With IndyCar running on 100% ethanol, do you think NASCAR will follow their lead and switch to biofuels?

Question

I am a race car driver in the Indy Pro Series, the developmental league of IndyCar. I also hold a degree in Biology and I am concerned about the negative impact our sport has on the environment. I adopt an acre of rainforest for every race I run to offset my carbon footprint and I plan on doing more of this as I move into the higher levels of racing. I recently made a trip to Capitol Hill to speak with members of Congress on behalf of the Lieberman Warner Climate Security Act. What do you think we can do to make our sport more environmentally friendly-- recycling programs, biofuels, etc.

Answer 1

Nascar being the dinosaur of the racing organizations will never relent unless they see a financial advantage to it while the rest of the worlds racing organizations are progressing forward to sustainable fuels and more environmentally responsible behavior.

http://www.wrc.com/jsp/index.jsp?lnk=101...

It will have to be the loyal Nascar fans that demand it through their pocket books in order for any change to take place.

Answer 2

I think they use ethanol because it is a much less volatile fuel, it allows them to run at higher temperatures without accidental misfires.  It is likely nascar cars already use ethanol or a blend of it,  I dont really know much about nascar.. its just a bunch of cars going around a boring track, I would much rather watch autocross type races, or indy car races with more than just left turns.  Perhaps part of the money raised by admission could go to alternative energy research.

Answer 3

NASCAR still uses carburetors.  I doubt that ethanol is going to be important to the fans, and thus isn't likely to happen.  Methanol is a better racing fuel anyway.

I don't think there's much you can do to make racing environmentally friendly unless you make it electric (which would take most of the fun out of it).  Ethanol is no panacea; in the USA it is made from corn which decreases CO2 marginally at best, and it causes soil erosion, N2O emissions and adds to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

I take that back.  An environmentally friendly racing engine could be a diesel running on bio-oil made via fast pyrolysis of biomass (non-food items like grasses, cornstalks or even garbage).  If the Audi cars at Le Mans can win with diesel engines, racing could still be fast and fun.

Answer 4

Hate to break this too you but ethanol isn’t that great for the environment, you burn a lot of fuel (read oil) to make ethanol, at best ethanol is slightly better then break even. Then you are using a food crop to make fuel and not feed people. One fill up (25 gallons) in a SVU could feed one person for a YEAR. If I remember right a Indy car get less then 2 mpg so in a 500 mile race a Indy car would burn about 250 gallons of fuel enough to feed 10 people for a year.  With 33 cars running and assuming they all make it to the end of the race; you could feed 330 people for a YEAR.

"Abusing our precious croplands to grow corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade automobile fuel amounts to unsustainable, subsidized food burning", says the Cornell professor in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

http://www.news.cornell.edu/Chronicle/01...

Think about that starving children or a car race, what would you chose? If Indy really wanted to be on the cutting edge, use bio-diesel from algae oil, or compressed air engines. I contend that the move to ethanol was a PR move and nothing else.

But I do love a good race, so run the race just don’t pretend you’re doing something great for the environment.

Answer 5

That is hard to say but they certainly should.  Ethanol is clean, renewable, and made in America.  Gasoline is none of those things.