Energy Solutions

John Bradley is confident that MIT will greatly contribute to solving the world’s energy problems. In honor of his 60th reunion, he and his wife, Jane, made a gift in support of developing biofuels as part of MIT’s Energy Initiative.

When attending an MIT symposium on energy, Bradley learned about the work of research scientists Daniel R. Cohn and Leslie Bromberg, from MIT’s Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, and of Prof. John D. Heywood of MIT’s Sloan Automotive Laboratory. These scientists have jointly discovered how a gasoline engine could safely be turbocharged to three times higher than a conventional engine and thereby attain about a 30 percent increase in thermal efficiency, power output, and torque.

How did they achieve this? By injecting a small amount of methyl or ethyl alcohol into each cylinder during its compression stroke. Since these alcohols possess much higher latent heats of vaporization than any other liquid fuels, their evaporation cools the fuel-air mixture in the cylinder, preventing engine-destroying detonation or knock.

These alcohols can also be more efficiently produced out of biomass — plant sources — and give off less exhaust emissions than hydrocarbon, gasoline, or diesel fuels. Furthermore, when the fuel price of gasoline eventually exceeds that of methyl or ethyl alcohol, the alcohol boosting of totally alcohol-fueled engines will still make possible better thermal efficiency than can be achieved by present-day gasoline engines.

Ford Motor Company, in collaboration with MIT, has tested a prototype engine that confirms the thermodynamic calculations of these Institute inventors.

In addition, MIT’s alcohol-boosting technology is estimated to increase the cost of each car by only $600 as compared to the $3,000 additional cost for cars made with the current hybrid technology. The accompanying 30 percent decrease in gasoline usage achieves the government objective of decreasing our gasoline consumption by 30 percent by the year 2030.

“If every car had alcohol boosting, why we’d be there now,” says Bradley, whose family has strong connections to MIT. After earning his bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering in 1947 and master’s degree in 1949, Bradley pursued a career in chemical engineering. John and Jane’s granddaughter, Katrina M. Cornell, ‘06, also received her master’s degree at MIT in 2007. His grandfather, Godfrey L. Cabot, served as an MIT corporation member, and in 1938 gave substantial donations to both MIT and Harvard for the development of solar energy against the inevitable day when fossil fuels approached exhaustion.

“There are many intriguing options and a lot to learn in the development of biofuels,” he says. “Prioritization is needed. That’s one of MIT’s strengths. MIT scientists will win fame for solving the immediate problem of how to increase the efficiency of gasoline engines, and eventually for replacing gasoline when it becomes effectively more expensive than biomass-derived methyl or ethyl alcohols.”

by Mary Speare

On Topic: alcohol, energy