http://www.physorg.com/news90166168.html

Butanol can be used as a direct substitute for gasoline and biodiesel can be used as a direct substitute for diesel. Ethanol is a dead end. It has too many problems to be useful as a motor vehicle fuel. Do your research and run more articles on Butanol and to a lesser extent, biodiesel. The public must be educated to end this ethanol corn lobby subsidy insanity. Thanks.

And where do we get this butanol from?

If there is a means of producing butanol from renewable resources that is as efficient as ethanol production, it would be seriously considered.

To learn more about Butanol, please see www.butanol.com as a start.

I beg to differ - even if there was a renewable source of Butanol that was as cost effective or even more so than that for ethanol (and this may already be the case), it would not be considered until the political climate changes and people become aware of the possibilities. Even if renewable butanol was 1/2 the cost gasoline today, it would be a slow uphill battle to get it adopted. There are alot of vested interests that don't want to see things change in ways that are sustainable in the long term.

First people must become aware that there are perfectly viable options to current motor fuels - this may be the biggest hurdle. The technology exists already to make renewable biodiesel and butanol - a viable gasoline replacement that does not attack rubber seals, absorb moisture, can use existing pipelines, has about the same energy content as gasoline, can be used in a vehicle without blending with gasoline and can be made in a renewable fashion from cellulostic biomass in the very SAME plants that are being used to ferment corn currently.

When it becomes possible to make ethanol cost effectively from cellulose, it will be even cost effective to make butanol in the very same fermentation plants, since more biofuel is produced per unit input.

Ethanol enjoys unwarranted government support because it is basically a give away to the corn lobby - can you say pork - and it is not a serious threat to the oil industry.

Ethanol is one of the most common forms of alcohol
Butanol is also an alcohol, but I do agree that it is more viable as a fuel source.

They both can be created from biomass, but in the case of ethanol...it is already a common product.

I'm not saying that Butanol may not, in fact, be a more viable fuel. Anything that is combustible is potentially a viable fuel.
The reason that so much research and talk comes from ethanol is because of its history and popularity.

If a new fuel wave sweeps the world....we are going to redesign car engines.
Look at leaded fuels as an example.....
The most important thing is mere compatability....not equality.
A car designed to run on leaded fuel will still run on unleaded fuel...just not as well.
There are always additives, modifications, etc that can be made to accept a fuel change...but the most important is the quality of an engine that can be created to run off of the new fuel.

Dont compare potential new fuel technologies on their compatibility with current combustibles.
As long as they are compatible at all...be glad.

Instead analyze them based on their efficiency, production, emissions, environmental effects, and cost.

If butanol is superior, and available from corn, why wouldn't the corn lobby push for it? Why fight a harder uphill battle with ethanol, when an easier battle could be had with butanol?

From www.butanol.com

"EEI's patent changes everything. We are now able to produce yields of 2.5 gallons of butanol per bushel of corn"

So we are now going to start effectively burning foodstuff to solve the energy crisis.

More inefficient use of valuable resources.

Butanol makes sense as a green carbon alternative to ethanol.

Petroleum should be reserved for non fuel products.

Fuel consumption should be reduced through more efficient scheduling of necessary travel, and a reduction in recreational travel.

The biggest fuel consumption cut, and just about every social and environmental fix, would be realized through a 50% reduction in global population.

Ethanol is really my life i feel strongly aboutt this article because it actually brung tears to my eyes it MADE my heart beat reading the facts and wonders of ethanol
I REALLY HAD NO IDEA about half the things article im breaking up with my boyfriend just so i can study ethanol more closely ethanol rocks <3