Holden eyes flex fuel market

Holden has already announced its plans to have E85 ethanol compliant engines across the Commodore range by next year but it is the behind-the-scenes work that could yet bring the biggest benefits for the company.

"We are working hard for E85 ... and that is not just in regard to the engines themselves," GM Holden boss Alan Batey says. "There is a lot of work going on with suppliers and distributors to ensure that when the cars are available the fuel will be as well. We are leading that particular struggle and it is looking promising."

While not prepared to name any potential E85 partners, Batey did concede that Holden's involvement in the Ethanol program could be far more integrated than simply supplying end-user engines. "Is it possible we could have an upstream involvement in E85? That's a good question and certainly one we have asked ourselves," Batey says. "It's not something I am going to comment on now, but there are possibilities."

Part of that involvement is likely to come out of Holden's involvement with General Motors-backed US biofuel company Coskata and a consortium of Australian companies wanting to establish an ethanol plant in Australia.

GM Holden's director of energy and environment, Richard Marshall, says ethanol is an important plank in the company's overall fuel efficiency strategy. "We are responding to today's energy challenges by looking at a range of technologies and alternative fuels to reduce our dependence on foreign oil," Marshall says. "The 2008 World Energy Outlook describes the issue of declining oil supply very well.

"It shows that demand for oil will reach 104 million barrels per day in 2030, meaning there will be a need for a further 64 million barrels a day to meet that demand. That is six times the current capacity of Saudi Arabia which requires $13 trillion in new investment."

Marshall says an integrated fuel strategy is critical to the issue, a strategy that crosses the new spark ignition direct injection technology in Commodore, greater development of LPG, diesel and compressed natural gas as well as renewable sources like ethanol.

"E85 is a clean burning renewable fuel that can be made from household garbage," Marshall explains. "Think of the Back To The Future movie where at the end of the film they fuelled the DeLorean time machine using banana skins.

"Well, the science may be different but the principle is not. We are talking about using household rubbish to make fuel.

"It is certainly exciting when you consider locally made ethanol could displace out use of petrol by up to 30 per cent and reduce Co2 emission by up to 86 per cent."