In article , Roger Halstead wrote:
On Wed, 18 Aug 2004 09:09:53 +0300 (EEST), Janne Blomqvist
wrote:

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?

I think it depends on how you look at it. It may be a viable
replacement for 100LL. It most likely will cost more as it takes more
energy to produce.

Perhaps, perhaps not. I read somewhere (some Ben Visser column
perhaps?) that one of the major costs in 100LL manufacturing is the
fact that after it has been produced, all parts of the refinery must
be scrubbed clean to get rid of any TEL.

I was under the impression that by itself Alcohol is supposed to have
a very low octane, on the order of 80 to 85 when compared to car gas.

I don't have any first-hand information on this, but googling seems to
suggest that ethanol octane is quite high.

There are a number of problems growing biomass specifically to produce
fuel..
It currently takes a lot of energy to produce and it takes a lot of
fertilizer. The ground does not magically produce that biomass from
nothing. Hence you see farmers rotating crops. The idea is to raise
corn which takes the most out of the soil, then beans which help put
nitrogen back into the soil, and finally wheat. So the usual rotation
is Wheat, corn, beans, wheat, corn, beans with a year of alfalfa and
clover thrown in if possible. It's been a longgg time so I may not
have the right chemicals with the right crops, but I do have the
rotation in order.

Yes, biofuel production by distilling annual crops is not especially
efficient. Much more efficient methods do exist or are under
development, though. Fischer-Tropsch synthesis of biomass produces a
diesel-like fuel, and can use essentially any carbon containing
biomass as feedstock. IIRC, there are some promising development going
on to produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass too. Both of these
methods can use perennial crops such as willow, which strain the
environment much less than "traditional" food crop farming and they
also achieve very high yields per hectare.

I do know there is at least one land fill in California that has
tapped the methane and is heating at least several hundred homes. (It
may be several thousand) I've seen pictures of it recently and it's
one of the major cities, but I've forgotten which one.

It's quite common over here. In some cases they even have small gas
turbines to produce some electricity in addition to heat.

To bring the topic back towards the use of ethanol for aviation, here
are some positive articles about it:

http://www3.baylor.edu/bias/publicat...thanolETBE.pdf

http://www3.baylor.edu/bias/publicat...ntobiomass.pdf

Some more info about AGE85:

http://www.fuelandfiber.com/Archive/...E85/age85.html

Report about testing with AGE85 (long):

http://www.westbioenergy.org/reports...55029final.htm

OTOH, Cessna and EAA don't seem to like it, despite a STC:

http://www.eaa.org/communications/ea...11_cessna.html



--
Janne Blomqvist