Message-ID: <199511161630.LAA13112@ruacad-gw.runet.edu> Date: Thu, 16 Nov 1995 11:30:28 -0500 From: William Kovarik <mailto:wkovarik@RUNET.EDU> Subject: Re: Alcohol Fuels To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
>
> This used to be called gasohol and modified engines using gasohol have in
> commercial operation in many parts of the world. Brazil is one of the
> countries which saw widespread usage of gasohol in the 70's and 80's.
> The trend has since changed due to the focus shifting from the ic engine.
> The favoured technologies today are natural gas, electric power and LPG.
Actually, a 10 percent blend of ethyl alcohol and 90 percent gasoline requires no engine modification. Up to 25 to 30 percent can be blended without phase separation of gasoline and alcohol, depending on the local temperature and whether cosolvents ("binders") have been added.
Brazil has a very active Proalcool program involving both blends and pure alcohol. Engines have to be modified to run pure alcohol but there are advantages to doing that. One is far less air pollution, another is far greater engine compression and efficiency. Blends decrease air pollution also in the sense that a 10 percent blend substitutes for tetraethyl lead or severe reforming / benzine.
Although we ** should ** shift away from the IC engine, as it is an extremely inefficient prime mover, there is no significant trend toward natural gas, LP gas or electric power. And as the writer notes, these have serious environmental consequences of their own. It has always seemed to me that Third and Fourth World production of renewable liquid fuel from biomass or surplus crops (like Brazilian sugar) is an important key to averting global climate disaster. I can see the day when the underemployed and unemployed masses of the Third and Fourth Worlds find productive and useful work creating renewable fuels from marine and marginal land biomass plantations, and in return the industrialized world, using this renewable fuel, helps build a sustainable future and a decent economy in the developing world. Replacing oil with such a system would fuel an enormous amount of development.
As far as research projects, there have literally been thousands since alcohol was first used as an engine fuel in 1826 (Yes, 1826. See Lyle Cummins book, Internal Fire).
You might be interested to know that India had a very strong alcohol fuels program after World War II, and a United Nations conference on alcohol fuels was held in Lucknow in 1953 or 54.
A good overview to 1981 is "Fuel Alcohol: Energy and Environment in a Hungry World," published by the International Institute for Environment and Development (Earthscan) based in London. I was the author.
You may also find a rare copy of "The Forbidden Fuel: Power Alcohol in the 20th Century" somewhere in a library. I was a co-author. Hal Bernton was the lead author.
The Solar Energy Research Institute, now named the National Renewable Energy Lab, in Golden Colorado, USA, has done lots of work on this and has a number of surveys. Also try the Center for Renewable Energy and Sustainable Technology in Washington, D.C.
And of course, Im always open to questions and arguments about the use of alcohol fuels.
Regards,
Bill Kovarik mailto:wkovarik@runet.edu