We consume more oil every day than we discover. The increasedscarcity and then the quasi-disappearance of oil is inevitable –it’s only a matter of time. As of the next decade, oil productionwill no longer fully cover market needs, and this will directlyimpact its price. To attenuate the effects of costly oil, it will benecessary to use other energy sources, such as biomass(ethanol, alcohols, CEE, vegetable oils, EMHV, ETBE, MTBE),natural gas, coal and in the long term, hydrogen produced withrenewable energies or nuclear power.

There are several possible scenarios with respect to cars usingthese energy resources.

The first and most probable scenario consists in using thesenon-petroleum energy sources to produce gas and diesel.According to this scenario, we will continue to have easy-to-use

fuels, which are completely compatible with existing distributionnetworks and vehicle fleets. The production of syntheticgasoline and diesel will use hydrogenation or carbonizationprocesses. We should see the development of BTL (Biomass ToLiquid), CTL (Coal To Liquid) or GTL (Gas To Liquid) mainlybased on the Fischer-Tropsch or Bergius processes and theirvariants. Certain conversion units will be able to simultaneouslyuse energy with high carbon contents (coal) and others with lowcarbon contents (gas) to ensure a carbon budget as neutral aspossible. Nuclear energy could supply the electricity, heat andeven hydrogen required for these transformation processes,while producing minimum CO2. According to this first scenario,the production of gasoline and diesel will eventually become areal synthetic industry, similar to the petrochemical industry.

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Conventional crude oil will progressively give way to other energy sources

Biomass, whether oil, alcohol or biogas,will play a major role in coming years

Supply-demand imbalance will lead to a high increasein the price of crude oil within the next 20 years

Oil prices - forecasts

60

110

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310

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2022

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2028

source: Reuters-EIA

The second scenario consists in developing vehicles adapted toeach fuel. This involves planning a storage system for thespecific fuel, as well as an engine with an adapted compressionratio, fuel supply and engine management systems. In this case,certain vehicles would be designed and optimized for naturalgas, while others would be adapted to ethanol or different typesof gasolines. This approach is costly and complex, because notonly must the vehicles be modified but an appropriatedistribution network must also be planned for each type of fuel.There will be different deployment and market acceptanceissues for this second scenario: it will be difficult, for example,to sell natural gas vehicles in the absence of a sufficiently dense

natural gas refueling network. Moreover, setting up such anetwork when the fleet of natural gas vehicles is too small is notprofitable. Changing over to other fuels can also lead toproblems with behavioral habits and feelings of insecurity thatwill slow people buying into them. Simplifying the distributionand use of fuels is essential: in France, instead of developingservice stations distributing E85 (15% gasoline and 85%ethanol), we could have incorporated more ethanol intostandard fuels without any modification to service stations orvehicles. This strategy could have been used since farms cannotproduce enough to increase the ethanol content in gasoline tosuch a point that gasoline engines would have to be modified.

For all of these reasons, it’s probable that the future will bebased on a third scenario, which will be a combination of thefirst two. Indeed, standard fuels are destined to become“cocktails” made up of different energy sources. Due to this, itwill be more difficult to guarantee the fuel characteristics asprecisely as we do today without making it expensive. For thisreason, it will be vital for engines to automatically adapt to largevariations in quality and characteristics while drawing the bestperformance and efficiency with minimal pollutant emissions. Toachieve this result, engines will have to be truly flexfuel/multifuel,which means that they’ll require a variable compression ratio.

The compression ratio is in fact the main characteristic enablingthe adaptation of an engine to a fuel whose octane number ismore or less high. Since it has a variable compression ratio, theMCE-5 VCRi engine can automatically adapt to any fuel,regardless of its octane number. With an appropriate enginemanagement system, the MCE-5 VCRi could in future “learn”which fuel it is dealing with by detecting its characteristics(knock detection at certain operating points). Hence, it will beable to select its “sub-program” and function with a highercompression ratio when using a fuel with a high octane number,and vice versa for a fuel with a low octane number. This basiccharacteristic enables the elimination of any knock phenomenonwhen consuming a fuel with a low octane number (i.e.: SP 95 orlower), and avoiding any useless loss in efficiency when runningon a fuel with a high octane number (i.e.: SP 98, gasoline with ahigh ethanol content, natural gas). This function also allowsstarting the engine at -20°C on pure ethanol, avoiding fueladditives with toxic anti-knock agents (example: MTBE), orautomatically adapting the engine management program tostrong variations in the quality of natural gas depending in itsorigin.

