The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 409
http://dcd96xmek71bc.cloudfront.net/archives/email/Trade/BoatingIndustry/MythsofEthanol-August252011.mp4.
An abbreviated version of the results can be found at:
http://www.boatus.com/magazine/2011/december/ethanol.asp.
I purposely cite the Mercury Marine report because it also addresses the general nonsense about ethanol-fuels being harmful to boats. If you do avail yourself of the links just above, you'll find that Mercury says that E10 may be better
for marine engines than non-ethanol gasoline.
2. You ask if I believe that ethanol as an energy source is especially efficient.
Of course I do, as have top scientists around the world for more than a century.
An internal combustion engine optimized to run on ethanol will out-perform a
comparable internal combustion engine optimized to run on gasoline. The early
automobile inventors knew this, Henry Ford knew this, and General Motors top
fuel scientists (Kettering, Midgley, and Boyd) knew this. Incidentally, the GM trio
were responsible for inventing leaded gasoline.
In addition, USDA tests in 1906 demonstrated the efficiency of alcohol in engines and described how gasoline engines could be modified for higher power
with pure alcohol fuel or for equivalent fuel consumption, depending on the
need. This was testified to during the "Free Alcohol" Congressional Hearings
held by the Ways and Means Committee of the 59th Congress in 1906.
The U.S. Geological Service (USGS) and the U.S. Navy performed 2000 tests
on alcohol and gasoline engines in 1907 and 1908 in Norfolk, Va. and St. Louis,
Mo. They found that much higher engine compression ratios could be achieved
with alcohol than with gasoline. When the compression ratios were adjusted for
each fuel, fuel economy was virtually equal despite the greater B.T.U. value of
gasoline.
Elihu Thomson reported that despite a smaller heat or B.T.U. value, "a gallon
of alcohol will develop substantially the same power in an internal combustion
engine as a gallon of gasoline. This is owing to the superior efficiency of operation..." (New York Times Aug. 5, 1906) Other researchers confirmed the same
phenomena around the same time.
In recent times, other studies have been done to prove this. For example, in
1998 the Ethanol Vehicle Challenge staged by Wayne State University proved
