A better fuel than ethanol

[Sludgy]

Butanol, made from corn.

Environmental Energy Main Page

[zpiloto]

Originally Posted by Sludgy

Butanol, made from corn.

Environmental Energy Main Page

Why are they pushing for ethanol and not Butanol. Is it environmentally unfriendly?

[GasSavers_Ryland]

wow, that is a great sales pitch from a compeny that holds a patent to produce "our only hope"

All the other costs that they quote are only estamations in a best case, it seems they don't have any real numbers, the closest they have is that if you compair their cost to produce butanol from corn, compaired to producing it from oil is a savings up to $.15 a gallon, "Our preliminary cost estimates suggest that we can produce butanol from corn for about $1.20 per gallon,"

"As a further point of reference, butanol produced from petroleum costs about $1.35 per gallon to manufacture."

"Butanol currently sells for about $3.70 per gallon in bulk (barge) and $6.80 in 55 gallon drums."

Some how I don't think that 15 cents per gallon savings is going to drop the cost of a barge of fuel down below $3.00 if it's currently at $3.70 a gallon, and that I assume is if you pick it up at the dock in your very own tanker trucks, tack on road tax, and paying Abu at the Quicki Mart, and the cost of having people drive off without paying, and sudenly this is looking like a pretty exspensive fuel.
maybe my negative tone is from living on a farm that 100 years ago had awsome soil that could grow anything, and now it's in a program to protect it from soil erosion because of over farming, altho I'm sure we can find alot of other land to over farm, and that altho corn is one of the worst crops for soil erosion, we will find a solution befor it's compleatly to late.

[SVOboy]

But they also say it's cheaper to produce than ethanol, and look at brazil selling ethanol for less than gas,

[GasSavers_Ryland]

why is it not for sale? did you read this part?

"Butanol is used primarily as an industrial solvent. The worldwide market is about 350 million gallons per year with the U.S. market accounting for about 220 million gallons per year. Butanol currently sells for about $3.70 per gallon in bulk (barge) and $6.80 in 55 gallon drums."

If I wanted to buy a barge of gasoline do you think I would be paying $3.00 a gallon? I don't think so, subtract transportation cost, fuel taxes, the cut that the gas station takes, and all the other small costs that ad up, and then look at any other fuel and do the same thing to it, and the cost of a barge of fuel gets closer to what you might pay if you wanted to buy it 55 gallons at a time.
oh, right, and as the price of oil goes up, the price of corn goes up, and the cost to prosses that corn goes up, it's kind of like running a gas generator to charge your electric car to beat the cost of gasoline... are we bad at math?

[Sludgy]

Not sure about the economics of either ethanol or butanol. Both may cost more than oil. But they're both renewable, and if the US wanted to tell the imam's to drink their oil, we could do it.

Butanol's 94 octane rating is "racing gas". Butanol has almost as much energy as gasoline. It also has a much lower evaporation rate than gas so evaporative emissions are lower.

Seems like there are lots of reasons to use it regardless of the cost.

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

But they also say it's cheaper to produce than ethanol, and look at brazil selling ethanol for less than gas,

Comparing the USA to Brazil is pointless. Brazil has an abundant supply of ethanol due to a massive crop of sugar cane. The USA has corn, which is more difficult to turn into ethanol.

Unless you can suddenly turn the USA into a tropical climate and give us a huge crop of sugar cane, comparing us to Brazil is like comparing apples to oranges.

[SVOboy]

I think you miss the point that it's cheaper than ethanol, which is being pushed heavily here...

[Matt Timion]

Originally Posted by SVOboy

I think you miss the point that it's cheaper than ethanol, which is being pushed heavily here...

Okay, it's cheaper than ethanol, but what does the price of ethanol in Brazil have to do with it?

Ethanol costs a lot more to produce here than in Brazil.

[SVOboy]

Indeed, but if we could produce something more cheaply...