The extreme flexibility of MCE-5 VCRi should accompany thedevelopment of new fuels without having to make concessionsin the engine’s energy efficiency, regardless of the different fuelsthat it runs on. Today’s “flexfuel” cars are based on acompromise: when they run on gasoline, their efficiency is lowerthan that of cars running exclusively on gasoline, and when theyrun on ethanol, their efficiency is lower than that of cars runningonly on ethanol. While they are supposed to reduce CO2emissions, these flexfuel cars do not use the fuels at theirmaximum efficiency – this strategy goes against its objective.

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The MCE-5 VCRi variable compression ratio makes it possible to optimisethe use of different fuels with variable characteristics

This result is due to the absence of a variable compression ratio(VCR): without VCR, an intermediate compression ratio must befound that is an acceptable compromise. This is done to the

detriment of the flexfuel car’s final energy efficiency, but it is theonly way to allow the car to use both conventional gasoline andethanol. In future, MCE-5 VCRi technology will eliminate thiscompromise so that all fuels will be used at their maximumefficiency in flexfuel cars. Thanks to MCE-5 VCRi, it will even bepossible to distribute cheap “generic” gasoline whosecharacteristics will vary according to supply or regulatoryconstraints: the engine will automatically adapt to this gasolineto get the best fuel efficiency, in totally safe conditions for theengine.

It’s impossible to speak of the diversification of energyresources for cars without focusing on the specific case ofnatural gas. This essentially fossil and potentially renewable(biogas) energy source is destined to become a strategic ally ofthe automobile in coming years, and particularly as of 2020-2025.

Natural gas is a low carbon fuel. When directly burned in acombustion engine, it emits roughly 20% less CO2 with thesame service provided. This characteristic drastically reducesthe carbon footprint of the vehicles running on it. Moreover,natural gas is present in large quantities and better distributedacross the world than oil is, which should reduce the energydependence of western transportation on politically unstablecountries. What’s more, a fairly dense network of gastransmission pipelines ensures the transport of natural gas fromthe areas of production to the different areas of consumption. Inareas with high population density, natural gas is delivereddirectly into homes.

As previously explained, it’s technically possible to convertnatural gas into gasoline or even diesel (GTL: gas to liquids).However, this conversion eats up roughly 35 to 40% of theenergy contained in the gas, representing a huge waste and aneconomic loss. The GTL industry requires approximately 10joules of “gas” to produce 6 joules of “gasoline” so that fromwell to tank, the gasoline produced from natural gas emits 30%more CO2 than the gasoline produced from oil. In addition, oncethe gas has been transformed into gasoline, we lose the 20%reduction in CO2 emissions per km that the direct combustionof natural gas provides to vehicles. Used at a large scale forcars, natural gas must therefore absolutely be consumed as is,without any prior conversion. This means that the gas must bestored on board under high pressure (roughly 200 bar) incylinder-, spherical- or toiraodal-shaped tanks. Heavier andbigger than gasoline tanks, these gas reservoirs take up a lot ofroom. In this context, engine efficiency becomes a determiningfactor to ensure that the vehicle has enough range withoutsacrificing too much on-board volume. This energy efficiencyobjective is directly served by the increase in energy efficiencyprovided by MCE-5 VCRi technology via the optimization of thecompression ratio, hard downsizing and reduced friction.

In the medium term, be it of fossil or renewable origin,unconverted natural gas for cars will be an excellentcomplement or even an alternative to oil. Nevertheless, to

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The MCE-5 VCRi can run equally as well on natural gas or gasoline,with a better efficiency than a fixed compression ratio engine

running only on natural gas or only on gasoline

ensure its commercial success and to support the developmentof the required network of service stations, vehicles will alsohave to be able to consume gasoline with a high efficiency andwithout compromising vehicle performance. This will necessarilyrequire a variable compression ratio such as the one proposedby MCE-5 VCRi. Indeed, the MCE-5 VCRi can run equally aswell on natural gas or gasoline, with a better efficiency than afixed compression ratio engine running only on natural gas oronly on gasoline. The strategic advantages to be gained fromthis feature are immense in the next 20 to 30 years and golargely beyond the scope of automobiles. The goal is sustainindividual mobility, on which a large part of our economic systemis based, by smoothly accompanying the inevitable depletion ofoil reserves, whose first effects will already be visible between2010 and 2020.

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