Green Options

Like this post? Subscribe to our RSS feed and stay up to date.

The grand-prize winners of the 2008 Shell Eco-Marathon race (pictured above) got an astonishing 2,843 MPG. Then again, is anyone surprised that a plastic canopy hooked to an engine got pretty good gas mileage?

After one year of collaborative research, Shell and Virent Energy Systems announced they will be trying to produce a biogasoline directly from plant sugars—as opposed to producing ethanol—with the intention of offering a fuel that can be used at high ratios in standard gasoline engines.

Instead of processing sugars into ethanol via fermentation, Virent’s trademarked “BioForming” technology uses catalysts to convert the sugars into a biogasoline. Virent claims their fuel has the same hydrocarbon content as gasoline, and has a higher energy content than both ethanol and biobutanol, which gives it a greater fuel efficiency. Virent says they can also use non-food feedstocks, such as corn stover and switchgrass, to produce the fuel.