The sleek tri-hull Earthrace eco-boat, has beaten the world speed record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe. The biodiesel powered craft traveled 24,000 nautical miles in 60 days, 23 hours and 49 minutes, finishing its journey by crossing the finish line in Sagunto, Spain.
That beat a record set in 1998 by the British boat, Cable and wireless Adventurer.
Revetec, a little known company from the Gold Coast region of Australia, may be on to something huge: they’ve created an engine that is 50% smaller, 50% lighter, has 50% lower emissions and is cheaper to manufacture than a conventional internal combustion engine of the same horsepower. Oh yeah, did I mention that it doubles the fuel economy too.
What that means is a car like the 2007 Toyota Yaris, which is rated at 40 mpg on the highway, would get 80 mpg with a Revetec engine.
This isn’t some hoax… They have a prototype which has been attached to an actual vehicle and independently tested to substantiate their claims.
As if there isn’t enough bio-diesel controversy over the food for fuel debate now we have a little skirmish arising here in San Francisco. When we walk by any San Francisco restaurant (particularly the ones that have that delish yet oh so bad for you fried cuisine) we can smell where this fuss originated – the fryers. Yes, it’s that oh so wonderful french fry grease that companies like Blue Sky Bio-fuels and Got Grease work with to create biofuel. To us this method makes much more sense to reuse old oil and grease than to the create fuel directly from real food.
In this case the grease skirmish remains between the City of San Francisco and the private sector. Both Got Grease and Blue Sky pick up grease (usually for free) from small restaurants, but now the City jumped into the fryer and collects it as well. The fact that the City collects the oil isn’t a problem but the fact that the City has been using health inspectors to secure oil from the restaurants smells like burnt oil to us. Apparently a letter from the City exists that says something to the effect of “The City has been so busy collecting restaurant oil that we haven’t had time to write up violations.” Should we call this mess “Greasefellas”?
Sure, it’s easy enough for one person to attempt energy self-sufficiency: put a solar panel on your roof, run your car on biodiesel, and you’re halfway there. But how easy is it for an entire town to become self-sufficient?
That’s the question that Reynolds, Indiana has been trying to answer for the past 3 years. In 2005, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels declared the town to be BioTown, USA—a model of energy self-sufficiency for the state.
The town was chosen mainly because of its small size (pop. 547), excellent rail and road access, and proximity to organic waste (within 15 miles of more than 150,000 hogs). According to the BioTown website, the finished project will showcase efficient methods of converting biomass into energy, use bioenergy to fuel homes and businesses throughout the town, promote alternative energies across the United States, and show that agricultural energy is safe, reliable, and consistent.
These are certainly some lofty goals for such a tiny town, and progress on the project has been slow. In fact, external signs of energy independence in Reynolds have been few and far between. So where does the project stand now?
Biodiesel lovers of San Francisco, rejoice. Starting next Winter, you might not have as much competition when you scour the back alleys behind Chinese restaurants trying to get your car fuel fix.
That’s because the city has just received a $1 million dollar grant from the California Energy Commission to build San Francisco’s first grease-to-biodiesel production facility.
Instead of using the more popular “yellow grease”—fryer oil— the production facility will make use of “brown grease”, or pan scrapings and oil residue trapped in grease interceptors under a restaurant sink. In the past, brown grease has been discarded at sewage plants. Now San Francisco wants to make use of the more than 2.5 million gallons of the stuff that’s in the city.
Solazyme announced today that they have produced the first 100% algae-based renewable diesel to meet the strict American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) D-975 specifications.
Called Soladiesel(RD)™, it is the world’s first 100% algal diesel blend to meet these standards.
The company has road-tested Soladiesel(RD)™ in a factory standard 2005 diesel Jeep Liberty with results that indicate identical usability and engine wear to that of petroleum diesel.
Soladiesel(RD)™ has lower particulate emissions than petroleum-based diesel and also meets the ultra low sulfur diesel (ULSD) standards.
There are more than 5,000,000 heavy duty trucks running up and down US highways each day. Every one of those trucks gets an average of 7 mpg, carries upwards of 200-300 gallons of diesel, and spews out potentially harmful emissions.
Like it or not, we depend on them to bring us our food, fuel, and products for everyday living. It’s a connection that most of us often forget about, only remembering it long enough to curse them as they slow us down on the highway.
It’s also an industry that has recently been hit hard by soaring fuel prices, and now, with the average price of diesel in the US at $4.70/gallon and climbing, it’s sure to get worse.
Needless to say, there’s a rising cacophony of voices within the trucking industry clamoring for relief. Most of this noise currently comes in the form of wanting a break in fuel prices, but really that’s just a temporary fix. Any solution with sticking power would have to offer both economic and environmental benefit — you know, win-win.
OriginOil has been a busy little company.On the heels of a breakthrough which the company claims will make algae oil farming a true competitor to petroleum, OriginOil has filed two patents that may make the production of fuel products from algae incredibly cheap and easy in the near future.
It’s hard to believe that one of America’s greenest cities lacks a true biodiesel station. Yes, San Francisco has an Olympic station on Third Street however is only supplies commercially licensed diesel vehicles with “B20” which even in the controversial biodiesel world isn’t that green. If the building and fire departments sign off, then Dogpatch Biofuels will open in the near future. Yes, we can wait to smell all the great restaurant cooking oil waste from SF’s top level eateries filled into the hungry car engines.
A Swedish bus company is marketing it’s use of environmentally friendly biofuels by depicting humans drinking from petrol pumps.
Needless to say the Swedish Poison Information Center is up in arms over the Flygbussarna Airport Coach company’s advertisements.
On Monday, USDA officials met with reporters to discuss just how closely biofuels (specifically corn-based ethanol) are linked to the increasing price of food. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer, who has vehemently defended biofuels before, had this to say:
One theory that has been widely discussed in recent weeks is that the nation’s growing demand for biofuels and the crops needed to produce them is the real culprit behind higher food prices, both at home and abroad. Yet the evidence that we have seen. . .does not support this.
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