In the border city of Haparanda in Sweden, the biofuel future is a whole lot nearer than in most of Finland. Petrol stations already sell new E85 fuel as a mainstream offering. E85 consists of 85% ethanol mixed with 15% normal petrol. Ethanol is an agricultural product and comes from renewable biosphere.
E85 works principally with all cars built after late 80s, because their computerised fuel injection systems can feed the right mixture of fuel and air into the engine. This capability to adjust is necessary because of E85's higher octane number 103. More unique challenges may rise from possible corrosion of fuel conduits due ethanol.
Ethanol fuel might be a grand scale solution, because it is possible to distill ethanol from all plants, that produce sugar from carbon dioxide and solar energy in photosynthesis. At the moment, E85 is considerably cheaper per litre than petrol, as it contains less energy - and according to first-hand reports - per kilometre cost-efficiency is about the same.
However, critics say that E85 has more to do with polishing one's conscience than really taking part in nature preservation. Sweden imports its ethanol from Brazil, where it is produced by hastily burning sugar cane in sometimes horrible working conditions, and maybe even by cutting rain forest itself from the way of farm fields.
An interesting anecdote is, that the some of the first automobiles in the history were built to run with mixed or ethanol fuel. In the absence of nationwide fuel distribution, manufacturers like Ford counted on their rural customers' ability to locally produce ethanol in their farmsteads. T-model Ford is a typical example of early automobile, that ran and still runs with ethanol fuel.
This entry is related to mikroPaliskunta project I'm currently travelling with. See www.mikropaliskunta.net for more.