More state vehicles in Minnesota are able to use up to 85 percent ethanol in their tanks, according to the American Lung Association in Minnesota.

So far this year, state agencies used 437,063 gallons of E85, a 25 percent increase over last year. Those figures come from the state’s SmartFleet Committee, a group tasked with helping agencies comply with Executive Order 04-10, issued by Gov. Tim Pawlenty.

The Faribault Academies, a campus of educational facilities serving deaf and blind Minnesotans, topped all others in the SmartFleet quarterly report, using E85 75 percent of the time they bought fuel. Another standout was the Minnesota Office of Higher Education, which reported 73 percent E85 use during the first half of the calendar year. In terms of sheer volume of E85 used, the state Department of Transportation used 170,617 gallons of cleaner-burning E85 in six months, compared to 376,312 gallons of gasoline and 690,798 gallons of B5 biodiesel blend fuel.

“This continued progress shows that the State of Minnesota is serious about its stated goal to reduce its petroleum consumption,” said Kelly Marczak, director for the American Lung Association in Minnesota’s clean fuel and vehicle technologies program and a member of the SmartFleet Committee. “In just six months, the state’s use of E85 in 2010 prevented more than 1,745 tons of lifecycle carbon dioxide emissions and harmful pollutants from entering our air.” In addition, the 5% biodiesel blend prevented 290 lbs of particulate matter, 400 lbs of hydrocarbons, 3,000 lbs of carbon monoxide and 700,000 lbs of carbon dioxide emissions.

The American Lung Association in Minnesota supports the use of E85 and biodiesel fuels in both public and private vehicles, as part of an overall strategy to reduce and prevent air pollution.

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So, you havedecided to have your own magnet generator so that you can save money, right? But you know very well that to buy these gadgets can also be very pretty expensive. So, instead of buying them, how about making one of your own with the help of Magnets 4 Energy? This is actually a book guide that will teach you the easy way to make your own alternative source of power. There are actually lots of learning tools around that you can choose to help you make your own magnet generator. But so far, nothing can top the simplicity and comprehensive kind of learning that Magnets 4 Energy can give.

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Energy Tags: biodiesel, hybrid cars

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Filed under: Biodiesel, Diesel, Volkswagen, USA

Reduce-Reuse-Recycle is the tri-directive that could help us become more sustainable as a society. Soon, a kit for the G3F from Smyth Performance – a new venture by Factory Five Racing co-founder Mark Smith – will follow those guidelines, enabling you to convert a previously-enjoyed Volkswagen Jetta into something you can really look forward to driving. The finished product will be lighter, faster and burn less biodiesel than the original vehicle, offering up to 60 miles per gallon and boasting a very naughty top speed of 140 miles per hour. All for about $10,000 and under 100 hours of labor.

It’s a simple recipe. You start by procuring a diesel-burning Jetta TDI four-door sedan. Cut away about 800 lbs. of metal, reusing a large chunk of the chassis, including the entire safety structure. The engine gets chipped, modded and moved from in front of the driver to behind. Add the body, seats, wheels and all the other included bits from the kit and voila! You now own a recycled VW that increases your joy of driving while reducing the amount of petroleum product you’ll need to pump.

Ok, maybe we’re making it sound a little easier than it actually is, but Smith is confident there is enough interest to make a go of it with a line of depositors already being formed. Despite deliveries (optimistically) planned for September, the original prototype is still under construction. The operation doesn’t have an official website either – that’s coming this Fall – but you can follow the progress of both car and company on Facebook and the unofficial Factory Five forum. Hit the jump for video of Mr.Smith explaining his concept and tell us what you think.

[Source: Boston.com]

Continue reading Recycling gone wild: turn your VW Jetta TDI into a Smyth Performance G3F

Recycling gone wild: turn your VW Jetta TDI into a Smyth Performance G3F originally appeared on Autoblog Green on Thu, 29 Jul 2010 10:05:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is far from over on discrediting biofuels as part of their mandated policy known as the Low Carbon Fuels Standard (LCFS). For the past year, the ethanol industry has been embroiled in a fight for proper reflections of biofuel’s indirect greenhouse gas emissions, aka indirect land use. Now, CARB has created a working group to study soil sustainability provisions of biofuels. The specific crops under review at this time include corn ethanol, sugarcane ethanol, wood based fuels, palm oil, and soy biodiesel.

Today, CARB held a meeting to discuss this topic. In the proposed agenda, CARB offered several “loose” categories to be considered including carbon content, erosion, crop rotation, nutrition/chemical use, productivity, and crop expansion. I’ll kick myself for saying this, but I’m surprised they didn’t include water.

While I’m not sure what exactly has driven this new LCFS dimension of discussion, I can speculate that several recent events have in part led to this recent course of action. One is the Dead Zone/hypoxia issue which resurfaced when several scientists began calling the Dead Zone a bigger environmental catastrophe than the BP Oil spill. Corn and corn ethanol are being charged for creating the Dead Zone through its use of pesticides and fertilizers used in production.

Second, Friends of the Earth has been vocally opposed to how corn is produced and to corn ethanol (actually, to all current and future biofuels) and is currently engaged in a national campaign to end production of corn ethanol and reassess corn production methods.

While I do believe that soil sustainability is an area to be reviewed in general, I do not agree that you can regulate biofuels policy on this issue. Not only that, but like indirect land use, a theory not based in sound science, petroleum is not being held to the same standards. No where on the agenda is a discussion of the soil, or land implications of global petroleum production.

Last week, the University of Nebraska finally acknowledged that there are in fact, “indirect land use” effects of petroleum. Mainly transportation and war and released a study that examined these possible effects. More studies need to be conducted on this topic and I think they will.

