www.e85safety.comPushing NASCAR towards e85 ethanol
Brent Dewar, GM's vice president of field sales, service and parts, worked for General Motors in Brazil in the 1990s. He received a firsthand look at the country's successful switch from a petroleum-based economy to ethanol.

Dewar would like to see the same thing happen in the United States of America, and he says NASCAR can help out. He is lobbying NASCAR officials to switch from gasoline to ethanol in their racecars.

"We would embrace it... We think it would be great on a lot of fronts, because obviously it would send a signal to the public. A lot of people don't understand the benefits of ethanol," said Dewar. "Other racing series are already embracing renewable fuel."

At the start of this season, the Indy Racing League's IndyCar Series will race on 100 percent pure ethanol. Later, the American LeMans Series will race on a 10 percent ethanol blend.

Dewar and others in the garage said NASCAR should explore alternative fuels — and no, not the same kind that Michael Waltrip was caught with in Daytona.


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www.e85safety.com
March 10. 2007
" ... the main reason of Bush's Brazilian stop, the first before heading on to Uruguay, Colombia, Guatemala then Mexico, was a new ethanol agreement.

The two went in the morning to a large fuel depot for tanker trucks, the backdrop for arguments from Bush and Silva that increasing alternative-fuel use will lead to more jobs, a cleaner environment and greater independence from the whims of the oil market.

In Brazil, nearly eight in 10 cars already run on fuel made from sugar cane.

The agreement, signed Friday morning by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Brazilian counterpart, has the U.S. and Brazil joining forces to promote more ethanol use in nations lying between Brazil and the United States. It also creates new quality standards for the alternative fuel.

But there were clear remaining tensions on a related issue: the 54-cent-a-gallon U.S. tariff on imports of Brazilian ethanol made from sugar, a measure designed to help U.S. corn growers. Ethanol can be made from either crop. "


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"Last month 85 per cent of Brazilian new car sales were flex-fuel vehicles - with engines that can run on petrol or ethanol.

Ethanol is cheaper than petrol but is not as efficient. Brazilian drivers are canny enough to know that when petrol is at least 30 per cent more expensive than ethanol it pays to fill up the tank on alcohol made from sugar. And they do.

Ethanol from sugar has helped transform Brazil's economy and enabled the 180m-strong Latin American powerhouse to be energy self-sufficient.
Brazil is the world's alternative fuel pioneer. It started down this road during the Seventies oil crisis. The government provided incentives, the state oil firm installed pumps and it took off. The industry is now subsidy-free - farmers don't get a penny from the state. "






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