I made good time at the Gas America promotion and managed to keep a steady pace in tracking down the drivers. My chat with IndyCar Driver Sarah Fisher shed more light on what ethanol is doing for the Indy Racing League. She said it’s great to be a part of the first series to be thinking green. Sarah added more …
IndyCar Driver Jeff Simmons Educates Motorists
In the consumer frenzy to get discounted ethanol gas at GasAmerica, I managed to flag down IndyCar Driver Jeff Simmons as he pumped fuel and passed out autographs. Jeff said a lot of motorists don’t know where to get ethanol blended fuel. He added that, often, consumers are putting an ethanol blend in their car and don’t even know it. …
Cheap Gas and Autographs
On my first pit stop on the road with Chuck, I caught up with EPIC and IndyCar drivers Jeff Simmons, Scott Sharp, and Sarah Fisher at GasAmerica on LaFayette Road in Indianapolis. EPIC teamed up with GasAmerica and offered E10 fuel, a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline to consumers for $2.25 a gallon. They IndyCar drivers …
North Dakota Touted for Wind, Renewable Fuel Potential
Federal officials say North Dakota is poised to be an energy giant. This story in the Houston Chronicle quotes John Mizroch, the principal assistant secretary in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, as the keynote speaker Monday at a renewable fuels conference at Bismarck State College: “This state, it seems to me in particular _ which does have …
No-till, Biodiesel Helping Farmers’ Bottom Lines
Farmers are facing the same $3-plus-a-gallon fuel costs everyone else is today. According to this story in the Peoria (IL) Journal Star, Patrick Kirchhofer, manager of the Peoria County Farm Bureau says farmers can save by leaving residue on their fields, not plowing them. A University of Illinois study says a 1,000-acre farm that might normally spend $29,500 in fuel …
Truly Flexible Fuel Engines
Venture capitalists are dumping an unspecified amount of money into a company called Transonic Combustion… a company working on engine compnents that would be able to run on any type of fuel – biodiesel, ethanol, gasoline, vegetable oils – just about anything. Check out this story from the tech news blog section of C/Net.com: The somewhat secretive company has come …
Goodyear has Good Idea
The alternative fuel industry is getting a new product to help it move its products. According to a release on the Goodyear web site, the tire giant is producing a hose that will carry a greater variety of biodiesel and ethanol products: Goodyear Flexwing VersaFuel transfer hose meets the needs of expanding alternative fuel markets and conventional fuel markets. Unveiled …
Biodiesel Boat Back in Race
“The reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated” is a famous Mark Twain quote, but it might apply to The Earthrace, a biodiesel boat trying to set a ’round-the-world record. Back on April 29th, I reported on a C/Net story that quoted the captain as saying breaking the record would be impossible. A few days ago, we received this …
Fill’er Up… with Aluminum!
Not since Dr. Emmet Brown dropped garbage into the flux capacitor (Back to the Future) has raw material to fuel made such a fast transformation as what’s reported in this Reuters story on CNN.com. It looks like researchers are trying make it possible to add aluminum and gallium to a fuel tank of water to produce hydrogen: In the experiment …
Biofuel Producers Wary of Bush’s Goals
Producers of ethanol and biodiesel aren’t sure they can meet President Bush’s goal of 35 billion gallons of renewable or alternative fuels produced a year by 2017. Currently, just under a billion gallons a year of biodiesel and about six billion gallons of ethanol is produced. The American Agriculturalist web site says the debate came during an industry event last …