Yummy: Algae In Your Tank, Cooking Oil In Your Tires

The conversion of vegetables into car fuel continues. In Japan, the Agriculture Ministry teams up with Toyota, Denso, the Chuo university in Tokyo, the Kyoto university and others with the goal of producing fuel from produce. From algae, to be exact. Are algae food? In certain parts of the world, they are. As I’m in Tokyo, dried algae are in the snack tray next to the computer, and they begin to infest the keyboard. The green stuff that wraps sushi is dried and pressed algae.

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Meanwhile, Back At The Farm: Ford Promises Flex-Fuel Bumper Crop

As TTAC readers well know: There is a huge E85 flex-fuel loophole in the new federal fuel economy CAFE standards. Ford will drive right through that barn door-sized hole.

By the end of this year, Ford wants to deliver 370,000 flex fuel vehicles, a number which they can trade against fuel oinkers. Let’s review: A flex-fuel vehicle is one that is capable of running on E-85. But it doesn’t have to. It can also run on straight gas. Or on any mixture of the two fuels. As long as it’s E85 capable, it counts at least for a Peppermint White Chocolate Mocha at the DC CAFE.

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Germany's Vanishing Veggie Diesel

Europe, and especially Germany, reports declining diesel dependency. From a nearly 50 percent share a few years ago, the share of diesel driven cars in Germany dropped to 31 percent in 2009. Two reasons: The favorable taxation of the oil had been scrapped. And speaking of scrapped, the “Abwrackprämie, or cash for clunkers, had favored a trend towards low displacement gasoline burners. (In January, the diesel share climbed back to 40 percent in Deutschland.) Badly mauled were the manufacturers of bio (a.k.a. “veggie”) diesel.

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E85 Boondoggle Of The Week: Blend Cap Decision Coming This Week

The EPA is set to rule as soon as tomorrow on the so-called “blend cap,” which forbids the sale of gasoline with more than ten percent ethanol. The petition to raise the blend cap came from a relatively new pro-ethanol lobbying group, Growth Energy, which requested the cap be moved to fifteen percent ethanol. Growth Energy’s request cites foreign oil dependence, “green-collar jobs” and the future of cellulosic ethanol as reasons to bump the blend cap, but as the New York Times reports, the real problem is that the ten percent limit is bumping up against a congressional mandate to blend 15b gallons of biofuels with gasoline by 2012. What the Times fails to mention is the financial incentive for raising the blend cap: the 51 cent-per-gallon of ethanol blended tax credit. In 2007, when gas consumption was at an all-time high and ethanol blending mandates required a mere 4.7b gallons (with 7b actually blended), that credit cost taxpayers nearly $3b. In 2012, when the mandate hits 15b gallons, the taxpayer tab will be closer to $7.65b.

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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Meloncholy, Baby
Move over corn. There’s a new sheriff in Ethanol City and his name is Watermelon. Every year, famers leave about 800 million pounds of watermelons to r…
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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Comment?

The EPA is currently soliciting comment on a proposed waiver to allow 15 percent ethanol blends (E15), and despite enduring a year of hard knocks, the ethanol lobby is making a desperate stand to reverse its declining fortunes. Peruse already-submitted comments, and you’ll notice that Growth Energy (the new K-Street tip of the ethanol spear) dominates the list with a host of spurious “supporting materials.” The group’s main argument (PDF) is fine-tuned for the jobs-crazed economic-political climate, centering around the assertion that “according to one estimate, allowing blending of E15 has the potential to create at least 135,000 jobs.” Which sounds great as long as you don’t look at the “hidden” cost of increasing blending credit receipts. Needless to say, Growth Energy isn’t asking anyone to go there, having helpfully created some talking points to help make commenting easier. We suggest commenting on the proposed waiver as well, but rather than dutifully regurgitating GE’s talking points why don’t you go through our E85 archive first. Or check out a few recent news stories after the jump which illustrate our unrelenting skepticism of so called intermediate ethanol blends.

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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Water, Water, Everywhere

Two recent developments have tarnished whatever green reputation ethanol has left. First, the news that corn-derived ethanol requires up to three times more water to produce than previously thought has cast a spotlight on the industry, especially in the dry west and southwest. A new study published by the American Chemical Society reports that previous estimates of water used to produce ethanol are inaccurate. The article’s abstract:

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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Mandatory Flexibility

Green Car Congress reports that an “Open Fuel Standards Act” has been introduced which would require half of all light duty vehicles sold in the US to be flex-fuel capable. The legislation would ramp up requirements to mandate 80 percent flex-fuel capability by 2015. Since ethanol has been running into trouble of late, the industry’s plan now centers on forcing OEMs to bring flex-fuel capability across their lineups, which supporters say will drive greater availability of E85 pumps. The plan would also enable the proliferation of mid-range ethanol blends like E20 and E30, since E85-capable flex-fuel vehicles would also be able to run on the intermediate blends that the ethanol industry so desperately wants to become mainstream. The only waivers for this mandate would be for OEMs who can prove that ethanol fuels prevent plug-in hybrids and other alt-energy vehicles to flunk state emission standards. Meanwhile, as rules are being written for the Renewable Fuel Standard, and a group of Senators are moving to prevent the use of indirect land use change (ILUC) to calculate the total GHG output of biofuels.

