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May 15, 2007
Sake to Power Japanese Cars in the Future
Japanese motorists may one day pump their cars full of sake, if a pilot project to create sake fuel is a hit with locals in this mountain resort.The government-funded project at Shinanomachi, 200 kilometres (124 miles) northwest of Tokyo, will produce cheap rice-origin ethanol brew with the help of local farmers who will donate farm waste such as rice hulls to be turned into ethanol.
"We want to present the next generation a preferable blue print -- a self-sustainable use of local fuels," said Yasuo Igarashi, a professor of applied microbiology at the University of Tokyo who heads the three year project.
If the project catches on with locals then it could pave the way for similar endeavours across Japan that will see Japanese cars running on Japanese-made biofuels in the future, he added.
On the surface nothing that is really news here. Using agricultural waste to make bio-fuels is a great idea. It gives framers a new use for their crops, while giving the rest of the country a chance to lower the production of green house gases. Your standard win-win scenario, so why am I talking about it? Well there is a comment lower down in the basics of the article.
But Japan has no flex-fuel vehicles even though Japanese car companies Honda Motor Co. Ltd. and Toyota Motor Corp. produce them for the market in Brazil. So the team imported a red Ford Focus from Britain for the project.
Bitter irony there isn't it? Some of the largest automotive producers on the planet and the Japanese don't even have the vehicles they need at home to test out the bio-fuel technologies that will help them advance. Which brings me to my point...One of the quickest ways to move the bio-fuels technology forward in America is to get the Japanese to test them in their markets, which are infinitely more advanced and diverse than our own. We've all been waiting for our flex-fuel hybrids and this is the quickest way to get it work. So we definitely need to help them get into the bio-fuels mindset, so that way they can help us out as we move to bio-fuels ourselves.
Of course it would be nice if they adopted algae as their bio-fuel choice, but this kind of stuff is a natural out growth as they turn their attention towards bio-fuels going forward. It's exciting to see them putting the first foot forward. In a handful of years I expect they will be surpassing US automakers in this category as well and where the Japanese automakers go, the rest of the world follows. So they may get the chance to save us once again.
Read more over at Treehugger and Pure Green Cars.
Posted by Jamison at May 15, 2007 7:24 AM
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Comments
Irony is that during prohibition, the pioneers of Nascar used to power their autos with moonshine to out run the cops. This idea is not a new one.
Posted by: dar at May 15, 2007 1:16 PM
I forget sometimes about NASCAR's tawdry past with bootleggers. I don't remember that they actually used the moonshine in their engines. I wonder how they got around the knocking problem with the low compression ratios of engines back in the day? I'd have to ask my dad, NASCAR really isn't something that I've ever paid attention too in any serious way. I know big surprise there! ;p
Posted by: Jamison at May 15, 2007 3:22 PM
tawdry...hehe you say that like it's a bad thing.
Posted by: dar at May 15, 2007 4:37 PM