NASCAR Partners with Poet Bioethanol ProduceBiofuel

NASCAR announced a partnership with South Dakota-based Poet, a bioethanol producer. Although NASCAR has been using E15, an ethanol-blend biofuel since 2011, this represents a switch from ethanol to a less wasteful bioethanol.

NASCAR switched to Sunoco E15 Green in 2011. Teams found that the E15 blend produced more power, ran cooler, and was just as reliable as pure gasoline.

What is Ethanol?

Ethanol is a molecule: C2H45 OH. The OH group hanging off the end is why it’s an alcohol.

Why it matters is that alcohols combust, just like gasoline.

What is Bioethanol?

Reacting ethylene (C2H4) with steam also produces ethanol. Ethylene is a petroleum product and the steam reaction takes a lot of energy.

Bioethanol is a most apt type of fuel for NASCAR because bioethanol is produced using basically the same process as moonshine.

Sugar- and starch-rich materials are fermented (digested by bacteria in a low-oxygen environment) and then distilled. Those sugar- and starch-rich materials might include corn, wheat, sugar beet, barley and rye. Which pretty much covers most varieties of hard liquor except for potato vodka.

What is Cellulosic Ethanol?

Unlike liquor production, fuel-ethanol production can use inedible parts of crops (corn cobs, for example), as well as straw, willow, grasses, etc. Now you’re making fuel out of things that are either inedible or nuisances.

One concern about using food to make fuel is that it could drive the cost of food up. Using the by-products of food farming eliminates this concern.

Why Use Ethanol for Fuel?

In 2005, the United States imported about a third of our energy from other countries. That translates to around 12 million barrels of oil per day. As oil embargoes showed in the 1970s, and fluctuating prices more recently, dependence on other countries for energy leaves us vulnerable.

That was the original impetus for identifying alternative energy sources that could be produced domestically. The drive lessened slightly when shale oil was discovered in the mid 2000’s. Petroleum prices had risen high enough to justify the cost of fracking and horizontal drilling to extract oil from shale formations. The U.S. is now a net exporter of energy.

But petroleum has its downsides. It produces smog, nasty-smelling and poisonous gases, and contributes to climate change. Lessening our use of it can only help — provided, of course, that we’re not compromising performance.

What is Carbon-Neutral Fuel?

Poet is a South Dakota-based concern that claims carbon-neutral production of biofuel. You can make energy out of basically anything; however, a fuel that takes more energy to make than it can produce is basically a stupid idea.

It takes energy to make cellulosic (or non-cellulosic) ethanol. But substituting ethanol for gasoline theoretically eliminates the carbon cost of producing and using that gasoline. That’s how they come up with a net-zero carbon claim.

Will Ethanol Change Race Performance?

Substituting ethanol for 15% by volume gasoline hasn’t shown any deleterious results for race engines. One advantage is that ethanol is hygroscopic, meaning it absorbs water. So a gasoline that contains ethanol is far less likely to have problems with water contamination.

The disadvantage is that ethanol contains about a third less energy per gallon that gasoline. That means you get fewer miles per gallon with an ethanol blend than with pure gasoline. Ethanol proponents often note that an ethanol blend is cheaper than pure gasoline; however, you can’t go as far on that gallon of ethanol blend as you can on a gallon of gasoline.

NASCAR mentioned that they are investigating increasing the percentage of ethanol used in their fuel blend. That’s subject to testing to ensure that it doesn’t denigrate engine performance. But remember that every additional percentage of ethanol means fewer miles per gallons.

Given the increasing relevance of fuel mileage to Daytona, this seems like the perfect place to make the announcement.

Why Should I Care?

Motorsports is a target because its use of energy is the most obvious. Most people don’t think about thinks like the amount of fuel the NFL uses to get all of its teams to games each weekend, or the amount of energy it takes to send everyone to Ireland to play a game.

But that puts NASCAR in a position where they can demonstrate feasibility of a new technology. Your car requires far less precision fuel specifications than a race car. If it works in NASCAR, it’ll work for you.