You see ethanol has only two carbon atoms in its chain. Butanol on the other hand has four carbon atoms in its chain. I do not know of its efficiency just yet, as I have been unable to find any information on that. But as is noted in this video, it says you could go as far as you can with gasoline. The reason why I bring this up is because I believe ethanol is only something like 67% as efficient as gasoline is-- therefore driving the overall efficiency down!
Professor David Mullen is the developer of the process to make butanol. I will give you three guesses as to how it is made-- agriculture waste products and old newspapers. Now what they showed us all in this video appeared to be tree bark. I have no problem with them using tree bark and newspapers. But, if they use something else like prairie grass or corn for example, I have a definite problem with that. Do you realize how many minerals taking a whole crop off your land would be? Try three-hundred to four-hundred pounds for each crop you grow on your land. So it does not really make that much sense to me.
And if you are curious about butanol, and want to read more about it, here is the Wiki page on it. Special attention should be given to biobutanol as this is what was talked about in the video I linked you to.
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