Domestic Fuel

UPI Energy LP in Ontario recently opened the third E85 station in Canada. The station is located at 685558 Highway #2/Oxford Road #2 in Woodstock, Ontario.

General Motors (GM) is the country’s largest manufacturer of E85 compatible vehicles in Canada. “GM welcomes the news of UPI’s E85 Launch in Woodstock and commends the fuel retailer for expanding the availability of this green fuel in Ontario,” said David Paterson, Vice President Corporate and Environmental Activities for General Motors of Canada. “In order to significantly reduce vehicle greenhouse gases in Canada, it is imperative to not only offer motorists greener vehicle technologies, but also make available green energy alternatives, such as E85 fuel.”

UPI Energy was referred to as “stewards of the environment” by the city’s mayor for their leadership in environmentally safe fuels.

“UPI continuously strives to bring innovative products to the market and to position itself as a leader in the advancement of renewable fuels. We believe the addition of E85 biofuel accomplishes that and paves the way for a greener tomorrow involving the expansion of environmentally friendlier energy products and a future less dependent on non-renewable oil,” said Robert Sicard, UPI’s President and Chief Executive Officer. “In the next six to twelve months, UPI plans to further expand the availability of E85 by offering it at two more of its sites in Ontario.”

Other E85 fueling locations in Canada include Chatham EnviroStation in Chatham and Topia GreenStop in Ottawa, Ontario.

More than 100 new alternative-fuel vehicles will be on the road for AT&T. The nationwide communications company is launching a new fleet of Compressed Natural Gas vans, 65 electric hybrid cars and 15 electric hybrid conversion work trucks in 30 cities across the U.S. Start looking for them in June.

The vehicles will be embedded into AT&T’s workforce as operational components of its fleet. AT&T will measure and track fuel efficiency, greenhouse gas emissions, operating costs, performance and driver satisfaction of each vehicle.

AT&T estimates that its use of these alternative-fueled and more fuel-efficient vehicles will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 124 metric tons and conserve nearly 34,395 gallons of fuel annually.

LifeLine Foods sells ethanol, but ethanol is just one of many products the company produces. The St. Joseph, MO-based corn milling plant started off as a manufacturer of snack foods in 2001. Today, LifeLine’s identity is continually evolving. The 51 percent farmer-owned company is committed to innovation and is now partnered with ICM, Inc, a world leader in ethanol facility design and engineering, in the production of ethanol.

In this DomesticFuel Cast, we hear from LifeFine Foods CEO Bill Becker about the company’s current innovations with corn, food and fuel and what’s in store for the future.
Here is the Domestic Fuel Cast #4:
df-podcast-4.mp3

You can also subscribe to the Domestic Fuel Cast using the following url/feed link: http://www.zimmcomm.biz/domesticfuel/domestic-fuel-cast.xml.

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A new fleet of off road vehicles in the U.S. Air Force will operate on E85 fuel. MAG International Inc., the newest distributor of Flextek Flex Fuel Conversion technology, will help the Air Force meet its goal of reducing its exhaust emissions.

The U.S. Air Force recently accepted MAG’s bid to provide a new fleet of off road vehicles designed to reduce exhaust emissions. Reducing the exhaust emissions of its fleet is a major concern of the Air Force. The vehicles supplied by MAG will use Flextek technology to allow the vehicles to utilize emission reducing E85 fuel.

As an OEM Flextek distributor, MAG will be marketing to military installations and other government facilities as well as private off-road vehicle purchasers including farms, refineries, stadiums, hotels, resorts, casinos, amusement parks, airports, building complexes, universities and colleges.

The ethanol industry in Brazil has been developing some major traction. Marcos Jank, President of UNICA, says the demand for ethanol in Brazil is now matching that of the demand for gasoline. He says ethanol is gaining ground and Brazil “won’t move back to gas.”

Marcos was one of seven speakers at today’s Ethanol Summit held at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway today. General Motors sponsored the event. The object of the Summit was to explore Brazil’s strong and sustained success with ethanol while also taking a look at where and how the U.S. ethanol industry has room to grow.

