A University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee research program is seeking to provide state- and municipality-owned fleets with vehicles that use alternative fuels.

The Alternative Fuels Research program will save gas and other fuels, and help prevent harmful emissions from entering the earth’s atmosphere. The program also seeks to raise the public’s awareness of vehicles that use alternative fuels.

The research for this project takes place at the Center for Alternative Fuels Research Programs, part of the UWM College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. The Emissions Testing Laboratory on Alois Street serves as the testing site. The lab is composed of three test bays as well as a control room.

The center’s focus is on automobiles and trucks. The facility’s setup allows mainly for standard emission studies.

Part of the center’s mission is “converting some vehicles into vehicles that would run on alternative fuels, like ethanol or compressed natural gas, then surveying those entities as to how well they’re finding those vehicles to work,” said John Reisel, associate director of the center.

Many people who are involved in or familiar with the research underway hope that the findings could eventually tame today’s soaring gas prices, which are linked in part to the growing demand for fuel combined with the fixed supply.

Since the program provides vehicles that reduce fuel consumption as well as harmful emissions, some believe that this will become common practice in the future, if only out of necessity.

The emission levels from vehicles using alternative fuels are much lower than those allowed by the state.

The fuels used in this project include compressed natural gas, electricity, ethanol, hydrogen, liquefied natural gas, liquefied petroleum gas and methanol.

One of the main fuels the study focuses on is ethanol, which is made up of mainly corn and agricultural waste. Corn and agricultural waste are renewable resources that are cleaner than gas and greatly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

UWM has played an essential role in brining ethanol to Milwaukee and raising public awareness of its benefits.

“The advantage of ethanol is that it’s homegrown; you can produce more of it every year, just grow more crops, you can produce more ethanol.” Reisel said. “It’s a renewable energy source that is domestically produced that cuts down on our foreign reliance on fuel and petroleum, because we’re now up to importing about 70 percent of the petroleum we use in this country.”

The main issues with these new vehicles are cost and access. One argument is that the vehicles that don’t use gas cost more than gasoline-fueled vehicles. Another is that many station owners only have gas, not ethanol at service stations.

Due in part to this research and other studies like it, newer cars can now burn either gas or ethanol, thanks to a grant that allows owners to equip their stations with ethanol pumps.

The grants that allow the research are part of a program by the Oil Overcharge Fund. The grants have allowed 47 municipalities to help buy more than 300 vehicles, all of which use some form of alternative fuel.

According to an August 2004 program summary, grants are limited to $6,500 per passenger vehicle, $12,000 per truck and $50,000 per municipality.

This study continues to draw support from many in Wisconsin and elsewhere. Many involved with and aware of the research believe we could benefit from it economically and ethically.

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Bradley Wooten contributed to this story.

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