Ethanol vs Butanol, Why has America Chosen Ethanol?

Question

I've been wondering this. Ethanol requires modifications to a Gasoline engine in order to properly work and doesn't put out as much as Gasoline.

Butanol on the other hand requires no modifications to a gasoline engine and puts out as much power as gasoline.

Recently Dupont and BP have teamed up overseas in the UK to create Butanol.

Since the 1950s, most butanol in the United States is produced commercially from fossil fuels. The most common process starts with propene, which is run through an hydroformylation reaction to form butanal, which is then reduced with hydrogen to butanol. Butanol can also be produced by fermentation of biomass by bacteria. Prior to the 1950s, Clostridium acetobutylicum was used in industrial fermentation processes producing butanol. Research in the past few decades showed results of other microorganisms that can produce butanol through fermentation. < Off of Wiki.

I'll provide the links to both Wiki's for Ethanol and Butanol, you be the Judge.

Answer 1

To answer your question, the process of converting corn to ethanol on a large scale is well proven and reasonably economical.

The process for butanol is unproven on a large scale.  &quot;Cellulosic&quot; ethanol (made from low value materials) seemingly is a more attractive possibility.

Answer 2

Long question with a simple answer.  Surplus corn crops.

Answer 3

Ethanol has a wide variety of feedstocks from which it can be made---more so than butanol.  Corn, the primary feedstock, is far more heavily available in the U.S. than beets.