Marcos and Indy racing legend Emerson Fittipaldi – a Brazilian ethanol producer – highlighted a number of milestones the Brazilian ethanol industry has already attained:

• All fuel sold in Brazil contains a 20 to 25 percent blend of ethanol
• The unsubsidized ethanol industry offers a fuel that is on average one dollar below the price of gasoline
• Virtually all 33,000 gas pumps offer E100
• Just one percent of the 40 percent of arable land in Brazil is being used to produce sugarcane ethanol
• Forty-five percent of fuel for cars is from sugarcane
• Sugarcane ethanol production is 100 percent self-sufficient
• The food industry is growing faster than the ethanol industry
• Ninety percent of all new automobiles sold are flex-fuel automobiles
• One-hundred percent of GM vehicles produced in Brazil are flex-fuel
• Twenty percent of all cars are flex-fuel vehicles today
• Fifty percent of all cars will be flex-fuel vehicles by 2012
• Three percent of electricity is from sugarcane
• Honda and Yamaha are introducing flex-fuel motorcycles this year

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The 2008 Indy Pace Car corvette wasn’t the only shiny new toy to check out at the giveaway this morning. The Indiana Corn Marketing Council debuted its new interactive mobile marketing unit complete with videos detailing the production of ethanol and a database of local fuel retailers that offer E10 and E85 fuel blends. Visitors can even print off a list of local stations.

I caught up with Indiana Corn’s Mark Walters again, as well as ICMC’s Mike Shuter (pictured), the council’s President and a Frankton, IN farmer. We talked about the new mobile marketing unit, the truth about ethanol as they see it and how IN corn fits into the ethanol industry. You can listen to my interview with Mark and Mike here: shuter-walters-indy.mp3

2008 Indy 500 Photo Album

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There's no question for the Indiana Corn Marketing Council's Mark Walters that the three May pump promotions have all been a huge success. Mark (pictured fourth from left) is the Director of the Biofuels Program for Indiana Corn. He says pump promotions help consumers learn about both sides of the ethanol debate. Some of the ethanol positives he points out are things like the creation of new, permanent jobs, a fuel that circulates cash within the U.S., improved air quality and more. One thing he says it does NOT impact in any significant way is global food shortages. “Doing away with the ethanol industry it not going to solve world hunger,” Mark said.

You can listen to more of what Mark has to say in my interview with him here: walters-mark-pump.mp3

2008 Indy 500 Photo Album

As if biodiesel isn’t green enough. But, Maverick BioFuels has found yet another way to make bio-diesel even more sustainable and XcelPlus Global Holdings is jumping at the opportunity to put this new technology to use. XcelPlus will equip itself with the necessary tools from Maverick to covert glycerin, a byproduct from biodiesel production, to a fuel suitable for use in turbine engines.

Gly-Clene (TM) can be made from any crude glycerol, regardless of the feedstock, including yellow grease. The fuel has the ability to power up turbine engines for electricity production or any other non-aircraft use associated with turbine engines. Gly-Clene can also be used to heat fluid bed reactors as it also performs well in oil gun furnaces.

With the ever-increasing biodiesel production, the glycerin market grows as well. Subsequently, the fear of another glut has concerned biodiesel manufacturers, scratching their heads looking for a stable way to dispose of this by-product. There is currently enough glycerin produced in the U.S. alone for Gly-Clene to produce 27,000 megawatts of electricity per day or over 8 billion megawatts per year without even adding steam turbines to take advantage of the excess heat produced by the turbines.

Visit www.xcelplusglobal.com to view video updates on the Gly-Clene technology.

The state of sustainable agriculture in developing countries will be one of the main issues addressed at the BIO International Convention this summer. The Biotechnology Industry Organization is hosting the convention in San Diego from Tuesday, June 17 through Friday, June 20.

Biotechnology leaders from around the globe will be descending upon San Diego, one of the leading biotech hubs in the world, to discuss the most pressing issues and share their unique perspectives. In addition, there will be a total of 36 regional and country pavilions within the BIO Exhibition with several new pavilions, including Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Dubai, and South Africa.

This year’s keynote speakers include Gen. Colin Powell, J. Craig Venter, Ph.D., and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
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The recent criticism of ethanol doesn’t sit too well with the chairman of the National Corn Growers Association. Ken McCauley says the figures used in the article published today in the Kansas City Star, for example, were too vague. He says they didn’t properly represent real data and were spun in such a way to make ethanol a culprit… a culprit of rising food prices, rising gas prices and lower fuel economy.

You can hear my interview with Ken here:
kc-ken-mccauley-08.mp3

Ken is pictured here with Team Ethanol Driver Ryan Hunter-Reay, EPIC Executive Director Toni Nuernberg and EPIC Director of Operations Robert White.

