z, and plasma-catalyst developer NoxTech.

This "light-truck" program will "complete integration of in-cylinder and aftertreatment NOx and PM reduction devices, such as NOx and PM filters, with the engine control microprocessor in a light truck," DOE's budget message says. The program also will "complete development of fuel injection system components and design of combustion chamber for HCCI system." It also will "complete scale-up of non-thermal plasma for a nominal 250-hp engine and NOx/PM reduction to achieve greater than 80% NOx reduction" and "complete development of greater than 1-kW quantum-well thermoelectric generators that will convert exhaust waste heat into enough electricity to supplement the conventional light-truck alternator and supply power to electrical components."