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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: What's Good For Ethanol Is Good For GM Is Good For America

This time the bearer of good news is retired General Wesley Clark and his “ Growth Energy” K-Street advocacy group. The special K says increasing the ethanol blend limit to E15 could create 136,101 new jobs and inject $24.4b into the US economy annually. How? According to the firm’s appalling report, bumping the federal blending mandate to E15 would double the “demand” for ethanol. As the report notes, in the mother of all Freudian slips “6 bgy of production capacity would be required to produce 20.4 bgy of ethanol (including current reserve capacity). This level of expansion could be met by the construction and operations of 60 100 bgy corn ethanol plants (emphasis added).” Of course they meant 60 100 mgy plants, but numbers have just become so darn confusing since billion became the new million.

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E85 Fatwa Of The Day: It's A Sin!

Sheikh Mohamed Al-Najimi of the Saudi Islamic Jurisprudence Academy has advised the Muslim community (via Al Arabiya) that burning ethanol and other alcohol fuels could be a sin. Al-Najimi said that ethanol runs afoul of the Prophet Mohammed’s ban on the sale, consumption, processing, and handling of all forms of alcohol. He does stress that this is not an official Fatwa, or religious edict, meaning ethanol is not officially banned by Sharia, or Islamic law. Yet. But hey, as long as this little guy gets beheaded on YouTube we’ll call it good. To be completely fair though, this isn’t entirely surprising. It’s hard to imagine that ethanol is wildly popular when you live on top of oceans of the real thing. Meanwhile, back in the decadent west, moral clarity (like oil) is a little harder to come by.

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Micro Brewed E85

You know, this sounds crazy, but this MicroFueler thing might just work. I’m no fuel expert (I just play one in the autoblogosphere), but flex fuel vehicles are ready to rock and roll on any mix this bad boy can brew. And now E-Fuel, the maker of the home pump, is expanding beyond the home brew market to… the micro brewery market. CNET’s Green Tech reports, “The inventor of the EFuel100 MicroFueler home ethanol maker has signed on Sierra Nevada Brewing to make ethanol from beer dregs.” I would have thought that waiting around for drinkers to leave the dregs would be a time-consuming business, but then that’s just a bad joke isn’t it? Here’s the real deal…

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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Don't You Forget About Me
E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Don't You Forget About Me
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Toyota Aims to Sell 180k Prius in U.S. in '09
Can you say price war? How else is Toyota going to shift 180k Priora when the market for hybrids has tanked (Prius sales down 44.7 percent in December) and H…
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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Ethanol Dominates Renewable Energy Subsidies
E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Ethanol Dominates Renewable Energy Subsidies
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Holy Shit! This Critter May Just Save The World. And the ICE

The beast in the picture sits in what’s commonly called your “lower intestinals.” And the butt-ugly critter may just be the answer to our energy problems. Bacteria that live in your digestive tracts, and that can give you the runs, can be genetically modified to eat plants and then shit out jet fuel, high grade gasoline and other petroleum products. According to a CBS report, this was proven by a team of UCLA researchers.

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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Bioethanol Hits Rock Bottom

A new study of alternative energy strategies by Stanford professor Mark Jacobsen [via Green Car Congress] ranks corn-based and biomass ethanol as among the worst alternatives to fossil fuels. According to the study, “the Tier 4 combinations (cellulosic- and corn-E85) were ranked lowest overall and with respect to climate, air pollution, land use, wildlife damage, and chemical waste. Cellulosic-E85 ranked lower than corn-E85 overall, primarily due to its potentially larger land footprint based on new data and its higher upstream air pollution emissions than corn-E85.” These results were calculated by comparing wind-powered battery-electric vehicles (BEVs), wind-powered hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (HFCVs), concentrated-solar-powered-BEVs, geothermal-powered-BEVs, tidal-powered-BEVs, solar-photovoltaic-powered-BEVs, wave-powered-BEVs, hydroelectric-powered-BEVs, nuclear-powered-BEVs, coal-with-carbon-capture-powered-BEVs, corn-E85 vehicles, and cellulosic-E85 vehicles (listed in order of the study’s calculated impacts).

