Shell Service Station to Fill Tanks With Ethanol

Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Europe’s largest oil company, said one of its service stations in Canada will become the first in the world to fill tanks with gasoline that contains advanced biofuel made from wheat straw.

For one month starting today, customers at a service station in Ottawa, Canada, will buy regular gasoline that has 10 percent cellulosic ethanol, produced from non-food raw materials, The Hague-based Shell said in an e-mailed statement. Shell and Iogen Energy Corp. are partners in a plant that produces 40,000 liters of fuel a month.

Companies including Shell and Chevron Corp. are investing in technologies to develop biofuels that aren’t made from food crops as they seek to meet increasing energy demand while cutting emissions of carbon dioxide. BP Plc is funding the cultivation of jatropha, a drought-resistant, oilseed-bearing tree used to make biofuels in Asia, India, Africa and Latin America.

source: bloomberg