Ford To Create Vehicle Ethanol Corridor
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Ford To Create Vehicle Ethanol Corridor

Ford Motor Company is bringing its commitment to American innovation to the heartland with a series of actions to boost the popularity, visibility and availability of energy- saving vehicles. Ford is teaming up with energy partners, the public, city and state governments, and private companies to expand hybrids and vehicles capable of running on E85 ethanol.

Ford will launch the beginnings of a "Midwest Ethanol Corridor" -- expanding E85 ethanol fuel availability by about one-third throughout the states of Illinois and Missouri this year through the company's ongoing partnership with VeraSun Energy, a renewable energy company. Actions to increase the availability of ethanol in neighboring states are planned, as well. VeraSun Energy Corp. is a renewable energy company, headquartered in Brookings, S.D. The company produces 230 million gallons per year of ethanol at its facilities in South Dakota and Iowa. VeraSun is the nation's second largest ethanol producer.

Ford also announced that it is working with the city of Chicago to put hybrid vehicles into service as taxi cabs beginning in 2007, as part of a plan being considered today by the Chicago City Council. Ford is loaning the city an Escape Hybrid to serve as a training and education tool with taxi fleets and the public. The Ford Escape Hybrid will help taxi companies reduce fuel expenses while helping to improve the air quality in the city.

"Ford is advancing innovative solutions to customer concerns over high gas prices and America's overdependence on foreign oil," says Bill Ford, Ford Motor Company chairman and CEO. "Ethanol is an innovative energy source straight from the heartland of America."

E85 ethanol is a fuel blend that contains 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Ethanol is a completely renewable fuel that, in the U.S., is most commonly made from corn. Gasoline sold in the U.S. frequently contains up to 10 percent ethanol, but an increasing number of vehicles on the road today can operate on blends containing up to 85 percent ethanol. To date, approximately 500 of the more than 180,000 fuel stations in the United States currently offer E85 ethanol.

Midwest Ethanol Corridor

The first phase in the creation of the Midwest ethanol corridor is to convert approximately 40 existing gasoline fuel pumps in Illinois and Missouri to E85. The move will increase availability by approximately one-third this year. Ford estimates there are 50,000 owners of Ford flexible fuel vehicles (FFV) in Illinois and 28,000 in Missouri. Ford will work with fuel providers and officials in other states to further develop the Midwest ethanol corridor.

"With its commitment to ethanol and E85, Ford is showing the kind of renewable energy vision that Illinois and America need," said Illinois Gov. Rod R. Blagojevich. "With the Illinois Clean Energy Infrastructure Program, we have increased the number of E85 stations in Illinois from 14 to about 100. Ford's commitment today will help us continue to expand E85 infrastructure and make this cost-effective and clean fuel more widely available to consumers in Illinois."

Ford has produced flexible fuel vehicles for more than a decade, with more than 1.6 million on the road.

With the introduction of four new 2006 models that have the E85 option - including the Ford F-150 pickup, Ford Crown Victoria, Mercury Grand Marquis and Lincoln Town Car - the company will produce up to 250,000 ethanol-capable vehicles in 2006.

"Ford has been putting flexible fuel vehicles on the road for years, but the ethanol fueling infrastructure has not kept pace," said Anne Stevens, executive vice president, Ford Motor Company, and chief operating officer, The Americas. "For energy diversity to be a reality for our customers, there must be a growing infrastructure that is convenient for them.

"We are working to achieve this reality," she added. "Our focus is on infrastructure and to encourage retail fuel providers to incorporate E85 fuel options in their operations."

Ford and VeraSun said they are working together to increase consumer awareness of ethanol, particularly in the Midwest. The companies are investigating ways to inform owners of flexible fuel vehicles about the benefits of ethanol as well as where they can find E85 in local markets.

"The two greatest challenges facing greater E85 use are access to convenient fueling locations and a lack of consumer awareness," said Bill Honnef, vice president, Sales and Marketing, VeraSun. "Our partnership with Ford is to address these two issues."

This story generated more interest (based on the number of times it was viewed) than anything we have run in quite a while in our daily news, and that's good. But, is ethanol the panacea it is made out to be? Let's take a quick look at both sides of the equation.

Although Ford made this announcement that emphasized creating an ethanol infrastructure, General Motors has also committed to E85 with its growing number of vehicles that can run on the fuel. There's no doubt that the number of vehicles that can use E85 is rising. For example, Ford offers the Taurus, Crown Victoria, F-150, and Town Car; GM offers the Impala, Monte Carlo, Avalanche, Suburban, Tahoe, and Yukon; and Dodge offers the Durango, Ram, Stratus, Sebring, and Caravan. E85 capable vehicles are also available from Mazda and Nissan. It's notable that none are yet available from Toyota, as far as I know, but that may soon change.

Ford's announcement supports and reinforces a US Senate bill that was introduced last April, Bill S.918, "E-85 Fuel Utilization and Infrastructure Development Incentives Act of 2005." The purpose of the Act is to decrease the dependence of the US on foreign oil by increasing the use of high ratio blends of gasoline with a minimum 85 percent domestically derived ethanol content (E85) as an alternative fuel and providing greater access to this fuel. E85-capable Flexible Fuel Vehicles(FFVs) now exceed 5,000,000, with an additional 1,000,000 or more FFVs expected to be added annually as automakers continue to respond to congressionally-provided production incentives.

The biggest problem right now is locating ethanol-based E85 for sale, because there are only about 500 places that sell E85 out of the approximately 180,000 fueling stations in this country. Ford hopes to expand the number of E85 pumps in Illinois and Missouri by 30% this year -- a pretty lofty goal, but one that indicates it's serious and committed.

