Environment, Gas Prices Got You Down? You Have Options On The Road

Expanding alternative fuel sources, tax incentives and parking perks make it easier to go green.

Featuring a brutal look at global warming, "An Inconvenient Truth" is being billed as "the scariest movie you'll ever see." Meanwhile, gas prices hover at $3 a gallon — more in some areas.And yet, entering another summer road-trip season, gas-guzzling SUVs still rule the road.

Despite the constant buzz about harmful emissions and pollutants, many drivers don't consider environmentally friendly fuel options. And there's not always a choice. As the push continues for alternative fuel sources, purely gasoline-powered vehicles might soon be a thing of the past.

A poll conducted earlier this year by CNN, USA Today and the Gallup Organization found that the public expects that within 30 years, most U.S. automobiles will run primarily on alternative sources of fuel.

Others hope that day comes a lot quicker.

"The challenge is to step that time frame up, because if we wait 30 years, the projected impact and threats from global warming will be extraordinarily damaging," said Ruben Aronin, director of communications for Global Green USA, a national environmental organization. "We need to harness the political will and get corporations and individuals to change behavior so that we could be looking at a timeline of where, in the next 10 or 15 years, all of the new cars will have the capability of running on alternative fuels."

Gas-electric hybrid vehicles are quickly emerging as the preferred alternative fuel source. And their impact is significant: Driving a hybrid car can eliminate 5,600 pounds of carbon dioxide each year, according to Global Green USA.

Thanks in part to high-profile hybrid supporters such as Leonardo DiCaprio and Cameron Diaz, the vehicles are quickly catching on. Toyota recently announced that it had hit the 500,000-sales mark for Prius hybrid cars. Meanwhile Honda, the other major hybrid producer, reported an increase in sales, partially attributed to consumers' efforts to go green.

If helping the environment isn't incentive enough to run out and buy a hybrid, there are other perks. Several cities offer free metered parking for hybrids. Plus, many states allow hybrid drivers to use the carpool lane regardless of the number of passengers in the car.

And the incentives keep coming. The IRS recently ruled on tax credits for hybrid owners, depending on the make and model of the car, and Bank of America will offer $3,000 to employees in select cities who buy hybrid cars, according to The Associated Press.

While hybrids may be the most visible alternative to pure gasoline, ethanol is quickly emerging as the fuel of the future. Derived from starch crops, ethanol is an alcohol-based fuel that conveniently comes from such renewable sources as corn, wheat and barley. Research has shown that cellulose-based ethanol may reduce emissions even more dramatically.

"I think [cellulose-based ethanol] is going to be a huge new source of energy, particularly for the transportation sector," Al Gore told the environmental magazine Grist. "You're going to see it all over the place. You're going to see a lot more flex-fuel vehicles. You're going to see new processes that utilize waste as the source of energy, so there's no petroleum consumed in the process. That makes the energy balance uniformly positive, so you can regrow it and it does become, in a real sense, renewable."

All vehicles are capable of using ethanol at a ratio of 10 percent ethanol to 90 percent unleaded gasoline without modifications to the car. However, higher proportions of ethanol to gasoline produce even less waste.

Blends of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, or E85, can power flexible-fuel vehicles. There are currently more than 4 million of these vehicles on the road, according to the American Coalition for Ethanol. Ford, General Motors and Nissan are just a few of the companies that manufacture flexible-fuel vehicles.

Use of E85 as a fuel source primarily occurs in the Midwest, where agriculture flourishes. Missouri, Illinois, Texas, Florida and Michigan all boast E85 stations. Additional states might integrate E85 pumps as experts push for the domestically produced commodity in an effort to boost the economy while reducing dependence on foreign oil.

Like ethanol, biodiesel uses a percentage of renewable resources to form a clean-burning fuel. The fuel is a mixture of regular diesel fuel with refined fats or oils.

Biodiesel is becoming the environmentally friendly fuel source of choice for large vehicles. This year, the city of Cincinnati adopted the use of biodiesel blended fuel for its 390 public buses. Cities such as Berkeley, California, and Toronto have launched similar eco-friendly public transportation efforts.

Biodiesel-blend-fueled buses are also all the rage for musicians on the road. Last summer, Jack Johnson promoted alternative fuel awareness by touring on a bus operating on a biodiesel blend. More recently, Guster finished up a biodiesel-powered tour of college campuses aimed at raising awareness among young people.

This summer, the Warped Tour has joined the crusade for new fuel sources through the "Warped Eco Initiative" (see "Trashy Festivals? Not Anymore: Warped, Lollapalooza, Bonnaroo Go Green"). In an attempt to lessen the negative impact many tours have on the environment, the Warped Tour is using biodiesel blends to fuel buses for its entire transportation fleet.

But biodiesel isn't just for buses — it can also be used in any passenger cars that have diesel engines.

And diesel cars are making a comeback, according to Jenna Higgins, director of communications for the National Biodiesel Board. Diesel passenger cars are cleaner and quieter than they used to be and can achieve an average of 30 percent more miles per gallon than gasoline, she said.

"I think that we're starting to recognize that we can't keep our heads in the sand any longer over our enormous use of imported petroleum," Higgins said. "People are starting to recognize — I hope — that a time has come to get serious about looking for alternatives. There's no one answer to our energy needs, but all of the alternative fuels working together with conservation can really start to make a difference."