2008 Roadrunner Turbo Indy 300 Photo Album

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There’s no question that there’s been a media barrage giving ethanol a bad rap. Just today, the Kansas City Star’s cover story focused on criticism of the alternative fuel. That story came just in time for today’s Roadrunner Turbo Indy 300. The entire IndyCar Series runs on nearly 100 percent ethanol fuel. And, leading representatives of the ethanol industry say there’s a reason why the IndyCar series backs ethanol. In fact, they say there are numerous reasons why. More importantly, they say there are a handful of reasons why consumers should support ethanol, despite the media’s recent ethanol scapegoating for rising food and fuel costs. The Ethanol Promotion and Information Council hosted a panel discussion at the Kansas Speedway today to address the recent abundance of “misinformation” about ethanol.

The panel included EPIC’s new Executive Director Toni Nuernberg, CEO and President of ICM Dave Vander Griend, Mike Sobetski with LifeLine Foods, and Greg Krissek with ICM. They argue that ethanol has a negligible impact on food prices, specifically corn. They talk about new technology that proves there isn’t a debate about “food versus fuel” but a discussion about “food and fuel.” And, they say that, despite what critics in the media suggest, ethanol actually keeps gas prices lower.

You can listen to the entire panel discussion here:
kc-epic-08.mp3

2008 Roadrunner Turbo Indy 300 Photo Album

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NorthStar Moving says its trucks might be red on the outside, but they're now green on the inside. The moving and storage company is operating its truck fleet on biodiesel fuel.

NorthStar Moving Corporation has announced that they have converted all of their trucks to biodiesel fuel. NorthStar Moving continues to find new ways to lighten its carbon footprint, now powering its vehicles with cleaner burning fuel made from natural renewable sources such as vegetable oils.

NorthStar Moving not only took the radical step of eradicating all diesel fuel from its fleet, but also installed battery-powered lift gates on all of its trucks so that the vehicles could be turned off while the lift gates are still in use. This alleviates any need to leave vehicles idling.

If every car in America would use a ten percent blend of ethanol for one week, the amount of greenhouse gases produced in the U.S. would be reduced by nearly 1.3 billion pounds.

That is according to calculations done by life sciences researcher Nathan Danielson, president of BioCognito.

“What we did was take some fairly complex modeling that was done by Argonne National Laboratory and distill it down to where it would mean something to the average consumer,” said Danielson. “We considered if you took E-10, E-85 and cellulosic ethanol and put it in a typical gas tank, what would the impact on the environment be.”

Assuming a car with a 20 gallon gasoline tank, Danielson found that filling up with E10 can reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 9.5 pounds per tank.

“Ethanol is just a very good fuel for reducing overall carbon foot print,” Danielson said. “The story gets better if we go to E85. If we get to E85, all the sudden you are sitting at about 90 pounds of carbon dioxide that you’ve removed from the atmosphere by using ethanol instead of gasoline.” Everyone filling their tanks with E85, he says, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by nearly 12.4 billion pounds in one week.

Better still, Danielson says that the same situation using ethanol derived from cellulose could reduce greenhouse gases by 282 pounds per car per week, or 38.5 billion pounds a week if used by every car on the road. He thinks that cellulosic ethanol will be “ready for prime time” within the next 5-7 years.

Joanna Schroeder with the Ethanol Promotion and Information Council says most average consumers can make a difference today by filling up with either E10, which can be used in virtually every gasoline powered car engine in America, or E85 in one of the 6.5 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road today, according to

“The great thing about using ethanol is you don’t have to wait to make an environmental impact,” Schroeder said. “Every single time you fill your tank with an ethanol-enriched fuel, you’re reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

A new analysis of America’s ethanol industry shows dramatic efficiency gains in ethanol production have been made in the last five years.

According to an analysis conducted by the Argonne National Laboratory, American ethanol facilities are using less energy and water than just five years ago while producing more ethanol. Water consumption is down 26.6 percent, grid electricity use down almost 16 percent and total energy use almost 22 percent lower.

The Argonne analysis compares ethanol industry data from 2001 to 2006. In 2001, U.S. ethanol production was 1.77 billion gallons. In 2006, U.S. ethanol production was 4.9 billion gallons, an increase of 276%.

“This is not your father’s ethanol industry anymore,” said Renewable Fuels Association president Bob Dinneen. “As the industry has grown over the past several years, we have adopted new technologies, we are looking at new feedstocks, we are becoming more efficient every day. The ethanol industry takes its responsibility as stewards of the environment very seriously.”

The Argonne analysis also found key trends that are making ethanol more efficient and environmentally friendly. Nearly 25% of ethanol producers today are capturing their carbon dioxide emissions for use in dry ice production and carbonated beverage bottling. In addition, 37% of distillers grains – the high protein livestock feed co-product of ethanol production – are now sold in the wet form, reducing the energy needed to dry and transport the product.

Read the full report from Argonne in pdf form here.