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Researchers Develop Biofuel Alternative To Ethanol
coondoggie writes "Researchers say they have developed a method of using bacteria to convert decaying grass directly into isobutanol, which can be burned in regular car engines with a heat value higher than ethanol but similar to gasoline. The research could mean great savings in processing costs and time, plus isobutanol is a higher grade of alcohol than ethanol, according to the Department of Energy's BioEnergy Science Center (BESC) and its Oak Ridge National Laboratory"
Warning: that link is goatse
Actually corn sucks as a fuel FYI. Most other alternative fuels pack more punch per ounce including waste materials like methane. Unfortunately as Americans, corn is all we really have because that's one of the few the crops the government chose to subsidize starting back in 1929. We have so much corn that the government at times decided to purchase and burn tons of it just to keep prices inflated and protect farmers. But if you care to save our sacred crop that makes us fat, makes our livestock sick, and sucks as a fuel then more power to you.
I support growing more grass even if we use it as fuel.
That's a bunch of fucking bullshit. With the TDI's, the only problem you'll encounter running biodiesel is maybe a dead injection pump due to seal cracking, which is caused by the lack of sulfates in the fuel... Since low-sulfur diesel was introduced about five years ago, all new vehicles have pump seals that work perfectly well with biodiesel -- my injection pump from 2002 went pretty quickly, and I had it rebuilt with modern seals that work properly with biodiesel and I've had no problems in over five years. Biodiesel will not hurt your TDI, it's a load of crap.