Ok so we've got butanol, which can be used in unmodified gasoline engines, and dimethyl ether, which can be used in unmodified diesel engines, and both can be distributed using the current infrastructure... Why are we messing around ethanol?

Yes, this is why I was so frustrated that there was absolutely no funding in the last big batch of funds put out for biofuels for either butanol or DME. It was 100% ethanol.

Ethanol has to be shipped with it's own infrastructure which is mostly rail and truck. It simply can't use the existing pipelines and it won't run in today's cars without modification. It was a stop gap already...let's not move on to it's successors.

We should still be flex fueling all vehicles sold in America so that we're not limited regardless of what fuel is put in them.

As I remember it Germany had a synthetic fuels program during WWII.

And after a little research I found that synthetic fuel has a history in the US as well:

The Bureau of Mines first studied the extraction of oil from oil shale between 1925 - 1928.

Between 1928 and 1944, the Bureau experimented with coal liquefaction by hydrogenation using the Bergius process. A small-scale test unit constructed in 1937 had a 100-pound per day continuous coal feed. The methodologies employed underwent extensive development in this period, delivering significant increases in efficiency, culminating in the Karrick process.

Between 1945 and 1948, new laboratories were constructed near Pittsburgh. A synthetic ammonia plant Louisiana, Missouri (Missouri Ordnance Works) was transferred from the Army to the program in 1945. The plant was converted into a coal hydrogenation test facility. By 1949 the plant could produce 200 barrels of oil a day using the Bergius process.

Part of the personnel were German scientists, who had been extracted from Germany by Operation Paperclip.

In 1948, the program was extended to eight years and funding increased to $60 million. A second facility was constructed at the Louisiana plant, this time using the Fischer-Tropsch process. Completed in 1951, the plant only produced 40,000 gallons of fuel.

In 1953 the new Republican-led House Appropriations Committee ended funding for the research and the Missouri plant was returned to the Department of the Army.

In 1979, after the second oil crisis, the U.S. Congress approved the Energy Security Act forming the Synthetic Fuels Corporation and authorized up to $88 million for synthetic fuels projects.

In 1986, during the 1980s oil glut, President Reagan signed into law the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985 which among other things abolished the Synthetic Liquid Fuels Program. It's estimated that over 40 years the various efforts at creating synthetic fuels may have totaled as much as $8 billion.

Here is an interesting tid-bit. It turns out that if we used human sewage then we could get a lot of energy out of it.

I'm sure we'll get some bathroom humor here, but it's a serious opportunity. Extrapolating the work they're doing in Germany, they use 60% of available sewage to get approx 280kWh per person per year. So if we would use 100% of sewage in this process it would provide 467kWh per person per year.

That's enough electricity to drive the Nissan leaf for 2000+ miles per year per person. That's about 17% of annual driving for an average European or American.

That would be a hell of a dent in reducing oil usage and if we don't do it, we're just releasing all the methane into the environment anyway:

http://www.economist.com/sciencetechnology/displaystory.cfm?story_id=15172621

Would FFV be required if we use butanol instead of ethanol?

No FFV and no new liquid fuel delivery infrastructures could been major savings.

Harvey,
You nailed it. The butanol would not require FFV vehicles or a new infrastructure to deliver it. But it has to overcome the huge momentum of the ethanol industry, especially their lobbyist. LOL

But I'm a huge EV fan so I'm like ai vin....I'd like to see us do a lot more EV as well.

What I believe Syntec should try as an alternative fuel is a methanol/ ethanol/ propanol/ butanol mixture, with varying proportions of each. The idea is to find a mixture that offers an optimum combination of energy content per gallon, antiknock (octane) rating, and low exhaust emissions.

While methanol is problematic for a number of reasons, here are two possibilities that keep it in the running as an alternative fuel: One, it is easier to use CH3OH in fuel cells than anything else except hydrogen. Two, there is the possibility that someday, we may be able to economically synthesize methanol via the reaction CH4 (i.e. methane, from natural gas or from biomass) + O (oxygen) --> CH3OH, as opposed to the usual 2H2 + CO --> CH3OH.

Alex has something there, the Syntec process produces a mixture of products, if all those can be used in an FFV, you do not have to filter and refine. That saves energy and increases yield.

FFVs make sure that we can run on alternative fuels. It costs SO little for the car manufacturers to make all of their cars FFV that it is a great hedge for the future.

GM says that they can make half their fleet FFV by 2012, with very little cost per unit. Methanol was proven as M85 in more than 15,000 cars over more than 5 years in the 1990a, we should go with a proven and effective method.

If limited liquid fuel is required for 2 to 3 more decades, why not select the fuel made from least damaging local sources while using the existing multi-billion $$$ infrastructures and the 240+ million existing ICE vehicles.

Cellulosic butanol and derivatives may meet most of the future requirements, at least until such times as e-energy takes over.

Bio-gas and syn-gas could be used to produce some of the electricity required for future BEVs.

Objections from corn and ethanol lobbies will have to be addressed with fair financial assistance to transition to cellulosic butanol production.

There is no need to have losers. All sides could win in the production and use of new energy sources.