On May 9, 2008, at 3:39 AM, Robert N. Eaton wrote:
> I, too, think ethanol is a remarkable fuel for racing.  It burns cool,
> it allows very high compression ratios, and it produces very high
> specific outputs for a given capacity engine.
>
> BUT, it contains about one fourth as many calories as gasoline, pound
> for pound. This means that to reach a certain power output, the engine
> needs four times as much ethanol.  One author I read stated that there
> just isn't enough arable land in the world to support our energy habit
> on an ethanol economy and still allow us to eat.
>
> Bob Eaton
>

Its more like 67% not 25% (23.5MJ/L vs 34.8MJ/L).  You also make up  
for some of that with the efficiency boost from running higher  
compression.  As a racing fuel goes, gasoline (specifically a racing  
formula high in toluene or xylene) is a better fuel than ethanol.  In  
the turbocharged F1 days, they were running nearly straight toluene in  
order to run the massive boost levels that gave approximately 1000hp/ 
Liter.

Toluene is 114 octane, vs ethanols 116, but has a higher energy  
density.  Xylene has toluene's energy density combined with 117 octane.

Also, a lot of the studies that show ethanol is  bad thing are based  
on a corn derived ethanol.  The process is inefficient (1 unit of  
energy in gives 1.34units out).  Brazil uses sugar cane derived  
ethanol which gives 8 units for every one going in. The only reason  
we're doing it with corn is because of the corn lobby and its federal  
subsidies.

If they can ever get cellulosic ethanol production to ramp, all the  
left overs from farming, cutting the lawn, your old veggies, etc could  
be used.

Again, ethanol isn't a bad idea, its just being done stupidly.  Which  
makes me suspect that it might be done this way to tighten up the  
global food supply to raise prices and keep the US in power as the  
"world leader".

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