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Alternative Energy Funding Drying Up

The New York Times reports that a casualty of lower oil and gas prices: interest in funding renewable energy projects. Among the Times’ laundry list of programs hurting for money: Tesla (duh), corn ethanol (hooray), other biofuels, and wind and solar power. The financial troubles are the consequence of a pretty simple financial concept – that there’s only so much money to go around. And we hear there’s a credit crunch in progress. So with gas and oil coming down in price, renewable energy isn’t where opportunistic investors want to be risking their somewhat-limited resources. The depressing part of the story is this all-too-obvious observation from Times writer Clifford Kraus:

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E85 Boondoggle of Day: 7th Grader Just Says No To Corn

Editor:

Nearly all the ethanol brewed in the United States is from yellow feed corn; while development into green technology may be hailed by conservationists, it may produce little if any benefit to our lives, and may even trouble them.

Consider the points: If a gallon of gasoline had a price tag of $3.03 (ah, those better days), it would take $3.71 to extract the equivalent from corn for that gallon of gas (similar inefficiencies go for soybean-produced biodiesel as well). And if mass production is perfected, each E85 gallon would still pump 16 pounds of carbon into the atmosphere!

Even if Americans turned our entire corn and soybean arsenal into biofuel, they would replace just 12 percent of our gasoline usage and a paltry 6 percent of diesel, while squeezing supplies of corn- and soy-fattened pork, beef and poultry. Not to mention Corn Flakes.

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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail
There is no greater condemnation of an industry's lack of competitive spirit than seeing its executives hanging around political conventions. Their sudden in…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Good To The Last Cob
It's always fun to see analysts justify their way to a predetermined conclusion, especially when the facts do not come close supporting it. At the usually on…
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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Cost-Benefit Analysis
Government fleet purchases are a major factor in keeping the ethanol crazy-train rolling. Not to mention damning evidence of ethanol's inviability on the fre…
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How to Run an Autocross Using Fuel You Made in Your Apartment for Less Than $100
Wesson veggie oil, lye, high quality methanol, an old margarita mixer, and some patience; thats all you need to create your own batch of pure biodiesel, suit…
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Whisky Tango Foxtrot, British Style
Those wacky Brits– you never know just what they'll try next. From Motor Trader comes a report that farmer Steve Burgess has become the first person to…
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More GM Greenwashing for the Kids
Those of you headed to the California State Fair this month can take the kiddies along for brainwashing "a new eco-friendly show" at the "Buick-Pontiac-GMC…
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E85 Boondoogle of the Day: "Let Them Eat Rice"

In a recent interview with the Weekly Standard, Iowa Senator Charles Grassley weighed-in on the food-for-fuel debate. "If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat and you've got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat, then why isn't it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn to ethanol?" Despite the growing consensus (so to speak) that ethanol is not an environmentally-friendly fuel, drives up food prices and contributes to world starvation, Grassley isn't willing to surrender the $4.5b of federal ethanol subsidies and the farm lobby support that goes with it. The Weekly Standard condemns Grassley's position. "As this 'let them eat rice' soundbite made clear, the debate over the food versus fuel issue is about as undignified as a full out real food fight at a summer camp cafeteria."

