ALTERNATIVE FUELS * USA - UPS Begins Using Renewable Biodiesel at Major U.S. Hub

The United Parcel Service began using biodiesel blends at its hub in Louisville, Ky., this month

Jefferson City.MO.USA -PRNewswire/USNewswire -May 23, 2011:    ...   UPS recently installed a biodiesel fuel tank and fueling station at its Worldport facility. It will allow fueling operators to blend specified percentages of biodiesel on the fly, starting with 5 percent biodiesel, B5, and working up to 20 percent biodiesel, B20. The 30,000-gallon biodiesel tank and station at Worldport fuels nearly 200 vehicles and diesel equipment, most of which help load packages on and off the planes...  Biodiesel blends of up to 20 percent can be used in any diesel engine without modifications, says the National Biodiesel Board, and can reduce greenhouse gas production by up to 80 percent...  Worldport is the single most important point in all of UPS's global operation. The facility processes 416,000 packages per hours and is the size of 80 football fields. Worldport turns around 100 aircraft per day... (Picture, Aerial view from wikimedia.org/wikipedia: UPS' Worldport)

ALTERNATIVE FUELS * USA - Big Dogs of the Oil Patch Tangle Over Gas Subsidies

New York,NY,USA -The Wall Street Journal/Hartford Gas Prices -25 May 2011: -- Investor T. Boone Pickens has a vision of American highways in which trucks are powered by natural gas—and nudged along by government subsidies. Charles Koch, one of the richest men in the country, is gunning hard to block taxpayer money from boosting his fellow billionaire's dream...  The oil-patch titans are brawling over a congressional bill that would provide tax breaks to trucking companies for 18-wheelers that run on natural gas instead of oil...  Mr. Pickens, a limelight-loving, veteran energy investor who owns part of a company that installs natural-gas fueling stations, has spent tens of millions of dollars promoting an energy plan he says would help shift the U.S. off imported oil...   Mr. Koch, an intensely private but prominent donor to conservative causes, opposes the bill... (Image from ecopolitology.org: Waste management CNG truck)

ALTERNATIVE FUELS WORLDWIDE * USA - Biofuels Can Be Very Clean Transportation Fuel, Sometimes Not

How green is that biofuel: It depends where it came from ?

Cambridge,MA,USA -GreenBiz, by Jonathan Bardelline -May 12, 2011: ... Researchers at MIT looked at life cycle GHG emissions related to 14 conventional fuels and biofuels... Biofuels usually come out on top, but a few bring bigger footprints... Palm oil from forests or rainforests that were clear-cut, soy oil from former rainforests. Can cause up to 10 times more carbon emissions than jet fuels. Researchers say all fuels have range of possible life cycle emissions... But on low end, all other biofuels are lower than conventional fuels... Fuels from switchgrass, salicornia, and palm oil from land not converted have lowest carbon footprints of all. Coming nowhere near emissions of normal fuels... Others lower their footprints by creating byproducts that can be used elsewhere. When jatropha oil produced, remaining shells, husks, meal used as animal feed, fertilizer, or burned to produce energy...  (Picture from roadtransport: Biodiesel pump)

* USA - Survey: Americans Tired of Gas Prices, Ready for Fuel Standards to Double

Detroit,MICH,USA -The Detroit Bureau, by Paul A. Eisenstein -May 17, 2011: -- Americans are weary of watching gas prices soar and want near doubling of automotive fuel standards from 2016 targets... Nearly two-thirds polled by Opinion Research Group favored raising CAFÉ standard to 60 mpg by 2025... Despite strong opposition from auto industry, the White House it's considering bump to 62 mpg...  Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers asking EPA to wait until new studies have been completed Significant Points... Automotive executives have asserted going to 60 mpg or above could cost $5K or more per vehicle – and would likely require significant shift towards battery power...  But what consumers also don’t expect is to have to keep paying more and more for fuel, said Mark Cooper of Consumer Federation of America, which commissioned survey...  Both industry and government leaders have fiercely fought proposals that would allow hodgepodge of standards in individual state...

* Brazil - Ethanol bio-fuel Iveco Trakker tractor on a roll in

Ribeirão Preto,SP,Brazil -BigLorryBlog -May 17, 2011: -- Word reaches Biglorryblog that Iveco, Fiat Powertrain Industrial and Bosch presented this rather splendid Iveco Trakker Bi-Fuel Ethanol-Diesel vehicle at the recent Agrishow, in Ribeirão Preto, the largest agricultural fair in Brazil...  Anyroadup this Trakker tractor is equipped with an FPT Industrial Cursor 9 (yes that's the bigger capacity version of the Cursor 8) engine which can run on an ethanol/diesel mixture with lower fuel costs when compared to a conventional diesel engine...  Designed to be used by sugar-cane and ethanol producers on their specific agricultural and industrial operations, the vehicle has been using a 40-60% ethanol-diesel average fuel mix on early tests, which contributes to reduce fossil-fuel use and allows for an improved environmental proposition, since ethanol is a fully renewable fuel. The vehicle has been developed in Brazil with the institutional support of UNICA, the Brazilian association of sugar-cane producers under a program to promote "green policies" in the sugar and ethanol business...

ALTERNATIVE FUELS * Brazil - Petrobras ethanol target tripled

São Paulo,SP,Brazil -FT, by Joe Leahy and Ed Crooks in New York -May 8 2011: -- Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, Petrobras, has been ordered to triple its share of national production of ethanol as Latin America’s biggest economy struggles with a shortage of the biofuel... The plan comes as the US is poised to overtake Brazil as the world’s largest ethanol exporter... Petrobras will increase its share of Brazil’s national output from 5 per cent to 15 per cent, said Edison Lobão, mining and energy minister, after Brazil was forced to import large amounts of the fuel from rival producers in the US. “The fact is that we need to produce more ethanol,” the minister told reporters... Brazil was a pioneer in establishing ethanol as a viable alternative to petrol. Most of the Brazil’s cars today can run on both fuels... Brazil last year imported 70m litres of US ethanol – up from only 1m in 2009, according to the US commerce department. To date this year, imports have been even stronger... Industry estimates suggest worldwide US ethanol exports could reach 3bn litres this year, about double the Brazilian exports forecast by Unica, the country’s sugar cane industry association... (Image from biglandsbrazil: ethanol plant in Brazil)