Eric Braxton Alternative Fuels

8/9/2019 Eric Braxton Alternative Fuels

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Eric Braxton Notes

Alternative fuelsRough Draft



The available alternatives for Gasoline are Ethanol, Methanol, Bio Diesel, CNG (Compressed Natural Gas), Electricity, Hydrogen, Butanol. The main factorsthat these alternative fuels are not widely implemented is due to increase in production costs and fuel efficiency. Among these alternatives most commonlyused fuel is CNG due to its lesser production cost and better fuel efficiency.

(2008,Trap17.com,replace gasoline) The production for other alternative fuels will come down once the mass production begins and the performance increases.

Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is a readily available alternative to gasoline that¶smade by compressing natural gas to less than 1% of its volume at standardatmospheric pressure. Consisting mostly of methane, CNG is odorless, colorlessand tasteless. It's drawn from domestically drilled gas wells or in conjunctionwith crude oil production. As gasoline prices continue to rise, American interestin CNG is rising accordingly. And with good reason CNG costs about 40% lessthan gasoline, it emits up to 90% less emissions than gasoline, there¶s an

abundant supply and it¶s produced right here in America. So it¶s affordable,clean, abundant and American(www.cngnow.com/EN-US/WhatIsCNG)

It is difficult to provide general information about ethanol fuel economics because production costs and product value depend on plant location, feedstock, productionscale, and end use. Ethanol has become the green replacement fuel of choice for gasoline in the United States, but many people are looking for more efficientalternative fuels to replace gasoline. Ethanol is not without problems of its own.First, and perhaps foremost, is the high cost of ethanol production. Depending on

who is doing the calculations, the energy cost to produce ethanol is higher thanthe fuel value of the end product, or very close to the cost of that fuel value.Another problem is the low energy density of ethanol. There is less energy in agallon of ethanol than in a gallon of gasoline. This reduces the miles per gallona vehicle makes when burning ethanol blends. In addition, the extreme solubilityof water in ethanol, and the fire fighting issues make ethanol a much lessdesirable option as a fuel replacement. Butanol is a longer carbon-chain alcoholthan ethanol (C4 vs. C2). This means that the energy density is higher, about thesame as gasoline, and it is much less flammable. While it still requires significantenergy input to dry butanol, it requires much less energy than it takes to dryethanol. The main draw back to butanol is the difficulty in producing the material

by fermentation. Active research is being done on developing a fermentation process that can use waste biomass and cellulose as the feed stock to produce biobutanol. Fermentation will make butanol cost competitive with Ethanol. (CoyleP.J., 2007, suite101.com).



Butanol is presently manufactured from petroleum. Historically (early 1900s ± 1950s) biobutanol was manufactured from corn and molasses in a fermentation process that also produced acetone and ethanol and was know as an ABE(acetone, butanol, ethanol) fermentation. However, as demand for butanolincreased, production by fermentation declined mainly because the price of

petroleum dropped below that of sugar when the USA lost its low-cost supplyfrom Cuba around 1954. Butanol is used primarily as an industrial solvent. Theworldwide market is about 350 million gallons per year with the U.S. marketaccounting for about 220 million gallons per year. Butanol currently sells for about $3.70 per gallon in bulk (barge) and $6.80 in 55 gallon drums. Butanol isalso a replacement for gasoline as a fuel, to an even greater degree than ethanol,due to more favorable physical properties, economics, safety and the fact that itworks without having to modify the engine of your personal car. Advances in bio-technology have made it possible that corn and other biomass materials can bean economic source of biobutanol derived by fermentation. Corn-to-butanol as a potential fuel source is just gaining visibility as an alternative to corn-to-ethanol.



Reference:

(Coyle P.J., 2007, suite101.com, More effective alternative fuel are beingdeveloped)

(2008, trap17.com, replace gasoline)

(Fong P., 2008, ecogeek.com, bacteria could replace gasoline)

(Yang S.T., 2009, researchnews.osu.edu, butanol)

(Presse A.F., 2007, industyweek.com, brazil ethanol production could replace 10%of global gasoline)

(www.cngnow.com/EN-US/WhatIsCNG)

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Eric Braxton Alternative Fuels