In article , Bob Fry wrote:
"The purpose of the project was to develop a fuel based on ethanol..."

I gotta wonder...given that this is being done in the Mid-West...what
was more important: to base the new fuel heavily on ethanol, or to
find a replacement for 100LL? In other words, in a research project
to simply find the best replacement for 100LL, would it necessarily
end up as ethanol? Probably not. Is this a solution looking for a
problem?

Perhaps a solution to the question about how the farmers can sell more
of their stuff...

Other questions: Doesn't ethanol have less energy / volume than
gasoline?

Yes, it's heating value is about 2/3 that of gasoline.

So what about performance or range?

Compared to autogas, ethanol has higher octane (ron=118, mon=100
IIRC), so compared to an autogas tuned engine you can increase the
compression and thus improve efficiency. That way one can compensate
somewhat for the lower heating value. OTOH, for an engine tuned for
high octane gas such as, oh, 100LL, you won't get this benefit.

What sort of processing is needed to produce this...can it be done
cheaply on a national scale?

If it could be done competetively the agricultural industry wouldn't
need massive government subsidies, would it? OTOH, if you would factor
in the price of a middle east presence to keep the oil flowing,
gasoline would be more expensive as well.

That does of course not mean that biofuels will be forever
uncompetetive. When oil supplies dwindle, the price will increase. At
the same time, more efficient ways of biofuel production are
developed.


--
Janne Blomqvist