(NewsUSA) - While environmentalists celebrate the signing of a landmark energy bill that will increase fuel economy standards on all vehicles from 26.4 miles per gallon (mpg) to 35 mpg, you are probably thinking about how this will affect your wallet.

Through this recent bill, President Bush signed into law a 40 percent increase in required fuel economy. The president called the legislation a "major step toward reducing our dependence on oil, confronting global climate change, expanding the production of renewable fuels and giving future generations of our country a nation that is stronger, cleaner and more secure."

The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) regulation requires each car manufacturer to meet a standard for the sales-weighted fuel economy for the entire fleet of vehicles sold in the U.S. in each model year.

The future CAFE standards will apply to the entire fleet of vehicles manufactured in the U.S. up to 10,000 pounds. They should be set, starting with Model Year 2011, until the standards achieve a combined average fuel economy of 35 mpg. Currently, cars and light trucks with two- and four-wheel-drives have individual standards. However, the newly signed bill allows for a standard increase that is applied to the entire U.S. fleet.

The new law also requires an increased use of ethanol, a cleaner burning, yet less efficient fuel. With the use of ethanol, these newer vehicles might not see much improvement in gas mileage.

Pulsed power, already in use by Pulstar pulse plugs for aftermarket spark plug replacements, is an enabling technology that can be used in combination with proprietary engine designs, now being developed by car manufacturers, to offset the reduced efficiency of ethanol fuel or to boost the efficiency of regular fuels. The stored energy discharged by the pulse plug was previously wasted as heat in the current plug ignition system.

Once pulse plugs are installed in your car, they'll allow the transition to bio-fuel to be smoother. While ethanol will presumably burn cleaner, it will not be as efficient as gasoline and will require you to fill up more often. Pulse plugs can offset that necessity, allowing each of us to drive our cars farther on a gallon of bio-fuel.

If you have any questions about what you can do to help your car run more smoothly using pulse plugs, please visit www.pulstar.com.

(NewsUSA) - Choice can be a wonderful thing, especially when it comes to fueling your car.

With prices rising for traditional fossil fuels, alternative fuels such as E85 - a blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline - are growing in popularity and prevalence. But because most car models are still designed to operate exclusively on gasoline, consumers are faced with a dilemma: Their cars may not be able to run on what could become the next generation of fuel.

Flexible fuel vehicles, those that can run on either gasoline or ethanol, are not yet mainstream in the U.S., but Virginia-based XcelPlus has introduced a device that can be installed in ordinary cars to convert them into flexible fuel vehicles.

Most cars can be retrofitted in just about an hour or less with this technology that was developed in Brazil, according to Bill Smith, president of XcelPlus.

For years, flexible fuel vehicles have experienced enormous popularity in other parts of the world. According to an article by Ethanol Producer Magazine, flexible fuel vehicles represented 70 percent of Brazil's new car sales in 2005.

But despite the foreign popularity of this technology and its viability for use in the United States, American manufacturers have largely been slow to incorporate it into their vehicles, and the vast majority of U.S. cars still run on gasoline.

But with FlexTek, the choice is in consumers' hands or, rather, in their engines.

Developed in Brazil, FlexTek can be quickly and easily installed in about 30 minutes, according to XcelPlus. It plugs into the vehicle's existing wiring harness without cutting or splicing, and can be removed at any time, leaving the car unaltered.

FlexTek works by intercepting the signal coming from the car's computer to the fuel injectors. It extends the signal to the injectors so that enough fuel can enter the delivery system, essentially instructing it to function at a rate that allows the burning of gasoline, ethanol or a combination of the two.

For more information and to see if your car can be converted into a flexible fuel vehicle, visit www.flextek.com or call 800-472-7409.