The ethanol industry in Brazil has been developing some major traction. Marcos Jank, President of UNICA, says the demand for ethanol in Brazil is now matching that of the demand for gasoline. He says ethanol is gaining ground and Brazil “won’t move back to gas.”
Marcos was one of seven speakers at today’s Ethanol Summit held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today. General Motors sponsored the event. The object of the Summit was to explore Brazil’s strong and sustained success with ethanol while also taking a look at where and how the U.S. ethanol industry has room to grow.
Marcos and Indy racing legend Emerson Fittipaldi – a Brazilian ethanol producer – highlighted a number of milestones the Brazilian ethanol industry has already attained:
- All fuel sold in Brazil contains a 20 to 25 percent blend of ethanol
- The unsubsidized ethanol industry offers a fuel that is on average one dollar below the price of gasoline
- Virtually all 33,000 gas pumps offer E100
- Just one percent of the 40 percent of arable land in Brazil is being used to produce sugarcane ethanol
- Forty-five percent of fuel for cars is from sugarcane
- Sugarcane ethanol production is 100 percent self-sufficient
- The food industry is growing faster than the ethanol industry
- Ninety percent of all new automobiles sold are flex-fuel automobiles
- One-hundred percent of GM vehicles produced in Brazil are flex-fuel
- Twenty percent of all cars are flex-fuel vehicles today
- Fifty percent of all cars will be flex-fuel vehicles by 2012
- Three percent of electricity is from sugarcane
- Honda and Yamaha are introducing flex-fuel motorcycles this year
A Connecticut-based wind power company plans to be the first solely focused wind energy business in the U.S. to go public with an Initial Public Offering (IPO) on the Nasdaq later this year.
The head of the National Biodiesel Board is telling consumers not to buy what some grocers are selling: placing the blame for food price hikes on biofuels.
“The feeding frenzy on biofuels as the reason for higher food prices has got to stop. The GMA’s anti-biofuels campaign is not based on sound science, but rather on their desire to find an easy target for defending their profits,” Jobe said.
The microbe that rotted Grandpa’s uniform and wreaked havoc on his equipment while fighting in the Pacific theater of World War II might be the same fungus that could help fill up your gas tank.
“The information generated from the genome of T. reesei provides us with a roadmap for accelerating research to optimize fungal strains for reducing the current prohibitively high cost of converting lignocellulose to fermentable sugars,” said Eddy Rubin, DOE JGI Director and one of the paper’s senior authors. “Improved industrial enzyme ‘cocktails’ from T. reseei and other fungi will enable more economical conversion of biomass from such feedstocks as the perennial grasses Miscanthus and switchgrass, wood from fast-growing trees like poplar, agricultural crop residues, and municipal waste, into next-generation biofuels. Through these incremental advances, we hope to eventually supplant the gasoline-dependent transportation sector of our economy with a more carbon-neutral strategy.” 
Jeff Simmons: not just a racing pro but a national writing champ! 
There are lots of perks that come along with covering the Indy Racing League. Perks like meeting IndyCar Drivers, photographing the world’s most significant motor sporting event (Indy 500) and meeting some of the most talented journalists and photographers of the motor sports industry. Those amazing opportunities come on a regular basis with IRL coverage. Sometimes, a few extras get thrown in. In Kansas City, I got to take a couple laps around the track with IndyCar Driver Davy Hamilton. No, not in an IndyCar. But, it was an Indy pace car and we did go 118 miles an hour around a 1.5 mile oval, getting just centimeters away from the wall. By the way, Davy will drive the #22 Hewlett-Packard/KR Vision Racing car during this weekend’s race.
The media has been keeping Team Ethanol Driver Ryan Hunter-Reay busy. When I popped in for the first session of driver interviews I saw that media interest in Ryan maintained a steady flow. Phillip Wilson from the Indianapolis Star got a quick video interview of Ryan. Phillip says the video will be posted on 
Well, from head to shoe really. The E-logo is everywhere here at the Brickyard. From IndyCars and trailers to flags and t-shirts. But, so far, the most interesting places I spotted the logo during this year’s Indy 500 race weekend were on a ‘Cat in the Hat’ style hat and painted on a Keds kid-sized shoe.
snagging a signature from former Team Ethanol Driver Jeff Simmons. Now, the shoe is signed by both Jeff and current Team Ethanol driver Ryan Hunter-Reay. I pointed out the shoe to Joanna Schroeder, the Director of Communications for the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. She is going to have Bobby Rahal sign the shoe so Mark has a complete collection of sigs. She’s also sending him a real replica of the the Team Ethanol car. Mark has the Simmons and Hunter-Reay replicas, but not the Paul Dana replica. Joanna is making sure Mark’s collection of Team Ethanol IndyCar replicas is complete too.
The American Automobile Association (AAA) predicts that nearly 32 million drivers will hit the road for the long holiday weekend. However, the 
The oil executives defended their profits and the price increases with statements such as, “The fundamental laws of supply and demand are at work,” made by John Hofmeister, chairman of Shell Oil.