What's the point? Soy biodiesel is already proven, with B20 working in virtually any diesel vehicle and providing 20% renewable fuel with no significant drawbacks. This "O2diesel" gives you only 7.7% ethanol, which has fewer BTU's/gallon and if derived from grain is not nearly as renewable or environmentally sensitive as biodiesel from vegetable oil. Also, who knows what the mysterious 0.6% is or where it comes from?

B20 is already well proven, and many applications could use B50 or even B100 without problems. Unless cellulosic ethanol becomes cheaper than water, I do not see this as a good approach.

The Bxx fuels are fine, but don't diss ethanol just because you are a believer in them. If ethanol lowers the gel point of the fuel, that alone would be good. Otherwise you are going to see CTL in jets.

It's for aviation. Biodiesel gells around 25-35 degrees ABOVE zero. Ethanol can sustain 100 degrees BELOW zero. Air temperatures at high altitude can range from 45 to 60 degrees below zero and since fuel is generally stored un-insulated in the wings, you need fuel that can operate at very low temperature. Biodiesel is not an ideal aviation fuel.

Ummm... guys... there is no reference above to using this in jets. Yes, Nellis AFB is referred to, but they are always referring to this as a diesel fuel for diesel-powered land vehicles. I'm aware of the high gel point for B100 (or anything over B20) but this is Nellis, a few miles outside Las Vegas where temps hardly ever go below freezing. I agree that biodiesel does not appear to work in jets for the reasons you cite, but I don't think that's the issue here.

Rather, I think a bunch of people are climbing on the ethanol bandwagon, which was started by the corn farmer lobby and perpetuated by politicians who want to proclaim that we can have all our current gas-powered toys for nothing if we just switch to ethanol. The drawbacks of corn ethanol are huge (I think most are aware - if not, do a google search).

I have nothing against ethanol apart from its current source. If cellulosic ethanol or some other better source that doesn't hurt the environment or steal away food becomes practical, I will happily run my vehicles on ethanol blends. Ethanol has great potential in that it can be blended with gasoline or diesel (though so can butanol).

As for future jet fuels, I think that will be CTL or perhaps thermal depolymerization fuels. Liquified hydrocarbon gases would also seem like a potential option. Ethanol has too little energy content per volume to be directly replace current jet fuel, and it is very susceptible to water contamination which is very, very bad in an airplane.

In order to reduce the types of fuels use the military genrally runs their diesel powered vehicles and generators on the same JP8 used in aircraft, therefore any fuel they test in a vehicle needs to be suitable for aviation use.

Is there any research that hasnt had a dreaded lobby behind it.I think the anti-lobby lobby would have us research one perfect source to the exclusion of all others.

Of course then the purists would have to agree on what the perfect source is, thereby delaying research indefinitely.Look to dogmatic libertarians for an example.They hold to their utopian view of a miniscule government, refusing any intermediate steps and never register on the radar screen of elections.

Ethanol is not the answer. The Ethanol Myth as laid out by Consumer Reports states in very clear terms how ethanol lacks in relation to gasoline's energy content. 27% less energy. However, because diesel combustion is 35% efficient to gasoline's 25% the use of it in diesel may not show up as noticable as E85 in a flex fuel vehicle, but the decrease it is still there. I bet the mysterious 0.6% are some major lubricators that counteract ethanol's corrosive properties on moving injection pump parts. Another problem, is that if you tabulate everything that goes into producing the ethanol it takes anywhere from .4gallons to 1.5gallons of gasoline/diesel/coal to make it. Farm equipment, electrical machinery, workers driving to the plant, shipping the ethanol. The B20 from WVO or fresh soybean oil, is the way to go in my opinion. I wish the EPA would get off their #$! and approve it for use so I could ease my mind running WVO in my diesel Mercedes.

I've never quite understood the idea that so much petroleum goes into ethanol production that it's not worth doing. Sure, some amount of oil goes into producing the fertilizers used, but why worry about what runs the farm equipment or workers' cars? Just switch those over to ethanol in due course. Nothing *requires* that they run on petroleum for all time.

What am I missing here?

Your missing the scale problem. We simply don't have the required land mass to make a "switch" to ethanol. And that's assuming a best case for production efficiency.

Brian, just FYI, ethanol hurts mileage in diesels too, because of the lower energy content. Diesel fuel inherently has about 15% more energy content/gallon than gasoline, which is the source of roughly half the MPG advantage that diesel vehicles have over gasoline equivalents. (This is a sort of dirty little secret for diesel fans - the diesel cycle itself is only 15-20% more efficient than the spark ignition cycle. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of diesels and own two (literally).)

I also find this proposal curious because E95, 95% ethanol and 5% gasoline, has been tested in diesel engines. It basically works, but lowers reliability and dramatically lowers MPG, mostly due to the lower energy content. Why anyone is now excited about 8% ethanol in diesel, I don't know.

Even small content (5%) of ethanol in diesel fuel dramatically decreases generation of diesel soot – most troublesome diesel pollutant. Conversion of regular diesel fuel to 3-8% ethanol blends will not somehow noticeably reduce volumetric fuel efficiency, but will dramatically reduce soot generation from all diesel vehicles currently on the road (even the dirtiest one, which are here to stay for decade+).

Thanks Andrey, I wasn't aware of that (not really emphasized in this article). If we can noticeably reduce soot with 5% ethanol in diesel fuel, I am all for it and don't know why it isn't already being done.