New York to Los Angeles Run to Promote Biofuel

                                                                                         

Two adventurous men, Nik Barstow and Brian Pierce, drove their Volkswagen Jetta TDI from New York’s Manhattan in the East to Santa Monica on America’s West Coast on September 22, 2008. Their purpose was to promote the biofriendly properties of biodiesel.

What is special about their 2,800-mile trek is that they planned to do so without refueling along the way. To accomplish this they installed a second fuel tank in the vehicle. Both tanks were filled with Bio-Willie, a bio-diesel named after famous Country music singer and songwriter, Willie Nelson, who, in 2004, formed a company to provide truck stops with bio-diesel made from vegetable oil.

Appropriately dubbed Willie Run ’08, the two-man team endeavored not only to cross the continent without refueling, they also attempted to break the previous driving record of 35 hours and 54 minutes. Even with an extra fuel tank, driving across America using conventional gasoline without fuel stops would be just about impossible. The trip’s purpose was to promote the advantages of bio-diesel and the fact that hybrids are not the only road to fuel economy.

What then exactly are the advantages of biofuels? Biofuel is almost carbon-neutral, which is to say that even though it produces carbon dioxide (CO2) as a by-product of combustion, that same carbon dioxide was extracted from the atmosphere by the plant material from which the fuel is derived. It is not totally carbon-neutral because of the energy expanded in the manufacture and transportation of the fuel. Even so, biofuels are to be preferred over fossil fuels, which release greenhouse gases captured by plants that grew millions of years ago.

Another, more obvious, advantage of biofuels is that they can be produced locally and will not have to be transported halfway across the world, as is often the case with oil from the Middle East. This means that the fuel can be produced more economically and benefit the local economy. Reduced cost is an important factor, especially with the recent steep increases in the price of crude oil.

The objection is sometimes raised that biofuels increase the price of food. This is not necessarily the case, however, as biofuels can be produced from waste, such as weeds, garden clippings, dead leaves, manure, sawdust, etc., or even recycled cooking oil.

Growing non-food crops for producing biofuels can also raise the living standards in poor parts of the world. For example, in India nearly 2.5 million acres have been planted with jatropha, an inedible plant with seeds that are rich in oil, for biofuel production. Jatropha, by the way, is an excellent choice for biofuel production, as it produces four times as much fuel per acre as soy and ten times as much as corn, while requiring only minimal care and resources. It will even grow in poor soils that are unsuitable for growing food crops.

Another approach to achieving a cleaner, more biofriendly environment is by using fuel more effectively. One company that is contributing to this cause is Biofriendly Corporation, which has developed the Green Plus® liquid fuel catalyst that provides a cleaner, more linear fuel burn in internal combustion engines, resulting in fewer harmful emissions, increased torque and better fuel economy.

For more information about Green Plus visit the Biofriendly website at www.biofriendly.com.

About the author:

Peter Verhoeff is a freelance writer who contributes articles on environmental issues for Biofriendly Corporation. More information about environmental issues can be found at http://www.biofriendly.com.


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