Here's a little history, before armchair (or cyber) analysts embarass
themselves too much.

Ethanol has been utilized as a car fuel since the mid 70s in Brazil.
It is made of SUGAR-CANE, which is easy to produce in abundance in Brazil,
not corn.
Any reasonable farm can distill it's own Ethanol to power their cars and
their crop dusters.

As far as the auto industry, Brazilian car manufacturers (including the
Brazilian arms of Ford, GM, Fiat and Volkswagen, to name a few) have been
producing ethanol-powered cars since the 70s and there is an incredible
amount of accumulated knowledge from experience.
They were required by law at some point to offer as much as 50% of their
productions in alcohol-powered cars, as opposed to gasoline-powered cars.

Here are some facts :
"Alcohol powered cars" (as they are locally known) obtain about 15 to 20%
less mileage per gallon, but the cost still outperforms Gasoline.
They usually have slighly higher HP output because Alcohol engines require
slighly higher compression ratios, thus generating better torque and HP.
The fuel lines, fuel pumps and everything else that touches the fuel needs a
slighly different treatment so as not to get corroded, and the experience
accumulated from decades of doing this, has already been applied by the big
car manufacturers in several other countries, improving the lives of these
components even in gasoline-powered cars.
Alcohol does not require pollutant add-ons such as MTB or Lead.
The emissions are significantly less pollutant than from Gasoline-powered
engines.

More important than any of this, the use of Ethanol it has significantly
reduced brazilian dependence on foreign oil and its impact on the economy.

This is not a crazy experiment, it is just the continuation of 30+ years of
evolution of a program that has had a significant impact both technically
and economically in the way brazilians think about transportation.


"Steve / Sperry" wrote in message
...
I have seen 2 perspectives on the issue... one says its more efficent
to produce the other says it is less efficent?


Opinion 1/ From a production standpoint... "Ethanol production is
extremely energy efficient, with a positive energy balance of 125%,
compared to 85% for gasoline. Ethanol production is by far the most
efficient method of producing liquid transportation fuels. According
to USDA, each BTU (British Thermal Unit, an energy measure) used to
produce a BTU of gasoline could be used to produce 8 BTUs of ethanol."

Or 2/ David Pimental, a leading Cornell University agricultural
expert, has calculated that powering the average U.S. automobile for
one year on ethanol (blended with gasoline) derived from corn would
require 11 acres of farmland, the same space needed to grow a year's
supply of food for seven people. Adding up the energy costs of corn
production and its conversion into ethanol, 131,000 BTUs are needed to
make one gallon of ethanol. One gallon of ethanol has an energy value
of only 77,000 BTUS. Thus, 70 percent more energy is required to
produce ethanol than the energy that actually is in it. Every time you
make one gallon of ethanol, there is a net energy loss of 54,000 BTUs.

Mr. Pimentel concluded that "abusing our precious croplands to grow
corn for an energy-inefficient process that yields low-grade
automobile fuels amounts to unsustainable subsidized food burning".



If the fuel is efficent to produce then I would like to believe the
following quote from the industry... Ethanol is a much cleaner fuel
than gasoline, reducing air-pollution. It is a renewable fuel made
from plants -- unlike fossil-fuels, manufacturing it and burning it
does not increase the greenhouse effect.




well those claims are deluded nonsense arent they.
ethanol is less efficient as a fuel energy source than avgas.
200 litres of ethanol does not have the anywhere near the range of
avgas and being a fermented biological material we'd denude the entire
world of arable land if we switched to it globally as a fuel.

...but then the greens were never good at maths.
Stealth Pilot