FuelClub Discount

Biofuel pioneers who ran a lorry to Timbuktu on factory reject chocolate are hoping to enlist supporters in a novel holiday this summer. A two-week “Grease to Greece” rally will challenge entrants to drive from London to Athens in diesel cars fuelled only by cooking oil.

The drivers, as well as raising money for the British Heart Foundation, will win points for speed on racetrack sections and for “fat finding” at restaurants and takeaways along the 2,500-mile route. Entry requirements include “the ability to explain to a Croatian kebab shop owner that you need his grease”.

It is the latest in organiser Andy Pag’s series of attempts to highlight cheap alternatives to diesel using recycled fat. “The aim is also to give a further test to our belief that waste vegetable oil for long distances is practical and feasible, and to have a bit of a laugh on the way,” said Pag, 34. “Contrary to popular perception, diesel engines don’t need to be converted to run on biodiesel, and most diesel cars can comfortably cope with blending vegetable oil in with regular fuel.”
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Phoenix-based Honeywell Aerospace has formed a partnership with Airbus, JetBlue Airways and others to find a way to make jet fuel from renewable sources, such as algae and a hearty arid plant called jatropha.

The technology could help break the airline industry’s tie to high-cost fossil fuels, leading to more profitable operations and lower fares. It also could help temper global warming by reducing greenhouse gases emitted by aircraft.

The green fuel will be tested in Phoenix in an auxiliary power unit made by Honeywell. The small turbine engines provide electricity to the aircraft when the main engines are off. Honeywell Aerospace has been working on developing engines that burn alternative fuels.
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With hungry, angry people taking to the streets in countries on every continent — from Morocco to Mexico and Pakistan to the Philippines, and at least 20 other nations — the biofuel debate is clearly moving into new territory.

Arguments for and against using crops to make fuel are no longer focusing on energy ratios or “independence from foreign oil” or feel-good environmentalism. The headlines today are about people needing food to eat — and right now.
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It looks like gasoline, smells like gasoline and runs in regular gasoline engines, but it isn’t made from crude oil; it comes from crops.

It’s called “biogasoline,” and under a partnership announced Wednesday between Royal Dutch Shell and Virent Energy Systems, it could be coming to a filling station near you.

The European oil giant and the Madison, Wis.-based bioscience firm said they are working on a way to convert plant sugars found in non-food crops like switchgrass or sugarcane pulp into a synthetic gasoline that can be substituted for petroleum-based gasoline.

The fuel could be a breakthrough. Unlike ethanol, it can be used in high concentrations in conventional gasoline engines, and can be stored and transported in existing oil industry infrastructure — eliminating the need to build a whole new biofuels system, the companies said.
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