As California moves to create more LCFS provisions on biofuels, consumers must call for CARB to consider the environmental implications of petroleum production. For the past three months, we have seen, first hand, some of the implications of oil with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill compliments of BP.

But we don’t need a spill to have land impacts of petroleum. Drilling, chemicals and water are all elements of production. What about the emissions spewing from our refineries? CARB has created a list of hazardous chemicals that can’t be used in biofuels production, but where is the list of chemicals that can’t be used in petroleum production as part of these provisions?

I realize that I sound like a broken record when I say this, but you cannot hold biofuels up to a standard that can’t be achieved, and not hold petroleum up to the same standard. If our goal is to produce more environmentally and sustainable fuels, then let’s do just that.

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USDA researchers are studying the use of butter as a feedstock for biodiesel.

According to a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, scientists with USDA’s Ag Research Service looked into the concept of making butter that would otherwise go to waste into biodiesel.

Michael Haas and colleagues cite rising global demand for biodiesel, and the desire to expand the feedstock base, as motivating factors for their research. The United States alone has committed to producing 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, a major increase from the current annual production level of about 11 billion gallons. Most of that was ethanol. Biodiesel production, now approaching 1 billion gallons annually in the U.S., is also slated to increase. As researchers seek additional and affordable feedstocks for biodiesel production, these scientists turned to butter, one billion pounds of which are produced annually. Could surplus, spoiled, or nonfood-grade butter be used to make biodiesel at competitive prices?

In an effort to find out, the scientists recovered the fat from a quarter-ton of butter and converted it into the fatty acid esters that constitute biodiesel. They found that the resulting material met all but one of the official test standards for biodiesel. The study concluded that with further purification or by blending with biodiesel from other feedstocks butter biodiesel could add to the supply of biobased fuel for diesel engines.

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Energy Tags: alternative, biodiesel

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Interesting science news:

Virtually worldwide, there is strong and growing interest in the development from renewable resources of liquid fuels for transportation. For use in compression ignition (diesel) engines, one renewable alternative to petroleum-derived fuel is “biodiesel”, which consists of the simple alkyl esters of fatty acids (FAME) derived from vegetable and animal fats and oils. With governments setting ambitious production targets for renewable fuel production, and growing interest and use on the part of citizens, biodiesel production is growing rapidly. U.S. production in 2008 has been estimated at 2.65 billion liters (2.35 mmt), up from 7.57 million liters (0.0067 mmt) in 2000 (1). In the European Union, the world leader in biodiesel production, 2007 output was over 3.42 billion liters (3.03 mmt) (2). With the Renewable Fuels Standard component of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 committing the United States to the production of a total of 35 billion gallons of biofuels by 2022 (3), continued growth in biodiesel output is anticipated, with annual production expected to soon exceed 3.79 billion liters (1 billion gallons, 3.36 mmt).

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Energy Tags: battery technology, hybrid cars

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If you have an iPhone and would like to get Domestic Fuel posts fast and easy on it, there’s now an app for that. ZimmComm New Media this week introduced the Agwired iPhone app that allows quick access to all of ZimmComm’s on-line publications, including DomesticFuel. The app is now available for iPhone users to download, free of charge, in the http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/agwired/id382820712?mt=8“>Apple iTunes store.

The app offers one-touch access to all the latest news and information in the agribusiness and agricultural marketing world posted on Agwired.com, including audio, photos and video, and connections to other ZimmComm news sites. The AgWired App features a news tab drop down menu to select ZimmComm News Network feeds as well as individual news on AgWired.com by category.

“Apps just make on-line access from an iPhone quicker and easier,” said ZimmComm president Chuck Zimmerman. “We wanted to be the first to develop an iPhone application to show that it can be done and that there is a demand for this new technology tool in the agricultural world.”

ZimmComm owns and operates four web-based news sites that are now accessible from the new iPhone app: Agwired, focused on news from the world of agribusiness; Domestic Fuel, which is all about renewable energy – from ethanol and biodiesel to wind and solar; World Dairy Diary for the dairy industry; and Precision Pays, which focuses on information about precision agriculture technology.

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New York City is trying to clean up the emissions from the city’s burning of heating oil, and biodiesel is part of the plan for the Big Apple to go greener.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and City Council Speaker Quinn that they have agreed on legislation to cut allowable sulfur levels for No. 4 heating oil in half. This press release from the Environmental Defense Fund says this bill will also work with current state law that tries to cut the pollution levels from the 9,500 buildings in New York City, which burn the dirtiest of diesel fuel grades and put out more pollution than all cars and trucks on the city’s streets combined:

“This landmark legislation shows that the mayor, the speaker and city council members care deeply about New Yorkers breathing cleaner air and living a healthier life,” said Andy Darrell, New York regional director and deputy director of Environmental Defense Fund’s national energy program, and a member of New York Mayor Bloomberg’s Sustainability Advisory Board…

The recently enacted state law—requiring regular No. 2 heating oil to go down to 15 ppm sulfur levels—will reduce emissions from all No. 2 heating oil burning buildings dramatically…

This new law also require that all heating oil contains 2% biodiesel, resulting in about 20 million gallons of biodiesel replacing petroleum heating oil. EDF hopes that this law will help stimulate the local waste vegetable oil market and that more restaurants will have their cooking grease turned into biodiesel. From an environmental perspective, it’s best to use the local restaurant grease right here in New York City, rather than shipping it to landfills or even worse, pouring it down the drain illegally, which does tremendous damage to sewage treatment plants.

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