Citroen C4 BioFlex brings ethanol to Europe

The Pollyanna petroleum industry doesn't agree it's necessary and eco-pessimists argue it isn't enough, but Citroen has developed a C4 that runs on up to 85 per cent ethanol.

Ethanol can be extracted from crops (more here), so it's a renewable resource and has similar combustion properties to traditional petrol. It therefore runs in petrol engines with minimal modification.

Europe has been heavily reliant on diesel power for decades and car manufacturers are increasingly headed in the direction of bio-diesel vehicles -- vehicles that will run on diesel fuel refined from canola crops.

The C4 BioFlex might change those perceptions of European diesel drivers. Citroen has been marketing 'flex fuel' cars in South America for some time and 65 per cent of the company's sales there comprise cars that run a mix of petrol and ethanol.

Brazil has huge tracts of sugar cane crops and a long history of fuelling domestic cars with straight ethanol or an ethanol/petrol blend.

Citroen's Brazilian arm has developed the engine for the C4 BioFlex and the environmentally friendly car will make its debut at the Frankfurt motor show next month.

The C4 BioFlex will be sold in Sweden and France initially. Those two countries combined have over 500 established filling stations that can supply the 'E85' blend of petrol/ethanol (85 per cent ethanol by volume). Ethanol is a clean burning fuel and reduces CO2 emissions by five per cent over combined cycle economy testing.

Citroen claims that allowing for the cleaner production cycle for ethanol, emissions are reduced by 40 per cent over equivalent volumes of petrol. The very plants that produce the sugar for the ethanol production absorb quantities of CO2 and recycle that greenhouse gas as oxygen.

This is what Citroen describes as 'field to wheel' emissions. The crops that provide the raw material for ethanol production are beetroot, wheat or corn. Sugar from these plants is fermented and ethanol is a by-product of that process.

Ethanol does not contain sulphur, so it's a fundamentally cleaner fuel than petrol.

One of the further benefits of E85 vehicles that Citroen is promoting with the C4 BioFlex is the substantially lower cost of ethanol than petrol. Furthermore, many European countries offer tax incentives for vehicles running the alternative fuel.

The E85 engine uses more fuel than a similar petrol-only engine, but as the ethanol is cheaper than the E85 engine is profligate, the consumer is still ahead on points -- and is using a resource that is fundamentally better for the environment.

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