energy.agwired.com

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 up with a highly efficient combustion system for conventional engines that increases gas mileage. It also allows cars to run on different fuels, which could help goose sales of things like biodiesel. There are other techniques for allowing engines to run on a variety of fuels, but they aren’t widespread. Transonic has built single-cylinder prototypes and will now try to build a four cylinder engine. It hopes to demonstrate the technology to the auto industry more fully in 2008.

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.

It gives Goodyear Authorized Distributors the flexibility to service existing and new fuel markets with one product, according to Keith Collett, marketing manager for Goodyear’s industrial hose business. “VersaFuel helps simplify product selection, lower distributor inventory costs, and meet the needs of emerging fuel markets,” he said.

Company officials say the new VersaFuel hose solves the problem of the biofuels rotting away the rubber. Plus, its helix wire design keeps the hose from collapsing, making it good in vacuum situations. And they say it dissipates static build-up making it safer to deal with. It even works well in temps from -30 to 180 degrees Fahrenheit.

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 week in Houston:

A Bush administration official Friday defended the viability of the president’s goals, but the discussion at the Houston event underscores the magnitude of the challenge facing the U.S. as it struggles to feed its growing energy needs in an increasingly carbon-limited world.

“It just touches on how big the challenge is to penetrate and change the fueling habits,” he says.

Speaking with reporters after a luncheon address, Paul Dickerson, an Energy Department official, says the administration’s goal is realistic. He pointed to other fuels under development, as well as to leading-edge technologies being funded chiefly by private-venture capital.

“We’re more bullish on the output than some of the folks here,” says Dickerson, the chief operating officer for the department’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.

Conference attendees say the biggest obstacle will be enough feedstocks to make all this fuel possible.