The new interest of Lotus, developing biofuel technologies has led to a revolutionary discovery. Richard Pearson, a technical specialist at Lotus Engineering and a champion of greener engines, shares that tests conducted at the company have found that high-performance engines that run on ethanol produce more power than their petrol counterparts.
Pearson shares:
We have found that you can get more performance from a high-performance engine if you use ethanol because of its octane number, which is better than petrol’s. It’s particularly marked in cars that have super- charged and turbo-charged engines. We have found efficiency increases which, while not enormous, are still the sort of increases that people are spending billions of dollars trying to achieve in the automotive sector.
Ethanol has the power to meet Kyoto targets. This discovery could revolutionize the car industry. Not only that, Lotus engineers believes that such ethanol powered car could be used in formula one races very soon.
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Comments
According to an EPA an ethanol test engine has above 40% effiency through much of its operating range.
I believe this characteristic has been expoited in the Saab 9-5 biofuel series.
Also, the high vaporization energy of ethanol means it can be run with a lean mixture without the same overheating problems as gasoline.
Helo RP,
Would like to ask if you are the same Richard Pearson cited in my post? I feel too, with the increasing popularity of ethanol many of our fuel problems could be solved. Do keep sharing information and your views.
Got heard a lot of talks about hybrid/electric vehicles and what matters today is the distinction between the use of ethanol and petrol. There are actually many ways to produce ethanol (energy savings) and much of the rise in food prices can also be attributed to the rise in production costs.