On 40% ethanol the first cold (5 deg.) start will stall when I put it straight into drive after starting.

If I give it a couple of rev’s for a few sec then no problems.

After restarting no problems, Cant notice any difference in the pollution in the car. 5% and over seems to make a big difference.

Have given up running the gen on 50% Ethanol 50% Petrol as it still stinks not as bad as 100% petrol, but still stinks. So now just use 100% Ethanol.

Cant wait until I do a oil change to see the diff.

We need to start protesting, We need the have the right to make our own fuel and should be proud of it.

I Grow my food for me why not my car?

Lets make a change. Power to the people that is clean power not coal petrol nuke but clean and green.

Chris.

(automatically updated/inserted from The Big Biofuels Blog)

Reports on the internet say that Solazyme has raised more finance, up to $45.4m for its algae based biofuels programme. I’ve had a trawl through EDGAR (worth bookmarking in my opinion) but the company’s filings are all on paper… grrr so I can’t absolutely verify it. But Solazyme has had its profile raised lately and that kind of thing helps persuade investors…

More (from The Big Biofuels Blog)…

(automatically updated/inserted from The Big Biofuels Blog)

Enterprise-rent-a-car appoints Dr Richard Sayre as academic biofuel director at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis, Missouri. The position was created by the family which owns Enterprise (and also Alamo and National Car rental brands) with a $25m donation to the Danforth Plant Science Center. Nice.

He’ll be studying third generation biofuels… that’s algae to you and me:

“Extracting oil from algae to produce a more sustainable biofuel is one of the most promising and exciting areas of biofuels research today,” said Sayre, formerly a professor in the Department of Plant Cellular and Molecular Biology at The Ohio State University. “Algae have significant potential as a clean, renewable, and economical fuel source. And, because algae are not used as food, they are a biofuel source that does not compete with the food supply.”

I’ve asked Enterprise if it has any details of the average fuel efficiency of its fleet of cars over the past five years and how it has changed over that time. Rental companies with large fleets could have some power in getting car makers to produce vehicles which are more efficient… I’ll be asking other rental firms.

More (from The Big Biofuels Blog)…

A friend of mine has been running home-brewed biodiesel in his 2006 VW Jetta TDI. His engine is ruined, potentially due to the biodiesel. Friends of his, who race TDI’s, say biodiesel is a no-no. Don’t know why. Any feedback?

Henry

OK, so my algae project is not going to make me rich in the short term.

So I am doing due diligence on a proposal on my desk at the moment.

Part of this is pressing 35 000 tons of soy beans every day, 5 days a week to make 8000 litres of oil. If I turn this into Bd it is already sold to a local distributor.

What I would like some feed back on is whether I would be able to sell the raw oil as SVO. I am still guessing on costs but I think it would work out at around 80 cents a litre to give me some profit.

What do you guys think?

(automatically updated/inserted from The Big Biofuels Blog)

If you are interested in the environmental impact of biofuels in the US check this polemic on the Huffington Post. Makes some good points about the end to end efficiency of biofuels in the automotive sector. You can’t comment on it there, so perhaps you’d like to do so here.

More (from The Big Biofuels Blog)…