Hi Scotty...I keep wondering why alcohol isn't being considered as an alternative to gasoline?
It seems to me that it's a fuel that's simple to produce from waste vegetable matter...
I look forward to your take on it, at least if you can explain to me why I'm wrong I'll
be able to stop thinking about it...I mean, weren't the first internal combustion engines
designed to run on it?
For one thing alcohol contains less energy than gasoline. Depending on the method used to produce the alcohol it can be a net energy-loser. It's been done is Brazil but that country has the ability to efficiently process sugar cane into alcohol which is not feasible in the U.S. and most other countries. For another in the United States alone you have an installed base of hundreds of millions of vehicles that cannot run on alcohol. Even flex-fuel vehicles in the U.S. are only good up to E85.
it's not "simple" at all. It requires acres and acres of land to produce. You would probably have to convert a significant portion of USA's food farms into ethanol production.
We only have so much room for growing crops, and crops made specifically for use in alcohol takes away from other potential uses, among them are beer, wine... Corn is the most popular produce for turning into ethanol in the US, and it's very inefficient vs sugarcane. Add in the sheer quantity of cars that are in the US, and it becomes impractical.
