Better than ethanol

Biobutanol, the plant based fuel similar to ethanol, promises more power and less transport headaches. But can it be done cheaply enough?

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — All of a sudden, everybody hates ethanol.

Among the criticisms: Ethanol takes more energy to produce than it yields … it can’t be easily shipped … it’s driving up the price of food … it’s perverse to put food in fuel tanks while people starve.


Now a partnership between two corporate heavy weights – BP (Charts) and DuPont (Charts) – aims to commercialize Biobutanol, a fuel similar to ethanol but with a few important advantages. The question is: Can they make it cheap enough?

Biobutanol’s first advantage: it packs more power. Conventional corn-based ethanol – the kind most widely produced in the United States – is only about 70 percent as efficient as gasoline. This means consumers have to use more of it to drive the same amount of miles.

CNN/Money