MIT turbo-charged ethanol injected engine could reduce gasoline consumption 20% -30%

[JohnWxy]

NOTE that this engine uses much less ethanol, thus if all cars and light trucks used this engine the ethanol supply needed to meet the entire fuel demand would only be about 5% of total gasoline/fuel supply! At the current rate of growth, ethanol supply should equal 5% of total fuel supply in a few years.

This is what can happen when people set to work on a problem instead thinking of possible reasons they MIGHT fail and stopping before they get started.



http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2006/engine.html


MIT's pint-sized car engine promises high efficiency, low cost
Ethanol empowers the little engine that could

Nancy Stauffer, Laboratory for Energy and the Environment
October 25, 2006


MIT researchers are developing a half-sized gasoline engine that performs like its full-sized cousin but offers fuel efficiency approaching that of today's hybrid engine system--at a far lower cost. The key? Carefully controlled injection of ethanol, an increasingly common biofuel, directly into the engine's cylinders when there's a hill to be climbed or a car to be passed.

These small engines could be on the market within five years, and consumers should find them appealing: By spending about an extra $1,000 and adding a couple of gallons of ethanol every few months, they will have an engine that can go as much as 30 percent farther on a gallon of fuel than an ordinary engine. Moreover, the little engine provides high performance without the use of high-octane gasoline.

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The combined changes could increase the power of a given-sized engine by more than a factor of two. But rather than seeking higher vehicle performance--the trend in recent decades--the researchers shrank their engine to half the size. Using well-established computer models, they determined that their small, turbocharged, high-compression-ratio engine will provide the same peak power as the full-scale SI version but will be 20 to 30 percent more fuel efficient.

But designing an efficient engine isn't enough. "To actually affect oil consumption, we need to have people want to buy our engine," said Cohn, "so our work also emphasizes keeping down the added cost and minimizing any inconvenience to the driver."

The ethanol-boosted engine could provide efficiency gains comparable to those of today's hybrid engine system for less extra investment--about $1,000 as opposed to $3,000 to $5,000. The engine should use less than five gallons of ethanol for every 100 gallons of gasoline, so drivers would need to fill their ethanol tank only every one to three months. And the ethanol could be E85, the ethanol/gasoline mixture now being pushed by federal legislation.
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A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on October 25, 2006

[Dissenting_Prole]

1. Yaaaay!

Now we can starve people and go 20-30% farther while doing it!

"so our work also emphasizes keeping down the added cost and minimizing any inconvenience to the driver."

Damn, those inconveniences!

[JohnWxy]

2. this approach requires much LESS ethanol to achieve the 20% to 30% reduction in gas consumption.

"Given the short fuel-savings payback time--three to four years at present U.S. gasoline prices--the researchers believe that their "ethanol-boosted" turbo engine has real potential for widespread adoption. The impact on U.S. oil consumption could be substantial. For example, if all of today's cars had the new engine, current U.S. gasoline consumption of 140 billion gallons per year would drop by more than 30 billion gallons."


or if you prefer you could spend $3,000 to $5,000 for a hybrid.

Chances are you'll get a wider acceptance of a technology that costs $1,000 per car than one that costs $1,000. And the amount of ethnanol needed is much less than if you were blending it with the gas. You probably didn't get that. The 20% to 30% reduction of the total gasoline demand could be achieved with about 5% of the gasoline supply being met with ethanol as opposed to 20% to 30% being met with ethanol.