Controversial plans to make cars greener by using fuel made from crops and animal fat will be thrown into doubt this week when British members of parliament are expected to question whether they will do more harm than good.

Biofuels have been hailed as a green alternative to oil by some, but in the US, where there are massive plants converting corn, it has been criticized for making food more expensive and being environmentally unfriendly.

Those high costs have thus far limited expansion of cellulosic technology beyond the demonstration phase, but an injection of government funding has sped the process in recent months.

The U.S. Department of Energy rolled out about $1.1 billion in funds to research bioenergy and build six commercial-scale biorefineries to help achieve the goal of increasing renewable fuels use to 36 billion gallons over the next 15 years.

Some or all of those six plants should be up and running in about two years.

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The partnership represents a rare foray by a major automaker into the production side of non-fossil fuels as GM and its rivals, under pressure from tougher U.S. fuel-efficiency standards, pursue a mix of fuel-efficient vehicles and technologies.

If all the flex-fuel vehicles produced by GM, Ford and Chrysler, plus those the companies have committed to producing by 2010, were to run on ethanol, they would displace 29 billion gallons of gasoline annually, or 18 percent of the projected petroleum usage at that time, Wagoner said.

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Ferrari said Monday it developed an engine for an F430 Spider to run on E85, an 85% ethanol blend. The automaker said it produces 5 percent less carbon dioxide emissions and boosts horsepower by 10 percent.

It didn't say how fuel consumption changed. Ferrari's goal is to cut emissions by 40% by 2012.

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Car engines have also shown they tolerate more butanol in the gasoline mix than ethanol, Connelly said.

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The “flex-fuel” vehicles work on any mixture or combination of ethanol and gasoline, so that a motorist can literally put some gasoline in the tank, and later add any quantity of ethanol to the same tank.

In 2006, 80% of light vehicle sales in Brazil were “flex-fuel”. For this basic reason, Brazil has now become self sufficient for its energy needs, with sugar-based ethanol providing 40% of its automotive fuel needs, or 20% of its total energy needs.

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Scientists at the Hydrogen Engine Center (HEC) have designed an ammonia-powered engine that can run 24 hours a day and meet California's strict emissions standards. In addition, ammonia is safe to store, is prevalent, and actually has more hydrogen per cubic foot than liquid hydrogen does.

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And made it our mission to become inventors on behalf of the most important client ever: our planet.

What we discovered was this: energy alternatives to fossil fuels are right under our feet. By looking deeper into nature's abundance, we discovered that plants, grasses, corn stalks, wood chips, and more can be turned into clean fuel. Even more encouraging, waste products – material left to decay and be buried in our land today – can be recycled into fuel tomorrow. Our new fuel is innovative. Eco-friendly. Sustainable.

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The US first celluosic plant

By Chris Brummitt, Associated Press

TUMBANG KULING, Indonesia — Naingolan shunts the excavator into high gear and tears into a patch of smoldering forest on Borneo island, clearing the way for yet another palm oil plantation that Indonesia hopes will tap into a surge in global demand for biofuels.
Despite government claims pristine jungles are escaping the effects of the "green solution" to the energy crunch, the boom is threatening the survival of animals like the endangered orangutan and turning the country into a major global warming contributor, environmentalists say.

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October 17, 2007

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