The Corvette Racing team will make its debut race on cellulosic E85 in the upcoming American LeMans Series Acura Sports Car Challenge in St. Petersburg, Florida April 4-5. GM Racing program manager Doug Fehan says they are very excited about it.
“GM is the leader in the production of flex fuel vehicles, we produce over 2.5 million and we are the largest producer in the world,” Fehan said during a teleconference on Wednesday. “Corvette has always tried to position itself as a leader in GM and within the racing community and this was a chance for Corvette again to demonstrate that leadership.”
Fehan says they had some challenges perfecting the fuel cell for using E85 in the race car, which kept them from using the fuel in the ALMS Twelve Hours of Sebring but they have resolved that issue. Comparing E85 to gasoline, Fehan says there is a difference in fuel mileage “but from a power and performance standpoint, it’s virtually the same.”
The Corvette Racing C6.R driven by Johnny O’Connell, Jan Magnussen and Ron Fellows captured ninth overall and first in the 12 hours of Sebring in Florida, the season opener for the American Le Mans Series.
O’Connell agrees that performance with the cellulosic E85 is identical. “There has been absolutely no loss in performance at all (running the E85 in the Corvette) it’s as amazing as it’s always been,” he says. Because of the lower fuel mileage he says they do have to carry a little more fuel which makes the car a little heavier at the start, but “we’ll make that up on the other side” when the car is lighter.
O’Connell is especially pleased with the environmental benefits of running E85. “We all want to be as green as we possibly can and recognize that we do need to change things to keep racing in our culture as we go forward,” said O’Connell.
Corvette Racing has a technical partnership with the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council to spotlight E85 in the ALMS, and the cellulosic E85 for the race is being provided by KL Process Design Group of South Dakota. Two other teams – the Intersport Racing Lola and the Drayson-Barwell Racing Aston Martin – are also running on E85 in the ALMS series.
Listen to part of the press conference here: [audio:http://www.zimmcomm.biz/epic/corvette-conference-edit.mp3]
The first-ever biodiesel fuel card has been unveiled. National Biodiesel Foundation (NBF) today introduced the BioTrucker Fuel Card, which highlights the availability of biodiesel with a network of truck stops that carry biodiesel. 
A company with ambitious plans to have ethanol plants in Illinois, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska is now planning to file for bankruptcy after being unable to raise $1.5 million in necessary interim financing.
Orion plans to convert the facility into a fully integrated renewable fuels campus in three phases over 3 years. The first phase will convert the corn fructose wet milling facility into a 60 million gallon per year ethanol plant and 10 million gallon per year edible oil extraction facility. Phases two and three will consist of adding a 10 million gallon per year cellulose-to-ethanol process, a 12 million gallon per year biodiesel plant, a 25,000 ton per year yeast plant, and a 60-75 Megawatt wind and biomethane based electrical generation facility. The asset purchase brings with it approximately 1,200 surrounding acres and a wind lease agreement. 
“I think this community should feel really good about the effort that has gone into the successful completion of this plant. What I’ve been told is every segment of this community got behind this effort and supported it,” Strickland said. “This is the result of people working together to accomplish something that is good for everyone. It’s going to be good for the farmers, the agriculture community in Ohio will benefit as a result of this plant.”
A Nebraska biodiesel plant that was under construction up until the middle of February, just weeks short of its completion, looks like it will be completed.
Bud Cummins, U.S. Canadian Biofuels CEO, said Monday a recent agreement with Home Federal Savings Bank, which issued the construction loan for Beatrice Biodiesel, will allow Beatrice Biodiesel to liquidate certain collateral currently securing the loan to provide a cash pool to complete the core construction at the plant.
There could be some new investors taking over the biodiesel operations of an Illinois soybean miller.
Willie Nelson’s BioWillie biodiesel fuel, which is already sold in Texas, Oklahoma, Mississippi, Louisiana, California and Tennessee, will add a key location when Willie’s Place at Carl’s Corner, Texas, opens this summer. The truck stop, built on the site of the first outlet to carry BioWillie, is located just off busy truck route I-35, which runs from the Mexican to the Canadian border. Billed as the biggest green truck stop in the United States, the facility will include 13 islands and 26 pumps, and all fuel sold there will have some percentage of biofuel, ranging from 5% to 85%.