Biodiesel car sets new world record in Utah

Utah State University (USU) students have earned a world record after building a one litre, two-cylinder engine biofuelled car.

The Aggie A-Salt Streamliner runs on yeast biodiesel and topped out at 65.3mph on the Bonneville Salt Flats, a new world record for that type of engine. It also matched the speed it obtained when using petroleum diesel.

It has taken over a year for the students and researchers at USU to produce the biofuel using yeast and bacterial platforms, as well as delving into fuel made via microalgae platforms.

‘We’ve succeeded in producing quantities of fuels from all of these sources that have superior properties in test engines, comparing favourably to biodiesel produced from soybeans,’ USU Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry professor Lance Seefeldt was quoted as saying. ‘The USU fuels are a renewable, low-footprint replacement for petroleum diesel and they don’t compete for food crops.’