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Bradley Davis

English 1100

Professor Watson

29 October 2018

Biofuels in the Racing Industry

In this paper we will being talking about biofuels and if they should or should not be used

in the racing industry. Also, we will talk about how biofuels affect the cars, the land use of

making biofuels and the cost of some biofuels out in the world today. What are biofuels exactly

though, the definition says fuel derived directly from living matter or in another way of saying it

is that biofuels are made from a renewable energy source, like corn or soybeans. The racing

industry should use biofuels because biofuels are better for the earth and if they start to use

biofuels then hopefully the rest of the world will use them too. The question that we want to

answer is if the racing industry should use biofuels?

One of the reasons why the racing industry should use biofuels is the low emission that

the vehicle puts off. The motorcycle industry which is working on the first zero-emission

motorcycle race which is called the TTxGp said in the article “Racing Green” by Jon Excell.

Also, the Dutch, are working on a fuel cell powered Go-kart that later turned into a full-scale

formula racing competition that has helped the Dutch entrepreneurs by a magazine called

“Racing Green” by Jon Excell. So, it shows how more people are taking more interest in the use

of biofuels because they can start a company from fuel cells for Go-karts to a formula one racing

company and people are not just thinking about cars in the world but also the racing world. Also,

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if we can get more of these companies in the racing industry it could have a big impact on the

world and the environment around us.

The first reason why the racing industry should use biofuels is biofuels have been shown

to help the cars out in races like in the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, more

commonly known as NASCAR. In the article called “Biofuels power NASCAR” by Chelsea

Saunders, it talks about how the way biofuels or Ethanol fuel, called Sunoco Green E15, has

helped the cars by having lower emissions. Also, it has helped in the best way for NASCAR and

what they are known for is the horsepower in their cars that the e15 has increased horsepower.

This is good because with the lower emissions the cars are putting off means that less gas is

getting put into the world and it helps the earth. With the increase in the horsepower, it shows

that if you what more horsepower that biofuels will not take that way from the cars. Also, the

way the biofuels have impacted the racing industry is that it helped boost one of the larger

recycling programs in the sports world. They also have made the largest solar power sports

building called Pocono Raceway. Lastly, they also have made a huge tree program to help lower

the co2 emissions of all the racing in the world.

Here is a picture that shows the biofuels lifecycle. In this picture, you can see some of the

plants that are used in biofuels, like corn and sugar cane. This picture helps to prove the point

that biofuels should be used in the racing industry and even in the world today because it shows

just plants being used and not equipment being used to drill holes in the ground to get the fossil

fuels that we use today.

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One of the ways that biofuels are bad is the use of biofuels in their vehicle is putting

some countries that are in food scarce areas into more of a food-scarce problem. In the book

called “Biofuels and Food Security Biofuel Impact on Food Security in Brazil, Asia and Major

Producing Countries” by Tatsuji Koizumi, it brings up that the USA uses about 20% of the

soybean oils to make biofuels, commonly known as biodiesel and how the increase of the

biodiesel in the USA could affect the markets around the world. How it could affect the world’s

market is by one country being able to get more of the resource they need for the items they are

making but the only way of getting the exact resource is to take some of the other country’s

resources that they need to live on or to help make things in that country better.

Another reason why biofuels should be used in the racing industry is it helps with

lowering emissions of co2. Here is a test that was done to help showcase the lowering of co2

emission “Probabilistic modeling indicated a CO2 reduction for E85 as a fuel of 30% (95%

credibility interval=10–52%) in the same order as the 20% given by the Swedish Transport

Administration. The best estimate of 28% decrease for gas cars (95% credibility interval=3–

44%) and is lower than the originally proposed reduction of 42%, but still within a similar range”

(Lubbe, Sahlin). This shows how important the use of biofuels is in the world. If everyone can

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start to do this then the world will become a better place for everyone to live and the air, we

breath will be better too. This also helps prove the point of why biofuels should be using it the

world of racing and in everyone’s car.

Another reason why biofuels should be used in the racing industry is that it will help your

car or even your truck get miles per gallon increase over your vehicle on gasoline. If you look at

what biodiesel has done for trucks it has “had a 5 to 8 percent increase in miles-per-gallon.”

(Perritano) With this being said, if you could get an increase like this on your car’s miles per

gallon and it could save you some money. I do not see why you would not want to switch to

using biofuels. Once we find a way to make biofuels affordable to everyone, I believe that more

people and companies will be switching so we can all save money.

