David Ramey is no chicken. Once he decided butanol could benefit from a decent advertising campaign, he flew the coop (A.K.A. Blacklick, Ohio) in the summer of 2005 and drove his unmodified 1992 Buick across America fueled by 100% butanol. Like pork is to chicken, butanol is to ethanol. Its virtues are overshadowed by the rising star of the E85 ethanol juggernaut. So in good conscience, we can refer to butanol as "the other white meat". Calls hawking the myriad benefits of butanol have heretofore been drowned out by the thunder of the corn lobby and the politically expedient clamor for ethanol production as an "alternative fuel" to increase our country's energy independence. But the times they may be a'changin' and Ramey's trip might just be the Paul Revere wake-up ride for a new alternative fuel invasion.

"This demonstration-test-drive was the culmination of my work to demonstrate to my colleagues that butanol definitely works as a superior alternative fuel to ethanol," Ramey told AutoblogGreen. But we need to face facts: Butanol is the toe-headed stepchild of the alternative fuel family. But spend more than one minute with Ramey and he'll have you wondering why we aren't jumping on the butanol bandwagon with all guns blazing.

The story continues after the jump.

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I've observed with mild amusement the recent spate of stories in the mainstream media about fuel saving. Maybe you have too.

You know the kind of articles. "Ten Ways to Survive High Gas Prices". "8 Things You Must Do to Save at the Pump". Even the venerable old Federal Trade Commission has a published list. Gasoline price spikes bring these out like a spring rain conjures up the worms. Once the price surge recedes (or the public gets used to the new price level) the media attention to fuel-saving goes underground again - just like the earthworms.

Yes, our collective memory is short. The wheels seem to turn something like this in the American brain. "Geez, $2.98 a gallon! Next time I buy a new vehicle I'd better downsize to something with better fuel mileage. I'm gonna go broke filling up this barge." Two weeks later, gas drops to $2.80 a gallon. "Wow, only $2.80 a gallon, now that's more like it". Collectively, we blithely ignore both past history (remember $1.25 a gallon gas?) and future trends (how high can it go?). But don't take my word for it. Check out the Oct. 19 AutoblogGreen post The Forgetfulness is Real.

Talk about forgetting. These fuel-saving tip lists are largely forgettable and that's regrettable. Most of them haven't changed much since the '50s. That's all the way back to President Eisenhower, father of the interstate highway system, for you history buffs. Same old hoary axioms: slow down, check tire pressure. You know the dreary drill. That's the problem. Dullsville. Let's face it. Quoting your fuel economy numbers is not a slam dunk pickup line at Club Med. Ripping off low ETs at the local dragstrip has a whole lot more "red-blooded-American-boy" appeal.

OK, so we forget about fuel economy and pursuing it doesn't get our juices flowing. The question I'm left with is this: Can efficiency get hip, slick and cool?

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In yesterday's exciting chapter, we left our hero (yours truly) impaled on the horns of a dilemma. Well, impaled is perhaps too strong a word. Let's just say I was perplexed. What is the "best" alternative fuel out of a short list of 5 choices? The final contestants were E85, CNG, Biodiesel, Electricity and Straight Vegetable Oil. I gave the first two their shot in Part 1, so it's on to the rest of the line-up after the jump.

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"Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the fairest fuel of them all"? The magic mirror in the fairy tale had it easy. Snow White was a shoe-in. In the 2006 Alternative Fuel Beauty Pageant, we have a tougher time picking a winner. Lots of conflicting information. Which one is the "fairest fuel" to put in the tank (or battery bank or fuel cell)? I'm here to pick an alternative fuel that's fair to my pocketbook, fair to the planet, and fair to my thirst for performance and convenience.

I narrowed the fuel contenders down to 5 finalists: E85, CNG, Biodiesel, Electricity and Straight Vegetable Oil. I left out hydrogen because it's readily available in fairy tales, but not on Main Street USA. Having owned at least one vehicle running on each of the fuel contestants below - the notable exception being an E85 vehicle - I feel reasonably qualified as a graduate of the school of hard knocks (or is it NOx?) to subject you to my subjective perspective. So which fuel makes a podium finish? Read on after the jump.

