Mazda Wins Again with SKYACTIV-D Clean Diesel: Is It Renewable?

by Joanne Ivancic (Advanced Biofuels USA) NASCAR's sportscar racing division, GrandAm, and Green Racing aren’t words that you see together. For one thing, GrandAm competitors race on all-petroleum race fuel. Yet, GrandAm and the American Le Mans Series, the series which brands itself as the “Leader in Green Racing,” are in the process of merging.

The Mazda SKYACTIV diesel engine that will be introduced to the US market in the second half of 2013 might be the only real green racing story associated with GrandAm at the moment.

At the Detroit Grand Prix, we sought an update to the story that broke in January, that the Mazda6 cars racing in GrandAm would be using Dynamic Fuels renewable diesel. We read about the positive results in the GrandAm GX class races since January’s shaky start, detailed by Mazda driver Joel Miller in his pre-Detroit Grand Prix Racer column.

You would think with the idea of waste-to-fuel gaining popularity, this would be a great opportunity to highlight the work being done on the track to make the SKYACTIV-D a success using renewable diesel.

The #00 Mazda6 driven by Joel Miller and Tristan Nunez and the #70 Mazda6 driven by Sylvain Tremblay and Tom Long sport “clean diesel” markings. The barrels of fuel say “diesel fuel” (or at least "diese__uel"), apparently brought to the track via Sunoco from Giesmar, LA (See photos below). Jeff Drake of Tysons Foods, the source of much of the information in the January 2013 SAE article about the Dynamic Fuels product, was at the track this weekend. And, in an off-the-record interview, driver/team owner/engineer/ teammate Tremblay was very positive about his experience with this engine and fuel, and looked forward to being able to tell the full story someday soon.

Apparently, that day is not coming this weekend in Detroit. Although Miller and Nunex drove the #00 Visit Florida Racing SKYACTIV-D clean diesel Mazda6 to the GrandAm GX class win, no mention was made about the fuel in the press release announcing the win. Is it renewable green diesel? Or just 100% petroleum fuel like the rest of the GrandAm cars?

Getting comments for the record from anyone at the Detroit GrandPrix track to answer that question was impossible. We also received no response to requests to talk with a spokesperson for Sunoco on this issue.

Forbes reported in January that Mazda was planning to use renewable diesel in their new SKYACTIV-D clean diesel engine at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. SAE Vehicle Engineering Online joined in with a more technical paper detailing the use of racing diesel developed by Dynamic Fuels per SpeedSource and Mazda specifications. “The fuel features a cetane rating “in the 70s,” … compared with conventional diesel fuel’s cetane average in the high 40s to low-50s," and the Mazda GrandAm race team was very excited about using this as an opportunity to learn from racing lessons that can be applied to production vehicles.

Although not yet available in the US, the SKYACTIV Mazda6 is sold in Japan, Europe and other parts of the world. Mazda and other car manufacturers have become more interested in the US market now that clean, ultra low sulfur fuel is on sale around the country.

Dynamic Fuels of Geismar, Louisiania makes renewable diesel from food processing waste (animal fats and various post-processing plant-based waste including inedible soybean and corn oils, jatropha, and algae oils). As they describe it, their "proprietary Bio-Synfining™ process produces renewable, synthetic diesel that can be used as an ultra-clean blending fuel with diesel to help conventional diesel meet minimum government standards. Our fuels can use the same infrastructure for transport and distribution as conventional diesel."

According to the philosophy of the MICHELIN® GREEN X® Challenge, which is scored in the US at AMLS races, the track is seen as a testing ground for innovations in automotive technology that will benefit production vehicles. The Mazda North America/SpeedSource Engineering team working with this new SKYACTIV-D engine, especially if using the track to test this new, renewable diesel fuel with the engine seem to be right in line with the GREEN X® Challenge way of thinking. (Except that GrandAm cars use Continental tires, not Michelin.)

We want confirmation from Sunoco that Mazda and SpeedSource are engaged in what green racing is all about--using the extreme conditions on the race track to push new technologies, including new fuels, to their limits; and to identify areas that need improvement before these advances reach the general public.

We believe that GrandAm does have a green racing story to tell. And we’d like to tell it. Stay tuned. We are still trying to find someone from Sunoco who is authorized to provide details.

Excerpt from Diesel Technology Forum: “The new generation of clean diesel passenger vehicles with proven real world fuel efficiency - about 30 percent better fuel efficiency than comparable gasoline vehicles – offers consumers a great choice, right alongside existing gasoline engines as well as other alternative fuels and powertrains. These vehicles are clean with low CO2 emissions, they provide great performance, and they are renewable fuel ready. Because of all this, we are extremely optimistic about the future of diesel passenger vehicles in the U.S.” READ MORE