Alcohols: a technical assessment of their application as fuels

Book · Thu Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1976

OSTI ID:7131999

This report summarizes the state of the art of applying alcohols as fuels. It develops conclusions specific both to the technical advantages as well as to the disadvantages of alcohols with respect to hydrocarbon fuels. If alcohols can be manufactured at sufficiently low costs--lower than today's fuels, or lower in the future than other synthetic fuels--they surely will be manufactured and used. Many different studies of manufacturing costs have been made, and these continue. Unfortunately, a considerable disparity exists among various estimates, depending upon different available processes, raw materials, and different financial premises. Ethanol today is made either by fermentation starting with agricultural carbohydrates, or from ethylene derived from petroleum. About 65 percent of the total U.S. production is from petroleum. Fuel markets would not attract fermentation ethanol because it is prohibitively expensive. Methanol from coal (the cheapest large-scale raw material) is considerably cheaper than ethanol, but still not competitive with gasoline at this time. As this report shows, alcohols have a few advantages (such as octane number) that could make them more valuable than petroleum derived gasoline, and significant disadvantages (such as low energy content) that increase their transportation and distribution costs, and thus make them less valuable. Furthermore, there are substantial costs associated with the adaptation of existing vehicles and fuel distribution systems to use alcohols. These factors are significant; the ultimate choice among competing alternative fuels will be based largely on their overall cost to the consumer per unit of energy. For the immediate future, these costs for alcohols are much too high. Over the long term, efforts to promote alcohols as synthetic fuels will prove to be misguided unless overall costs to the consumer compare favorably to those of gasoline derived from coal and shale. 80 references. (MOW)

• OSTI ID: 7131999
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

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10 SYNTHETIC FUELS
29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
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33 ADVANCED PROPULSION SYSTEMS
330800 -- Emission Control-- Alternative Fuels
ALCOHOLS
ALKENES
AUTOMOTIVE FUELS
BIOMASS
CHEMICAL PROPERTIES
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
CORROSION PROTECTION
ECONOMICS
EFFICIENCY
ENERGY SOURCES
ETHANOL
ETHYLENE
FUELS
GASOLINE
HAZARDS
HEALTH HAZARDS
HYDROCARBONS
HYDROXY COMPOUNDS
METHANOL
MIXING
ORGANIC COMPOUNDS
PETROLEUM PRODUCTS
PHYSICAL PROPERTIES
PRODUCTION
RENEWABLE ENERGY SOURCES
SAFETY
STORAGE
SYNTHETIC FUELS
TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT
TOXICITY