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You Can't Get There From Here. Words I hate to hear. Especially in a sentence like, "You can't get a sporty diesel car here in the U.S." OK, you can throw a set of lowering springs on a VW Jetta TDI, but that would be too easy. I decided to do it the hard way: take a mid-'80s BMW 3 series, yank out its gas engine and change its diet from petroleum to an alternative fuel. How? I transplanted a diesel engine with an appetite for vegetable oil. So here's the story of a Bavarian vegetarian - a BMW that can run on plant oil. There were four lessons I learned from this project.

Lesson 1: It ain't cheap. If you're thinking about baking up a gas-to-diesel conversion at home kids, plan on having some dough. It's not as simple as changing an oil filter, so be prepared to spend a lot of your time if you're a skilled mechanic or spend a lot of your money hiring one if you're not.

Lesson 2: It ain't easy. Even transplanting a diesel engine from the same manufacturer as your vehicle (i.e. a BMW diesel going into a BMW vehicle) requires re-wiring a rat's nest of nerve endings. Not for the faint of heart.

Lesson 3: It takes longer than you think. Fabricating, locating or ordering special parts introduces weeks of delays. Tracking down fitment or wiring bugs takes even longer.

Lesson 4: Choose your mechanic carefully if you're not doing the work yourself. My first mechanic (highly recommended by others) turned out to be a dud (I'll spare you the gory details) and never completed the installation work. This necessitated a long tow truck trip to get the comatose BMW to another shop.

Read the rest of the adventure after the jump.

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Ed Beggs grew diesel fuel in Ontario on his Canadian farm for years without realizing it. He called it soybeans back then. Today the British Columbia resident knows better. He likes to call it premium diesel fuel. Why the paradigm shift? Because Ed and his U.S. business partner, Craig Reece, operate PlantDrive, one of the premier companies producing Straight Vegetable Oil/Waste Vegetable Oil (SVO/WVO) conversion kits and components for fueling diesel engines with straight plant oil.

Conversion kit is really a misnomer. Auxiliary fuel system is more accurate since the vehicle gets an additional fuel line and fuel tank. The modified vehicle totes plant oil in a second tank (the stock diesel fuel tank is untouched in most systems) and the auxiliary fuel system is heated while the stock fuel line is left intact. Plant oils like soy and canola, which are similar to regular diesel fuel in that they are liquid at room temperature and have similar BTU content, are about 10-15 times more viscous than No. 2 diesel. Heat is required to reduce the viscosity of the SVO/WVO to a level the diesel engine can accept.

How does it work once the kit is installed? The modified diesel vehicle starts up on a starter fuel of either petroleum diesel or biodiesel drawn from the stock fuel tank, and then switches to the heated vegetable oil fuel once the engine is up to normal temperature.

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(Read part one of this article here)

George Clooney recently bought an electric vehicle for $108K. The vehicle, a Tango, is good for freeway speeds and stout 0-60 times. But what about the rest of us who dine at restaurants with signs that tout "4 billion served" rather than 4 stars? Can we only dream about owning an EV with that kind of performance? Take heart, prospective electric vehicle owners. Myers Motors of Tallmadge, Ohio has turned that dream into an EV you can afford.

The Myers Motors answer to an EV enthusiast's prayer is the NmG (No More Gas). This high-tech marvel whizzes along on three wheels, 500+ lbs. of batteries, and a torquey electric motor. Unlike the seemingly endless parade of tempting prototype electric vehicles powered by fuel cells, this little EV is being produced right now - not 5 years from now. You can pick up the phone and order one today, not mañana. Best of all, it doesn't cost $108K. I saw it, touched it, smelled it and heard it - a pleasant, space age, whiny sort of hum. Eerie. Heck, I even drove it and talked face-to-face with the president of the company.

After I concluded my interview with Dana Myers, CEO of Myers Motors, he asked me rather off-handedly if I'd like to drive one. I feigned mild interest. What I really wanted to say was "Geez, are you kidding. Here, take my first-born. Just chuck me the keys!" One minute into the test drive, I realize this ain't no golf cart. The NmG I drove that day may be titled, licensed, and insured as a motorcycle, but it accelerates like a muscle car. Or maybe it just feels that way because you're so close to ground. Regardless, it's one fun ride. Maneuverability and handling are off the charts. Parking? You could park it on your front porch if you could get up the steps. Promotional potential? Slap your company logo on an NmG and your whole town will be talking about your business. But I'm getting ahead of myself. How in the name of Alessandro Volta did a California-designed EV make its way to Akron, Ohio?