The US should look at Brazil as an example of producing its own fuel without nearly the foreign oil dependence it once had (it cut imports by approximately half using sugar cane to produce ethanol). Another advantage to E85 is lower car emissions which can help decrease air pollution.

While ethanol does have some advantages and benefits, it also has some significant issues that unfortunately contribute to its downside.

First and foremost is fuel economy. Because it has less so-called "energy density," E85 provides about 30 percent fewer miles than an equivalent volume of gasoline. Therefore, for E85 to become a viable alternative, it would have to be quite a bit less expensive than gasoline because more of it would be needed to provide the energy for traveling the same distance.

Another downside is the fact that E85 from corn doesn't really provide as much fuel compared with other ethanol sources, such as sugar cane or sugar beets. Compared with gasoline, it is also more energy intensive to produce because of the energy costs associated with its growing, harvesting, and distillation processes. Also, due to the nature of the process, regular ethanol distillation is limited to a mixture of approximately 94% ethanol and 6% water. Some changes are needed to the distillation process to produce anhydrous alcohol so that its energy density is increased and it burns more efficiently.

So, it may turn out that using current production methods, ethanol may not be as environmentally friendly as it is often made out to be, because ethanol distillation alone can create pollution at a level on par with that of refining gasoline. Add to that the fact that ethanol cars get poorer mileage and the environmental value further diminishes. Its greatest redeeming environmental value may be that it is a renewable energy source. In any event, this move by Ford, along with other technologies, such as hybrids, biodiesel, and fuel cells, may provide the impetus for moving forward and finally beginning to lessen our dependence on foreign oil.

The Week's Top 5

At MCADCafé we track many things, including the stories that have attracted the most interest from our subscribers. Below are the five news items that were the most viewed during last week.

ANSYS To Acquire Fluent
ANSYS announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Fluent Inc. Under the terms of the merger agreement, ANSYS will issue 6,000,000 shares of its common stock and pay approximately $300 million in net cash to acquire Fluent, subject to certain adjustments at closing. The transaction is valued at approximately $565 million based on the $44.11 per share closing price of ANSYS common stock on February 15, 2006. ANSYS will use a combination of existing cash and approximately $200 million from committed bank financing to fund the transaction.

Fluent Joins UGS Partner Program
Fluent Inc., a developer of Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) software and services, announced its partnership with UGS Corp. Fluent joins the UGS Partnership Program at the Foundation level, and will develop, market, and sell CFD technologies that are interoperable with UGS' NX software. Initial product plans include the Fluent Connection for NX, which includes a native reader for Parasolid software and NX enhancements that provide ease of use and facilitate the launching of Fluent's CFD tools within the NX environment. A two-way, fully-associative live reader will complement the Parasolid reader, enabling optimization looping in the design process.

German Machine Maker Switches To SolidWorks
LSW Maschinenfabrik GmbH, a German manufacturer of high-end assembly systems for the automotive industry, has purchased 80 licenses of SolidWorks. After thorough benchmark testing, the company, part of the German IWKA Group, switched from Autodesk Inventor to SolidWorks, for engineers in LSW's Bremen headquarters and at its American subsidiary, B&K Corp., in Michigan. The company said that one of SolidWorks. main advantages proved to be its speed in converting solid models into 2D drawings, an important step in design cycle efficiency already witnessed in other sectors of the IWKA Group. LSW Maschinenfabrik's assembly systems produce engines, cylinder heads, axles, transmissions, steering systems, and other components. The company designs assembly systems for use in production. The systems mainly assemble components for power trains, such as engines, cylinder heads, axles, transmission, and steering systems.

Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. To Deploy UGS' Teamcenter
UGS Corp. announced Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co. will deploy UGS' Teamcenter software 2005 to manage all product data for its entire, multi-national F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) program. Lockheed Martin, the world's number one defense contractor, has relied on Teamcenter for more than eight years as the digital backbone for its JSF program. As the prime contractor for a global coalition of aerospace and defense companies, Lockheed Martin plans to migrate all 7,000 of its Teamcenter licenses to Teamcenter 2005. Teamcenter is also used by more than 5,000 JSF partner users and 1,500 supplier users at more than 130 sites worldwide. Teamcenter is used throughout the JSF program to coordinate a global collaboration network that includes three primary industrial partners plus more than 1,000 suppliers in 30 countries who are designing and building up to 5,000 aircraft with at least three major variations. Teamcenter manages the complete technical definition of each model and serial number aircraft which produces a massive amount of data that is expected to grow to more than 20 terabytes.

New SolidWorks Training Books Available
Sheet Metal Guy, LLC announced that three new SolidWorks training books are now available at www.SheetMetalGuy.com. The series of SolidWorks training manuals provides practical, easy-to-follow lessons that help reduce the time and cost of product development. "Doctor Walt's Introduction to SolidWorks" uses practical examples to quickly introduce the novice SolidWorks user to the techniques required to create part models and associated drawings. "Doctor Walt's SolidWorks Workbook" covers intermediate level part modeling and assemblies. Exercises include design tables, assembly simulation, injection molded parts, and sheet metal design. "Doctor Walt's SolidWorks Assemblies" deals with both "top-down" and "bottom-up" assembly modeling techniques. Special attention is given to the use of derived parts and the interplay of mating relationships. Associated assembly drawings with bills of material and balloon callouts are also covered.


Jeffrey Rowe is the editor and publisher of MCADCafé and MCAD Weekly Review. He can be reached here or 408.850.9230.

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