I agree. In addition to the lower freezing point, butanol has a lot higher energy/btu content than ethanol. It is much closer to our current petroleum based fuels. One of the big problems with ethanol is that a significantly higher volume of it would need to be carried to get the same amount of energy that we get with jetA. It makes it a less viable alternative fuel.

It turns out that ethanol isn't really that much better for the environment (possibly worse) than its petroleum counterparts. From what I remember from my Chem-E days, the process for manufacturing butanol from corn yields a large proportion of ethanol which keep the cost of ethanol lower, and probably still gives ethanol a lower environmental impact than butanol.
With that being said, we should be looking into all available alternatives because the cost of oil is going to inevitably sky rocket out of affordability.


These articles have been an interesting read.