BTU per pound is BTU per pound.
You can tune til Hell freezes over, but 2/3 is 2/3 and you're only gonna get 2/3 the miles per pound.
And efficiency is efficiency. If you increase efficiency, which is what I'm talking about. The higher the compression ratio, the more efficient engine, up until you start running into compression detonation. Ethanol has a much higher octane rating, indicating it, like premium, can take the higher compressions without causing knocking.
Right now, absent your tax-dollar government subsidy to ADM Corp, alky costs more to produce than gasoline. But, availability is becoming an issue--and will continue.
Agreed. We're going to have to switch sometime, and I like seeing alternatives being explored. It's just frustrating that I don't see companies moving in some of the directions I see as having potential. Such as a hybrid that can be plugged in, so it uses cheap electricity
REGULAR car batteries are recycled - they are almost completely lead or lead alloys, except for the outer shell, so recovering their metallic content is fairly easy, (aside from OSHA issues). Electric car and hybrid batteries are an entirely different animal - other than the hybrid car dealers themselves, can you name any company that will even ACCEPT them for recycle, much less pay for them - (and, btw, the car companies do it to promote sales and gloss over the whole replacement battery issue - I suspect dead batteries go right into the landfill as toxic waste).
Hybrid cars use two battery technologies today. Lead-Acid, which is the same as standard car batteries. Generally the only difference is additional capacity and the adjustments to the chemistry for deep-cycle use. The other is NiMh, and that is also highly recyclable, the nickel is a valuable metal. Even if it goes to the dump, it's
not 'toxic waste'.
One emerging technology is LiIon, the same as what's in laptops and cell phones today. And yes, it's hazardous outside of the packaging. On the other hand, they're developing methods for recycling even them. Another point is that the theoretical minimum cost for a LiIon battery is less than NiMH. Lithium's actually fairly easy to get. Sorry, no source, I read it while doing some research on pure electric vehicles.
Hmmm... a friend inherited a Honda Insight from her father a few months ago. It needed some work (oil had never been changed and there was an estimated 10 quarts in engine since the father just kept adding more oil) and the battery pack had to be replaced. IIRC, the cost was around $5,000 all told and the batteries had to be shipped from Japan.
Ouch. Still, indicated that the battery pack has to cost less than $5k, I imagine a good chunck of the cost was fixing the engine. Still, given the state of the engine, I wouldn't be suprised if the battery pack suffered abuse as well.
Honestly, I'd almost choose to go with a short ranged pure electric vehicle(50-100 mile range), and just rent a longer ranged vehicle when I travel. If you're willing to accept the shorter range you can substantially drop the cost of the batteries.