How Food Waste Will Propel IndyCar As Shell Switches To 100 Percent Renewable Fuel In 2023.

SportsMoney How Food Waste Will Propel IndyCar As Shell Switches To 100 Percent Renewable Fuel In 2023. Bruce Martin Contributor Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own. I have been chasing race cars since the first Michigan 500 in 1981.

New! Follow this author to improve your content experience. Got it! Jun 27, 2022, 06:00am EDT | Share to Facebook Share to Twitter Share to Linkedin Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden in the Shell Chevrolet during the 106th Indianapolis 500. INDYCAR PHOTO Of the many business-related announcements that were made prior to last month’s 106 th Indianapolis 500, one of the most far-reaching was Shell extending its commitment to IndyCar and the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Beginning in 2023, Shell replaces Speedway, a Marathon Oil MRO brand, as the Official Fuel of IndyCar. Pennzoil will extend its partnership as the official motor oil and lubricant partner of Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the NTT IndyCar Series. Pennzoil will continue to sponsor the Pennzoil 150 at the Brickyard, Nascar Xfinity Series race in July.

In addition, Shell will introduce 100 percent renewable race fuel made from food waste, including sugar cane. That’s right, the table scraps from the family dinner table could one day power Scott Dixon to a second Indianapolis 500 victory or Alexander Rossi to his first NTT IndyCar Series championship. This new fuel consists of a blend of second-generation ethanol derived from sugarcane waste and other biofuels to create a fuel that is 100 percent comprised of feedstocks categorized as “renewable” under the applicable regulatory frameworks.

The new fuel developed by Shell will make IndyCar the first United States-based motorsports series to power its cars with 100 percent renewable race fuel and enables at least 60 percent greenhouse gas emissions reduction compared to fossil-based gasoline. MORE FOR YOU WWE Extreme Rules 2021 Results: Winners, News And Notes As Roman Reigns Beats The Demon The World’s Highest-Paid Soccer Players 2021: Manchester United’s Cristiano Ronaldo Reclaims Top Spot From PSG’s Lionel Messi The Good, Bad And Ugly From The Green Bay Packers’ Win Over The San Francisco 49ers Team Penske driver Josef Newgarden’s Shell Chevrolet. INDYCAR Photo The second-generation ethanol will be sourced from Raízen, a Brazilian Joint-Venture created in 2011 by Shell and Cosan.

Raízen is one of the largest sugarcane ethanol producers in the world and owner of the first commercial second-generation ethanol plant. The sustainable fuel can also make its way into the automotive marketplace, to help reduce the carbon footprint in the atmosphere. I had a chance to speak to some of the key players in this initiative when it was announced at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, including Shell Global Solutions President Selda Gunsel.

“We use the racing platform to really develop and test new product technologies,” Gunsel told me. “This applies to lubricants as well as fuels. “We have been working with motorsports technology for many years because, we see this as an excellent innovation platform to try new technologies, to test our products beyond their performance, specifications, test our products on their extreme operating conditions.

“We get to test our products under extreme conditions of speed, temperatures, loads, and we take the learnings and apply them to our product developments for the consumers and customers. That’s our vision. ” The new fuel is probably easy for a chemical engineer to understand.

But to the average race fan, what specifically is different about the new product that will be used in the Chevrolet and Honda IndyCar engines in 2023? The Difference Again, let’s go to Gunsel for an explanation. “The main differences between the existing fuel and our new fuel are that we upgraded the ethanol from first generation ethanol to second generation ethanol,” she said. “By upgrading to a second-generation ethanol that comes from waste feed stock, you actually do not compete with the food chain.

“That’s an important benefit. ” That means this fuel can be produce from waste rather than the current corn-based or sugar-based ethanol that is refined from the actual food itself. Corn-based ethanol is made from the same type of corn used to feed livestock.

Previous sugarcane ethanol included the sugar that would have been refined for human consumption. Using that for fuel instead of livestock feed took it out of the food chain. The new fuel will be refined from the waste of those crops and other food products.

A significant portion of the second-generation ethanol is made from waste biomass, in the case sugarcane. The remaining portion is from renewable components obtained from food waste. “This is great for us because we don’t compete with the food chain,” Gunsel said.

“We replaced the remaining component, the fossil-based gasoline, with a renewable component. There are absolutely no fossil-based molecules from a chemical engineering perspective in this formulation. “Our new formulation has been tested by both of the engineer manufacturers in dyno tests, provided great performance and durability.

Its specifications are similar to an E85 fuel, and its average octane rating is around 100, so it gives really great performance. We don’t expect that the racing fans to see any change in terms of performance, but with a much greater reduced carbon footprint. ” Gunsel said Shell’s goal is to become a Carbon Net Zero company by 2050.

“I think we owe it to ourselves, and we owe it to all the fans that walk this venue over the weekend to continue to innovate because Indy, the Indy 500, have been a proving ground for so many innovations,” said Shell Sector and Decarbonization Division Executive Vice President Carlos Maurer. “Innovations that we have not only taken to cars but also many other industries. “We want to continue to fuel that passion.

We want to fuel that passion that people have on motorsports, but also around the event. “For the last few months, we have been working with partners all across the racing teams, including GM and Honda, but also Team Penske, to really bring the next level of sustainable solutions to racing. ” From a racer’s point of view, how will this impact performance of the Indy car engines? I posed that question to Vice President of GM Performance and Motorsports, Jim Campbell.

Vice President of GM Performance and Motorsports, Jim Campbell. INDYCAR Photo “We’ve been testing both the 2. 2 liter and 2.

4 liter on the dyno,” Campbell told me. “Our tests have gone really well. We’ll be working with (IndyCar President) Jay Frye for on-track tests.

“As Selda said, racing is a place to innovate and test and push limits. To do it at the Indianapolis 500 and this Speedway and in this series is part of our history and heritage, part of the industry’s history and heritage. This is the place to take the step next year, super proud of that.

“We don’t have time to waste here. We’ve been doing testing with our partners at Ilmor, our Chevrolet power train engineers. “We’ve been testing on the dyno and the tests have gone really, really well.

We made slight adjustments, on the cowling which is what you do any time you change fuel. Other than that, the dyno-tests have been terrific. We can’t wait to get on track.

” Sustainable Future Mark Miles is the President of Penske Entertainment, the division of the Penske Corporation that owns and operates IndyCar, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway, and the Indianapolis 500. In the past few months, IndyCar and IMS have announced that fully electric Penske Truck Leasing trucks were used to deliver the Firestone Tires used in this year’s Indianapolis 500. “That wouldn’t have happened, if it wasn’t for Shell’s technology that provided the charging technology really so that those trucks can get here and back, here and back again,” Miles said.

Later this summer at the Big Machine Music City Grand Prix, Firestone will introduce a racing tire made from guayule, a sustainable plant-based rubber. Even some of the at-track merchandise such as golf shirts and T-shirts sold at this year’s Indianapolis 500 were made from recycled plastic bottles. “But they don’t feel like old plastic bottles,” Miles said.

“Everybody is pitching in. We have great partners. I think the message is this is the important beginning to a very sustainable, ongoing initiative for us.

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