Another reason why biofuels should be used in the racing industry is that it has helped a

town to become a global biofuel powerhouse. The town is called Sertaozinho which is in Brazil.

The way it has become one of the powerhouses is by “For decades the vast green fields of this

region, were one of the world's top sugar producing hubs, catering to increasingly sweet tooth of

global consumers.” (Gallas) With them becoming one of the powerhouses of biofuel by growing

plants for biofuels use they have not had enough people for the jobs to be filled. But one of the

problems the town of Sertaozinho is having now is with the prices of gas going down has made

them have to stop work on biofuels because people are not buying the fuel as much as they did

before. Other than that, the country of Brazil has one of the most advanced green car programs in

the world. They are also known for having one of the biggest fuel flex car industry in the world.

They use sugarcane to make the biofuels which is a sugarcane-based ethanol. Here is a picture of

the plant called sugar cane.

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Another reason why biofuels should not be used in racing is that the land that is required

for making the biofuels. Some of the land, that is used to produce ethanol that is used in biofuels,

is becoming more in need and that is from land that is helpful to the earth and the animals that

live on it. “Converting corn to ethanol in Iowa not only leads to clearing more of the Amazonian

rainforest, but researchers also report in a pair of new studies in Science” (Biello). What this

shows is that we are wrong about what goes in the car and what goes in the land that we are

using and where we are putting it. Also, with the cutting cut down of the trees that leads to more

carbon being put out and the biofuels foods that we plant in their places are not able to hold as

much carbon dioxide that the trees were able to hold. When you look at a tree, half of the dry

weight is carbon. The food that we are planting to use for biofuels may have a different carbon

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output than the plants that are there now. With the change from grasslands to corn ethanol, there

has been a higher greenhouse gas of 134 metric tons of CO2 per hectare that will take us a very

long time to repay with the use of corn ethanol.

Another way biofuel is bad is, some of the biofuels that are out there are expensive and

yes some are not that expensive, but it will make a difference in what the racer or race industry

wants to use. For example, the Navy was using biofuels that was costing them an arm and a leg

per gallon. There the cost of it “according to Meg Cichon, the U.S. Nary was paying almost $428

a gallon for biofuels… congress has actually taken steps to see that the Military does not use

biofuels” (The Racing Industry and Bio-fuels). By that, it shows that yes, we can use biofuels if

you want to, but they could cost a lot just for a little bit of it which is good for the earth but not a

lot of people are going to be able to pay as high of a price. So, until they get lower in the price

we will not be seeing biofuels in everyday living and even in the racing industry unless they are

able to make their own biofuels at a cheaper price.

Another reason why biofuels are bad is how we produce the plants for the biofuels, like

how we use water. What it means by water is that with the more demand for biofuels could put

more demand on water and could be a problem for places with little water sources. If you look at

“A 2009 study it suggests that, in the rush to produce enough corn-based ethanol to meet federal

alternative energy requirements, biofuel demand is already putting stress on fresh water in the

Great Plains and central Southwest” (Cunningham). What this is saying is that places with low

water sources are already in trouble with water and with the biofuel farms in those areas, it is

putting more stress on the water source. Also, it will affect how people use water and how the

government regulates water use. The places around it could not be getting the full amount of

water that it needs to live, like the animals, plants, and trees that are there already.

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Another way that biofuels are bad is because of the use of fertilizer. A lot of farmers use

fertilizer on the plants to keep the insects off the food, so they will have more of it to use and

sell. This means with more biofuel farms being out there the more fertilizer is being used. The

information gives us, it should make you think about how many biofuels farms we have in one

area and what we are putting on them. What it means by fertilizer is that yes, the food for

biofuels will grow better with it but the effect it has on the land around it is harmful. The use of

fertilizer can affect the water source and the land if you use a lot of the fertilizer. It could affect

the water source when it rains and because a lot of fertilizer could run down the hill and get into

the water and the chemicals would affect animals and even people. One of the chemicals in

fertilizer is nitrogen “Nitrogen in drinking water can lead to a host of health problems, including

methemoglobinemia, a condition that prevents infants from utilizing the oxygen in their blood”

(Cunningham). As the need for biofuels increase it will hurt us, more then people think, because

the chemicals from the fertilizer will be getting into the drinking water.

