Futuristic Engine Uses Much Less Fuel

[Evo]

With the model, they can make tiny changes to the timing of the opening of both valves and ultimately optimize how engines run on alternative fuels.

"The major issue right now is that we have all these vehicles on the road today that are 'flex fuel' vehicles," Shaver said. That just means the gas tanks won't corrode and are chemically compatible with alternative fuels like ethanol.

"Alternative fuels do not combust the same way as conventional fuels. So you can put ethanol in your engine, but your engine will not efficiently burn that," Shaver told LiveScience. "

http://www.livescience.com/technology/070510_green_engines.html

[Ivan Seeking]

One important thing to remember is that we already have a good option. For example, one new diesel car already sold in Europe - the Honda Civic Diesel [not a hybrid] - gets 55.4 mpg in combined city and highway driving. The Honda hybrid gets 50 mpg.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_44/b4007079.htm

The new, clean, diesel cars already do as good as some of our best future prospects. Ford is currently working on a diesel hybrid that uses solar cells for charging while parked.

There are over 1429 biodiesel stations operating in the US today. As of May 19th, 2007, one week ago, there were 1367 stations listed.
http://www.nearbio.com/

[Ivan Seeking]

On March 25th of this year - two months ago - there were 1142 stations operating.
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=162447&highlight=nearbio

That is an average of about 4.8 new station per day.