alt.energy.renewable

Indeed butanol is a great fuel.

The major problem with production of butanol from biomass feedstock is that fermentation stops below 2% concentration.
That is because at 2% concentration, butanol simply starts dissolving the cell wall of the microbes that produce it (and all other
microbes for that matter).
For ethanol, fermentation stops at about 12% (wine) concentration.
Consequently, distillation butanol costs (much) more energy than distilling ethanol.
Thus, butanol is more expensive to make than ethanol, and I doubt that it is even energy positive.

There is also a process problem : In sugary substances, bacteria that produce butanol have to compete with other microorganisms that
also like the sugar, but produce other stuff. So every now and then the system has to be emptied out, decontaminated, and then
filled again with sugar and fresh bacteria. That results in a 'bulk' process, which is pretty labor intensive and energy
inefficient. A 'continuous' process could potentially lower (energy) cost of butanol production, but noone has been able to build a
continuous process that solves the contamination problem.

Rob


"Himpg" wrote in message news:da25d00d-45d5-4462-bd4d-007dea334ab7@x41g2000hsb.googlegroups.com...
On Apr 3, 12:28 pm, "zzbun...@netscape.net"
wrote:
> On Apr 2, 3:16 pm, "calderh...@yahoo.com"
> wrote:
>
>
> > Fuel or folly?
>
> Ethanol is one of the best fuels for small emgines.
> Which is why most engineers who are knowledgable about the
> subject and it's consequences, still don't give much of a crap
> what the idiot press,
> for ALL the morons.
>
>
>
> - Show quoted text -

It appears that butanol is FAR BETTER than ethanol. It characteristics
are much closer to those of gasoline ... including energy content.
Also, isn't butanol more stable? In fact, if I remember correctly
butanol and gasoline are so close that they could use the same
distribution system (pipe lines AND tankers) ... even be mixed (I'm
not absolutely positive about these 2 points ,,, I'm certian someone
on this forum knows the facts ... please confirm if possible).

My father, a biochemist, used butanol for a period of time during
WWII ... with no vehicle modifications and from what I remember no
loss in "performance".

Sadly, even butanol manufacture would require some high volume hydro-
carbon feedstock for manufacture of any significant volume.