Wired reports that Rainforest Fungus Naturally Synthesizes Diesel:

A fungus that lives inside trees in the Patagonian rain forest naturally makes a mix of hydrocarbons that bears a striking resemblance to diesel, biologists announced today. And the fungus can grow on cellulose, a major component of tree trunks, blades of grass and stalks that is the most abundant carbon-based plant material on Earth.

“When we looked at the gas analysis, I was flabbergasted,” said Gary Strobel, a plant scientist at Montana State University, and the lead author of a paper in Microbiology describing the find. “We were looking at the essence of diesel fuel.”

The beauty of the diesel engine is that Rudolf Diesel wanted fuel to be available in abundance. He specifically did not want people to have to use engines that depended on limited sources, especially those controlled by powerful oil corporations. Thus, it should not be too much of a surprise that the Gliocladium roseum fungus can break down wood and turn it into something akin to diesel fuel. It does, however, surprise me that there is now a question of whether petroleum is actually a byproduct of an ancient conversion by organisms.

W00t. The TDI is coming to America again in 2009. Hybrid Cars has a review:

By most accounts, clean diesel is beginning to make its run into the automotive mainstream in the United States. So, we decided to take the 2009 Volkswagen Jetta TDI out for a test drive to judge for ourselves.

“If any car is going to wake America up to the diesel movement, it’s this one,” Ben Davis, road test producer for PBS’s MotorWeek, told Hybridcars.com. The Jetta TDI’s combined benefits—high performance, high fuel economy, and small carbon footprint—come at the right price: about $22,000.

Very cool.

We achieved 36.4 miles per gallon with the Jetta TDI in a 181-mile mixed driving loop in an around the Baltimore-Washington metropolitan area. The test was comprised of approximately 70 percent highway driving, and 30 percent city driving. The results put this compact diesel ahead of most subcompact cars, and on par with many hybrids currently on the market.

The Jetta TDI is powered by a 2.0-liter common rail turbocharged engine—producing 140 horsepower and an eye-opening 236 pound-feet of torque. The high torque output is characteristic of a diesel powertrain, resulting in very fast launches from zero, and effortless acceleration on the highway.

Couldn’t agree more. These new diesels are phenomenal. Old diesel is like driving a cart pulled by a horse. The new diesels are peppy and fun to drive; no comparison to any diesel made before 2004.

I posted a comment on the Hybrid Cars site too after I read some of the disinformation written by others.

The Danger Room sounds unhappy with the management decision to focus on rapid production and deployment for the HumVee replacement, instead of cool new power-plants:

The new trucks, known as Joint Light Tactical Vehicles, are supposed to be tricked out with the latest in vehicle survivability and electronics. But when it comes to the propulsion system, Pentagon seems to have taken a more conservative approach. Rather than opting for a riskier, Prius-style hybrid, the Pentagon seems to be placing a premium on vehicles that could go into production relatively quickly.

This brings to mind an earlier report, which highlighted a “‘Byzantine’ acquisition system that pushes bureaucrats to protect their own programs and priorities, rather than seeking out the best available option”. What is the incentive to seek the best option, let alone who defines best? I still see a lot of “conservative” vehicles on the road, so why would people suddenly think differently, more logically if you will, when they become bureaucrats?

The real irony of all this is that a failure to deploy armor quickly is said to have precipitated IED use, which now in turn has generated a $166 billion purchase order for armored vehicles that can be deployed quickly. That kind of back-patting pocket-filling economic model has to be discouraging for anyone trying to respond in real-time to threats and actually save lives.

The question now really should be whether $166 billion could prevent or at least anticipate further evolution of IEDs (very likely not, since the design is moving in such a “conservative” fashion), or if the money could be better spent infiltrating human networks of bombers to generate support from Iraqis.