Talk:Alcohol fuel

Sweden
Hello folks! I just wanted to say that sweden should definitely be on this list too! There are ethanol gas stations all over the country and the swedish car manufacturers make ethanol cars for the swedish market. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.55.112.24 (talk) 09:00, 30 March 2009 (UTC)

Discussion
Folks, I have made the comment about ethanol being corrosive a little more specific, as those of us who drink it in concentrations up to 40% or more don't find it too corrosive.

Pete

Merging Ethanol with Ethanol Fuel
I think we should make this in to a redirect to Ethanol fuel again. If you look you'll see that it also mentions methanol, but gives a much better treatment of the whole issue.

Will Beback 00:14, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it would be a good idea to merge this with Ethanol biofuel.

Peter Cascio March 12, 2013

Merge from Bioalcohol
I propose to merge the data from Bioalcohol here because there are too many scattered articles on alcohol already. The context of most biologically produced alcohol is as a petrol/diesel replacement so I think this should be a right place to be. --21:28, 30 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Agree --Rifleman 82 18:00, 20 May 2006 (UTC)

Question: Is methanol made from the electrolysis of carbon dioxide and water a BioAlcohol? Justbeingmyself (talk) 01:09, 28 November 2010 (UTC)


 * No, it most certainly isn't. If (bio)photosynthesis isn't involved in the production of the alcohol, it becomes just a convenient way to transport energy (since it is made from free hydrogen in chemical plants or gizmos, instead of from free hydrogen from photosynthesis, as green plants do it). There are articles like methanol economy and ethanol economy that make this very clear. We don't have enough land, fresh water, and sunlight to have green plants make enough alcohol for our heating and transport fuel needs. But if we had unlimited energy from other sources, be it nuke, desert solar, wind, whatever--we might well choose to use that energy to make alcohol fuels for (at least) ground transport, rather than storing it in batteries, or hydrogen. Alcohols can be used in fuel cells, too. Just think of alcohol as being captive hydrogen. It's like hydrogen, but better. If the carbon you use to make the alcohol comes out of the atmosphere, there's no difference between alcohol and hydrogen except that we can stick alcohol into our infrastructure NOW, easily, but hydrogen maybe never. S  B Harris 01:30, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Heat of vaporization (Hvap)
The article claims the Hvap of methanol and ethanol are an advantage. The fuel's purpose is not to cool the engine, and it does not even vaporize until it enters the cylinder in droplet form. A high Hvap only robs heat from the combustion (lowers thermodynamic efficiency), and the Ethanol fuel article suggest that this contributes to the problem of starting pure ethanol engines in cold weather, as flash point and heat of vaporization are not totally unrelated.

In short, I can see no reason how this is a benefit, and a source should be produced for it to stay in the article. Karma Heretic 07:20, 7 May 2006 (UTC)


 * I have deleted the statement. Karma Heretic 18:30, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Ethanol used as fuel photo
This photo seems to have no relevance to alcohol fuel... 207.161.40.203 21:07, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

Eucalyptus in Russia?
Folks, this plant never grew in Russia in the first place. Maybe you meant Australia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.232.31.11 (talk) 14:49, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

propanol
There needs to be an article on propanol fuel, to complement the methan,ethan,butan,-ol articles. The propanol target is not so useful, since it's a dab page. The propan-1-ol article does not contain propanol fuel, so the redirect is not particularly informative, except that it illuminates the chemical structure. 70.55.84.42 (talk) 11:41, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

"primary advantage of methanol biofuel versus ethanol biofuel"
I think that we need to update the statement that the primary advantage of methanol biofuel is "its much greater well-to-wheel efficiency when produced from syngas". Something(s) about that statement rubs me the wrong way. The statement may have been appropriate years ago, but nowadays the biological value of methanol resides largely in its use as a vehicle for carbon dioxide recycling. Methanol can be produced from atmospheric carbon dioxide and water using electrolysis or enzymes, bypassing the production of intermediate syngas. Also, the term "well-to-wheel" is now outdated, because "well" refers to a crude oil well, implying the continued need for fossil fuels. We could substitute the phrase "Life Cycle Assesment".

Instead of trying to pinpoint a primary advantage of methanol biofuel over ethanol biofuel, we might just simply acknowledge that the production of methanol, being the simpler molecule, is generally the easiest and cheapest way to obtain a stable carbon biofuel that is liquid at room temperature and at atmospheric pressure, and thus suitable for use in vehicles to provide transportation. This is true regardless of the orgins of the biofuel. For example, unlike ethanol, methanol can be made from nearly any biomass, including animal waste or atmospheric carbon dioxide, and the production process will generally be more efficient and less expensive than the similar production of ethanol. Then we can also mention that with additional energy, ethanol (or gasoline, or any other carbon fuel) can be made from methanol, which generally increases the energy density of the methanol, and adds other favorable characterisitcs. The limiting factor in the production of these carbon biofuels is no longer the chemsitry, which has been researched extensively and continues to be refined. With a relatively high degree of efficiency, we can now make whatever carbon biofuel that we want from atmospheric carbon dioxide, water, and renewable electricity. Of course, it will require more energy to make these fuels than is released by these fuels--that is to be expected when recycling fuel. The limiting factor in the production of carbon biofuels is the political process which is being obstructed by the fossil fuel industry. This should be acknowledge here in print. If you have associated referrences, please post them. Justbeingmyself (talk) 03:32, 28 November 2010 (UTC)

Alcohol Fuel in Japan
Seems to be extremely poorly written. I can't even understand the core points in the last and second-to-last paragraphs well enough to correct the grammar. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.200.27.250 (talk) 13:25, 7 March 2011 (UTC)

Octane rating?
In the opening, we should refer to this as "effective octane rating" or "high flash point" or similar. Octane, as the supplied link explains, is a different chemical.Tgm1024 (talk) 14:50, 2 June 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080528051420/http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/2007_Ethanol_Fact_Book.pdf to http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/2007_Ethanol_Fact_Book.pdf
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20080528051420/http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/2007_Ethanol_Fact_Book.pdf to http://www.ethanol.org/pdf/contentmgmt/2007_Ethanol_Fact_Book.pdf

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Nonsense
The first sentence of this article is nonsense: "Throughout history, alcohols have been used as a fuel." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.90.237 (talk) 13:02, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

See Timeline of alcohol fuel — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.183.90.237 (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Focus
This article seems to be exclusively concerned with automotive applications. Alcohol is used as fuel for other things too. Globbet (talk) 20:07, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

What is GWh in the European Union table?
"Consumption of Bioethanol (GWh)" is the table caption. --Timeshifter (talk) 07:05, 18 May 2021 (UTC)

Narrow article for its title
Today I showed up here because I was curious about alcohol as a fuel outside of internal-combustion engines (more specifically cooking and heating) - and I find an article that sounds right, but is limited to, essentially, two alcohols' usage as car fuel.

I suggest we should be thinking about giving this article a more specific name, and writing the actual article this article's name suggests... Autokefal Dialytiker (talk) 14:38, 28 March 2023 (UTC)