Click here to watch.

Thanks to everyone who came out to our seminar two weekends ago! More info about the upcoming class at CPCC is forthcoming.

Tomorrow night, however, Metrolina Biofuels is having a meeting at 6:30 PM at the usual spot, Charlotte Energy Solutions. For directions, click here.

Photos from the seminar have been posted, and video excerpts as well as the full audio from all the speakers will be added soon, check back for updates.

Now is as good a time as any to join our mailing list. We’ll keep you in the loop on future developments with Metrolina Biofuels and alternative fuels in the Charlotte area.

A biofuel startup in Illinois can make ethanol from just about anything organic for less than $1 per gallon, and it wouldn’t interfere with food supplies, company officials said.

Coskata, which is backed by General Motors and other investors, uses bacteria to convert almost any organic material, from corn husks (but not the corn itself) to municipal trash, into ethanol.

“It’s not five years away, it’s not 10 years away. It’s affordable, and it’s now,” said Wes Bolsen, the company’s vice president of business development.

Read more at Wired Magazine. Will be interesting to see where this and similar ideas lead to in the coming years.

With our first pump on Miranda Road opening shortly, I put together a video from footage taken during some recent work days at the pump. Starring Rich and Doug. More info forthcoming.

Click here to RSVP for the opening seminar on Saturday, January 26th, from 12-4pm at CPCC’s central campus.

Got started on our first pump location today. More forthcoming as the rest of the pieces fall into place. Click here for pictures, and here for video.

Live concerts in all seven continents broadcasted live on television and the internet around the world, raising money and awareness for climate change and environmental activism.

Shown at the Neighborhood Theatre (map) in NoDa, Charlotte from 5pm til close. Also streaming online at MSN.com. Visit the official website for more info. Best wishes from Metrolina Biofuels to everyone participating.

image credit: Kevin Day

Clayton Cornell at the Green Options blog has put together a fairly extensive overview of the current state of corn-grain ethanol in the U.S., highlighting the gaps between the fuel’s perceived sustainability and its actual effect on the environment and society.

Not to harp on the inadequacies of one particular fuel, but these are misconceptions that people need to be more aware of. I’ll quote a little here and link you to the original article.

In the U.S., ethanol is made primarily from corn-grain fermentation. Since most food items can be traced back to corn (cereals, soft drinks, meat, dairy, etc), it was only a matter of time until surging corn prices manifested themselves in higher grocery bills for everybody.

(…) Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years, and rice prices are rising too. In addition, soybean futures have risen by half. A Bloomberg analysis notes that the soaring use of corn as the feedstock for fuel ethanol “is creating unintended consequences throughout the global food chain.”

(…) [F]illing the 25-gallon tank of an SUV with pure ethanol requires over 450 pounds of corn — which contains enough calories to feed one person for a year

Read “U.S. Drunk on Ethanol Hysteria” at the Green Options blog.

image credit: Larry

Before I became involved with Metrolina Biofuels there was a lot I didn’t know about renewable energy, and I had considered myself relatively keen on environmental issues. Let’s forget for a moment I didn’t realize that biodiesel can run in diesel engines without modification and focus on a question I didn’t really have answered until recently:

What makes biodiesel different from ethanol?

“They both come from plants” a lot of people will say and of course they’re right, but where are they each best used? Which is cheaper to produce? Which one is best for the environment?

• Ethanol is a gasoline substitute; biodiesel is a diesel substitute. Both can stand alone or be blended into gasoline or diesel respectively to reduce emissions.
• Ethanol is produced most efficiently from sugarcane and most popularly (in the US) from corn grain, both through a fermentation process. Biodiesel is produced most efficiently from rapeseed and soybean oils and waste vegetable oil, through a chemical conversion process.
• Neither is related to straight vegetable oil, the fuel you hear about people filling up with at Chinese restaurants.
• Ethanol can run in conventional gasoline engines at concentrations up to a ratio of 15% ethanol to 85% gasoline. Anything higher (at least in the long term) requires engine modifications, or an engine specifically designed to handle ethanol such as those found in flex-fuel vehicles. Biodiesel can run in conventional diesel engines at any concentration. The only modification required is for older (generally pre-1990s) vehicles — fuel line technology wasn’t as advanced then, and biodiesel, which runs extra clean and acts as a solvent, can eventually damage old hoses.
• The more environmentally friendly of the two fuels is highly-contested, as a number of factors come into play such as emissions, burning efficiency, and the energy required for fuel production. All of these are changing as new technological advances are made, but for now the answer remains a function of the resources available in your geographic location. An almost completely pure blend of biodiesel such as what Metrolina Biofuels will soon be selling is cleaner, more sustainable, and more readily available than the corn-based 85% ethanol blend currently being sold in the US.

For further information, check out the following:

• “Ethanol vs. Biodiesel: Just the Facts”, some thoughts from TreeHugger.com on the differences and similarities between the fuels and which might be better for different needs.
• “Biofuel: some numbers”, a look at ethanol and biodiesel yield per acre from a variety of crops. On a side note, this article from The Economist explains how the corn-based ethanol being pushed by the Bush administration is neither cheap nor green — costing between $5.5 billion and $7.4 billion in taxpayer money to subsidize and requiring nearly as much, or in some studies more energy to produce than it provides when burned. Sugarcane-based ethanol, which can be produced far cheaper in Brazil, without encroaching on agricultural land or rainforests, yields twice as much fuel per acre as corn and provides 8x the amount of energy it requires to produce.
• The entries for biodiesel and ethanol at Wikipedia have pretty detailed overviews of each fuel including their history and current use.