The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 255
If what you learned in school, or think you learned in school, is what you posted
above, then you wasted your own time.
By the way, a quick and easy way to prove that engine optimization and not
BTU rating is the key, think about this: Diesel fuel has a higher BTU rating than
gasoline. However, if you put diesel fuel in a gasoline-optimized engine you do
not get better MPG, you would get less MPG.
I look forward to your next attempt.
Posted by DAVID N:
MPG is per gallon. A gallon of ethonal doesn't not have the same amount of
energy as a gallon of gas. The efficiency of a typical gas engine is pretty low,
20-30% so even if you optimize the engine to run ethanol (ethonal has a higher
octane ~110, so you could theroy run it has a higher compression, higher compression in carnot cycle leads to greater effiecney) but that doesn't mean you
will get get better mpg's due to fact that if you had a 100% ethonal engine you
still have significantly lower about of BTU's per gallon than gas. BTU's are the
basic measurement of energy and the ability to do work.
Reply from MARC:
Dave - Should you choose to post another message you might want to use spell
and grammar check before you hit the 'submit button.' But let me try to understand what you wrote and respond appropriately.
If you take two comparable spark-ignited internal combustion engines and optimize one for ethanol and the other for gasoline, the ethanol engine will deliver
more MPG and more horse power. This has been proven by studies and tests
for more than 100 years.
For example, the following excerpt is from a Paper to the American Society for
Environmental History, Annual Conference March 26-30, 2003 By William Kovarik, Ph.D:
“Studies of alcohol as an internal combustion engine fuel began in the
U.S. with the Edison Electric Testing Laboratory and Columbia University
