The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 192
After I wrote and published "The Irrelevance Of BTU Rating - Big Oil's Gimmick
To Hoodwink The Public", which included references that date back to more
than a hundred years ago, the attacks suggested that I was relying on people
or information that is too old. I always found this comment to be ironic since the
opinion that gasoline and diesel fuel will produce the highest miles per gallon due to energy content - is based upon old information that was relevant to powering steam engines (not internal combustion engines).
My view is that the references I cited aren't too old, they simply prove that the
irrelevance of energy content in internal combustion engines has been known
for a very, very long time; that it didn't originate with me. The knowledge has
simply been shunted aside by the overwhelming voice that the big wallet and
political power of the petroleum oil industry can generate.
In preparation for this book, I thought I would write an addendum to "The Irrelevance Of BTU Rating - Big Oil's Gimmick To Hoodwink The Public" with the
statements that I often use when discussing this issue face-to-face:
The issue comes down to this: If all internal combustion engines (ICE), regardless of how the fuel is ignited, and regardless of how the engine is tuned and
adjusted, achieved peak efficiency (miles per gallon of fuel) when using the
highest energy-content fuel, then it could be said that energy density of the fuel
is significant and a primary factor. However, this is not the case. A spark-ignited
internal combustion engine that is optimized (tuned/adjusted/outfitted with the
appropriate fuel injector) to run on ethanol will achieve equal or better MPG
than the same engine optimized to run on gasoline.
Furthermore, in the case of compression-ignited internal combustion engines
(diesel engines), biodiesel that contains about 10% less energy content than
petrol-diesel will deliver the same MPG without any adjustments to the engine.
Let's look at this a different way: Let's say that the development of internal combustion engines followed the original course set by Samuel Morey, Nicholas
Otto, and Rudolph Diesel; and ICE machines continued to be powered by alcohol, alcohol/wood turpentine blends, or nut oils. Engine technology would have
developed just as it has, except that the engines would have been designed
and built to be ethanol-optimized (ethanol can be used to produce diesel fuel).
A hundred years goes by and some enterprising person says:
"Hey guys, instead of using ethanol to power our vehicle engines, let's try
this new concoction made from the same gooey stuff we use to make