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Volt Birth Watch 70 / Tesla Death Watch 14 / Karma Birth Watch 2: Toyota's Death Watch
Turns out TTAC isn't alone with its Tesla Death Watch and Volt Birth Watch series: Toyota has its own going. EV World's (sub) Bill Moore got this and a few o…
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E85 Boondoggle Of The Day: Undersupply
Back in the day, T. Boone Pickens questioned why his then-boss, presidential nominee Bob Dole supported ethanol. Dole's answer was telling. "Let me explain s…
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Biogas From Biomass
Bioethanol is so last year. Biomass Magazine (yes, there really is such a publication) reports the latest research in biofuels is directed at producing "gree…
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China Builds Tung Tree Oil Biodiesel Plants
Industrialinfo.com reports that China's National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) has approved three biodiesel plants to convert tung tree nuts in…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Biofuels Drive Food Price Up 75%
According to the The Guardian, a secret study completed by the World Bank has concluded biofuels are responsible for \75 percent of the recent run-up in wo…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Ethanol Suppliers Go Belly-Up
While we wait for automaker bankruptcy filings, we have a little schadenfreude from a different (but equally deserving) sector to keep you going. Reuters re…
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Americans Change Habits, Blame Others For High Gas Prices
Consumer Reports have a brand-spankety new survey out, and it says that Americans can tell that gas is expensive. Oh yeah, and that they might do something a…
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Whatever Happened To… The Gas Turbine Engine
Forty or fifty years ago, every manufacturer built concept cars with alternative– and sometimes pretty outlandish– power plants (small nuclear re…
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25 X 25. What's in YOUR Wallet?
A widely touted goal of the environmental movement: increasing American's percentage of renewable energy use to 25 percent by 2025. According to a report by…
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Obama Hates Oil Speculators, Hearts Ethanol
Bloomberg reports that Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama is proposing new rules to increase government interven… err… oversight…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Just Give Us Land, Lots of Land
In an excellent E85 editorial we published two years ago, Michael Karesh pointed out that U.S. corn growers would need a landmass nearly the size of Texas to…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Gas Prices "Force" Americans to Push for Ethanol Fuel
That's the headline on the press release sent by EPIC, the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council. Apparently, "Motorists are frustrated and angry about h…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Bill O'Reilly Preaches the Ethanol Gospel
"If Brazil can do it, we can do it; it's as simple as that." Needless to say, Fox News' demagogue-in-chief Bill O'Reilly made this asinine assertion on energ…
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Is There SwiftFuel in Your Future?
Computer industry pundit, columnist, documentary film maker, small airplane pilot, classic car enthusiast and former international oil industry correspondent…
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NYT: End Tariffs on Brazilian Ethanol
But my God, does Roger Cohen take his time getting to the point. Before the New York Times op ed writer argues for your elected representatives to allow chea…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: No Surrender for Federal Subsidies!
"Agriculture Secretary Edward T. Schafer is preparing to walk into a buzzsaw of criticism over American biofuels policy when he meets with world leaders to d…
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Restaurant Grease Thefts Soar
When fans of bio-diesel first claimed they were running their oil burners on "free" fuel– restaurants' abandoned cooking oil and grease– we pre…
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Sweden Can't Get Its Shit Together on Biogas
Several years back, before ethanol as a motor fuel additive became all the rage, Sweden started a program to produce biogas. They envisioned a methane-based…
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USPS PO'ed at E85
The United States Postal Service is the single largest buyer of E85-compatible vehicles. According to Bloomberg, from 1995 – 2005, the government agenc…
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"Don't Let Invasive Biofuel Crops Attack Your Country"
The bio-fuel industry has an answer for critics who consider the whole food-for-fuel business a dangerous, back asswards proposition: second generation bio-f…
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Cellulosic Biofuel Still A Bit of a Damp Squib
The First Ever Second-Generation Biofuel Plant established in Saxony, Germany opened April. As we reported previously, a German/Dutch joint venture named Cho…
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Brazilian Ethanol Industry Schmoozes the EU
AutoblogGreen reports that Brazil is launching a "diplomatic offensive" to promote its sugarcane ethanol exports to the EU, culminating at this November's W…
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France's System U: Pas Plus D'E85!
Energy Business Review reports that French hypermarketeers System U are pulling the plug on their bio-ethanol pumps for one simple reason: no one's buying E…
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Bio-Ethanol Voted "Stupidest Policy Ever"
A while ago, James Fallows at the Atlantic Monthly asked readers to submit suggestions for "the stupidest policy ever." He rigged the deck by taking The Gulf…
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Canadian Government Struggles With Biofuel Issues
Canadian MP Keith Martin wants a government go-slow on bio-fuels.
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NYT's Cohen: Forget Ethanol. Rising Food Prices Caused by Poor Eating Twice a Day
New York Times columnist Roger Cohen says ethanol's OK.
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GM CEO Dismisses UN Bio-Fuel Warning
GM CEO Rick Wagoner dismisses US report on bio-fuels
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First Ever Second-Generation Biofuel Plant Opens in Germany
Find something bad to say about biofuels, and its defenders will likely simply point to second-generation biofuels as the way forward. The problem has been t…
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Iowa Senator: Ethanol Over Food Worries "A Big Joke"
Iowa Senator Charles E Grassley says biolfuels are not to blame for soaring world fuel prices.
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Brazil Braces for Ethanol Glut
Brazil is exporting more ethanol than it consumers, and foreign markets are not keeping pace.
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Food or Fuel? Choose One
Bio-fuels blamed for soaring food prices around the world
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Fuel Surcharges Be Damned; Gas Prices Hurt CA Small Biz Bad
California's high gas prices are taking their toll on small business operators.
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Environmental Challenges Top Industry List For First Time
The SAE's members now consider green issues the car industry's number one concern
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J.D. Power Survey: Diesels and Hybrids to Increase Market Share
Audi may be right on target with their plans to import diesels . A study by J.D Power (via the Detroit News ) shows diesels and gas-electric hybrids will hav…
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E85 Boondoggle of the Day: Corn Growers Raking It In
Corn prices hit an all-time high price of $6.025 per bushel yesterday, then settled to a not-much-better $6. Ethanol producers are feeling the hurt, as the c…
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