According to an article in The New Economic Times, Fiat is planning to launch a new ethanol-powered engine for the Brazilian market. Ethanol is widely used for fuel in Brazil and half of the country's sugar cane crops are currently used for its production. Fiat intends the motor to be run on fuel that the ethanol producers create themselves, saving on taxes. What is most interesting about this story, though, is that it seems the new engine will be based on a current diesel block. In fact, a small amount of diesel fuel is required to run the engine.

"Use of additives (in ethanol) makes running (an engine) dangerous, subject to explosions," according to Fiat Powertrain Technologies product development engineer Joao Irineu Medeiros. "The diesel will be just enough for ignition and the ethanol will complete the combustion," he adds. It sounds like the new Fiat design will be a compression ignition engine running on e-diesel. Instead of being mixed at the pump, though, Fiat is planning to keep the fuels separate until injected into the engine. Proper tuning would be essential, which would explain why Fiat needs until 2010 to bring this engine to market.

[Source: The New Economic Times]

A company based in Wisconsin called ENCAP has attracted some attention from investors when they recently found an agricultural product with which they can produce using the byproducts from the creation of biofuels like ethanol and biodiesel. In fact, they can use "almost any inert material, including byproducts of the sugar cane process, or dried distillers grains from the corn ethanol process", according to Michael Krysiak, president of ENCAP in an interview performed by Inside Greentech. They have begun building a test plant in Cali, Columbia to start "transforming waste from sugar, corn, rice, cassava, bio-diesel, and other starch-based plants into marketable products."

Sounds like an interesting cycle could take place... using the waste from the biofuel processes to re-grow more crops. This, however, does not solve the problem of using a foodstock as a fuel source. There are many, Fidel Castro for instance, who think that we should not use any foodstocks for fuel. I am not sure yet what the answer is to that one. Solar and wind power for our electric cars perhaps?

[Source: Inside Greentech]

U.S. Congress has voted to protect the domestic ethanol industry and extend the secondary tariff of 54 cents per gallon on imported ethanol. The American Coalition for Ethanol (ACE) praised the move saying that secondary tariff, which is now in place until January 1, 2009, will ensure continued growth and investment in the domestic ethanol industry. Ethanol currently attracts a 51 cent per gallon blender's credit no matter the country of origin.

Brazil is the world's largest ethanol exporter, so you'd think they would be upset by this decision. But just days later the Honorable Jeb Bush, Governor of the State of Florida; His Excellency Roberto Rodrigues, President of the Superior Council of Agribusiness of FIESP and Former Minister of Agriculture of Brazil; and His Excellency Luis Alberto Moreno, President of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) announced the formation of the Interamerican Ethanol Commission. Brazil produces approximately 4 billion gallons of ethanol annually and is Florida's top trading partner.

Bush, Rodrigues and Moreno will serve as co-chairs of the commission which has as its mission to promote the usage of ethanol in blended fuel throughout the Americas. Other objectives of the commission are promoting the integration of technical and scientific research efforts across the hemisphere related to the production and distribution of ethanol; determining investment needs in both agriculture and infrastructure to enable a hemispheric wide market for ethanol blended fuel; determining the economic and environmental implications of carbon credits produced by the project; encouraging the development of environmentally sound ethanol operations; and recommending a set of actions in order to create an international market for ethanol.

Related:

• Shell president prefers E85 from biomass waste, not corn
• September sets another ethanol production record, sales also strong
• Alt Car Expo: feed-in tariffs vs. renewable portfolio standard
  

[Source: Renewable Energy Access]

Tom and Ray Magliozzi, who host of the popular NPR program Car Talk as "Click and Clack", address the controversial issue of ethanol efficacy. According to a listener's letter,131,000 British thermal units (BTU) are needed to produce a gallon of ethanol. However, that gallon only produces 77,000 BTU of energy. The listener wonders if the 54,000 BTU shortfall per gallon is truly cost-effective compared to gasoline.

The Magliozzi's first point out the difficulty of calculating what constitutes the elements in producing the fuel. Scientists agree that the energy to plant the corn and processing it into starch should be in the equation. They disagree, though, if the energy to manufacture the tractor used in processing corn should be included as well. Also, converting corn into ethanol creates various bi-products such as corn oil. When the energy producing such products are entered into the equation, the shortfall vanishes. Tom also reminds readers that the equation only considers corn as the source of ethanol. Sugar cane, which can also be converted into the fuel and is more energy efficient, can wildly change the figures.

You can listen to Car Talk here.

[Source: The Sun News via Myrtle Beach Online, picture by Singer]