Another reason why biofuels are bad for the racing industry is that the use of

monoculture which is the way you use the land for farming of one plant and you do not rotation

the plants. This way is good because it makes the corn more profitable for the people that are

farming it, but it does not help the land out. What we mean by monoculture is not good for the

land is because this way does not put the nutrients back into the land that the land needs to live

off. So, if we want to use biofuels we should not be doing the monoculture way but if we must

only do it off like 2 to 5 years and then start to do the plant rotation to help get the land back to

good health so then you can do the monoculture again.

The racing industry should use biofuels because it will set an example for people and

other industries to follow. A lot of people look up to the drivers and NASCAR teams to see what

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they eat, drink, and wear so this will be something that fans will try if it makes the racing cars

and motorcycles perform better. A lot of money is spent on looking and acting like the drivers

so if they can endorse a Biofuel company then more people will want to use that product. If the

air is cleaner by using biofuels it may not affect the health of the fans that go to the races which

will be better for everyone.

In conclusion, we are trying to find out if biofuels should be used in the racing industry.

And yes, biofuels should be used in the racing industry. We have found out that biofuels have

increased the horsepower in the cars and have put out lower emissions in the atmosphere. Also,

we talked about how biofuels can get expensive for individuals and small companies but some of

the larger companies are able to afford it and could help make the prices lower for biofuels. We

found out that a lot of the racing industry is already starting to change over to the use of biofuels

in their vehicles and have shown how it has helped the cars. We stated that we need to watch the

way we produce the biofuels and how we should not use as much fertilizer on the food that goes

into biofuels. In the end, if we can start to get everyone on board with biofuels then the world

will be a better place. To sum it all up, we learned why biofuels are an important part of the

world and how they have helped the racing industry and why they should be use in the racing

industry and in everyday life. We have also learned that the racing industry is already testing

biofuels and have found that it is better for the cars, the fans, and the environment, which is a

winning situation for everyone.

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Work Cited

Cunningham, Matt, “10 Disadvantages of Biofuels.” HowStuffWorks.com, 19 January 2011.

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/biofuels/10-disadvantages-of-

biofuels.htm 22 Oct. 2018

Excell, Jon, Racing Green, Wright State University library, Centaur Publishing, Ltd, Engineer

(00137758); 9/21/2009, Vol. 294, p18-21, 4p, Accessed 21 Oct. 2018.

Gallas, Daniel, “Brazil’s biofuel industry finds new sweetspot.” BBC NEWS, 23 June, 2018,

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-33114119. Accessed 16 Nov. 2018.

Koizumi, Tatsuji. Biofuels and Food Security: Biofuel Impact on Food Security in Brazil, Asia

and Major Producing Countries. Cham: Springer, [2014], 2014. EBSCOhost,

ezproxy.libraries.wright.edu/login?url=https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?

direct=true&db=cat01902a&AN=wsu.b3806758&site=eds-live. 20 Oct. 20181

Lubbe, Nils, and Ullrika Sahlin. “Benefits of Biofuels in Sweden: A Probabilistic Re-Assessment

of the Index of New Cars’ Climate Impact.” Applied Energy, vol. 92, Jan. 2012, pp. 473–

479. EBSCOhost, doi: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2011.11.006. 20 Oct. 2018

Metamorworks. Biofuel life cycle, Biomass ethanol from corn, sugarcane, wood, diagram

illustration. Shutter Stock, https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/biofuel-life-cycle-

biomass-ethanol-corn-392427910?src=ErnUW97ytWhLlrSPTYRfmw-2-95. 30 Oct.

2018

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Perritano, John. "Top 10 Advantages of Biofuels" 12 January 2011. HowStuffWorks.com.

https://auto.howstuffworks.com/fuel-efficiency/biofuels/10-advantages-of-biofuels.htm, 5

November 201

Saunders, Chelsea. “Biofuels Power NASCAR.” NASCAR GREEN,

https://green.nascar.com/news-media/biofuel-powers-nascar/, 30 Oct. 2018

“The Racing Industry: Biofuels Are Not the Way to Go,” The Racing Industry and Bio-fuels.

https://racingindustries.weebly.com/english-essay-the-racing-industry-biofuels-are-not-

the-way-to-go.html. 17 Oct. 2018

Wang, John. “China, Guilin, sugarcane field with mountains in background.” Gettyimages,

https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/china-guilin-sugarcane-field-with-mountains-

in-royalty-free-image/75904248. Accessed 19 Nov. 2018. Picture.