The basic idea was to run the raw fats and oils over a sulfated zirconia catalyst to change them into biodiesel. This idea isn ’t new, but the duo thought they could improve on it. In the end, the pair enlisted the help of another scientist Ben Yan and and Augsburg alum Clayton McNeff.

Currently the most ethanol that a flex-fuel car can run on in the US and Brazil is E85 — which is an 85% ethanol/15% gasoline blend.

Sports car manufacturer Ferrari intends to cut its vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half and is working on developing hybrid vehicles, the company president says.

Honda will sell a new, improved and affordable gas-electric hybrid in the U.S., Japan and Europe starting in early 2009, underlining the Japanese automaker's commitment to "green" technology, the company president said Wednesday.

New laws that came into effect in the UK this week mandating all fuels for cars and trucks must have some biofuel content has been found to do more harm to the environment than good. A number of charities including Oxfam and Greenpeace as well as science groups claim the production of biofuel will add more carbon-dioxide to the air than would be reduced by the amount adsorbed by the crops used to make the fuel.