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I can't be the only one in America sick of hearing about hybrids. Not that I begrudge anyone opting for a hybrid over a traditional vehicle if it's the best fit. Land of the free, home of the brave and all that. It's just that I'm more enthused about a purer alternative fuel solution. Hybrids, for all their merits, are still dependent upon petroleum fuel.

How about making your juice 100% pure? Electricity, that is. Whatever happened to all the purely electric vehicles we were supposed to be driving in the 21st century? You know the type. Charged at home by night. Gliding noiselessly about town by day. The closest most folks have gotten to an EV is in a (here we go again) hybrid like the Ford Escape or Toyota Prius. Hybrids are sort of EV wannabes - part old-school gas engine, part high-tech electric motor with lots of computer chips in between. Whatever happened to the real EV thing? Pure. Unadulterated. Straight up like a shot of Jack Daniels. No rum and coke or wine spritzer half-measures.

Well friends, straight up EVs are still around. You just have to look a little harder to find them. So I did. And I found several EVs on the market. And there is one in particular that works, is affordable and is actually being sold.

Speaking of half-measures, I didn't want to do a watered down article about electric vehicles. Thus, this article will be delivered over two parts to do the subject justice. Tomorrow, in part two, we'll get into the details of one EV that is capable of freeway speeds, doesn't cost as much as California real estate and is being sold to customers who aren't super-rich celebrities. But first, let's get grounded in some EV fundamentals. I'm positive you'll get a charge out of it.  (OK. I swear. No more electric puns.)

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Suddenly, America appreciates its farmers again. But Sunrise Cooperative of Norwalk, Ohio has been appreciating farmers – especially its 800 farmer members – for years now. They also know biofuels, having handled biodiesel fuel since 2001 and laid plans for E85 sales in the near future. But farmer appreciation, like biofuel availability and the co-op itself, wasn't always there.

It was about 20 years ago that artists like Willie Nelson, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, and others organized the first "Farm Aid" concerts to raise dough and highlight the plight of the struggling family farmer in the U.S. The Farm Aid organization is an outgrowth of that commitment. Its mission is to, "Keep family farmers on their land."

Nowadays, everybody from General Motors to George Bush is turning to the American farmers' amber waves of grain as a panacea for our imported petroleum ills. It's about time these farmers are getting a little respect. But, hey, what do I know? I grew up in the city where I rarely saw corn that wasn't in a can. Little did I realize I was downing something I could have been pouring into my dad's Buick Roadmaster. "Son, you'd best not turn up your nose at that creamed corn. There's flex-fuel vehicles in Indiana that would be glad to have that."

Read all about the Sunrise Cooperative after the jump.

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"You must learn to share." I always hated that line.  I had two brothers and a sister so I got my fair share of that parental pronouncement. But I grew up (my wife's opinion not withstanding), and now I'm fortunate enough to be able to afford my own stuff. I LIKE not sharing. Especially my car. So when I first heard about the concept of "car-sharing", I was less than enthused, but decided to learn more. To do that, I recently sat down with Ryan McKenzie, owner of a local car-sharing program called CityWheels. Ryan quickly led me to see the error of my possessive private car ways.

What a Concept
Instead of using an alternative fuel vehicle, how about using the vehicle in an alternative manner? Carsharing means stepping out of the car ownership game. Scary concept, huh? What do you give up as a car-sharing aficionado? Parking fees, insurance costs, depreciation, big monthly car payments, and stiff repair bills that come when you can ill afford them. Face it. Many times a car is more of a liability than an asset. What do you retain if you're a car-sharing program member? The convenience of private transportation. Joining a car-sharing program allows you to live a "car-free" lifestyle on those days you don't need a car. On those days you do, one is at your disposal. You get the best of both worlds: the mobility of a private car without all the fixed expenses and headaches that accrue if you own the vehicle. Carsharing is a special kind of rental car program that offers unique benefits the big rental car companies can't match.

Read the rest of the story after the jump.

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