There's a lot of push on to develop alternative fuel powered motors and Ethanol is a common one currently under investigation.

It's probably like 4 stroke Methanol motors - At some point they would have been a new idea with who knows what applications. I bet there was a number of us who used to think "Why bother with the additional complication" when 4 strokes first hit the market place (I don't know what brand or when that was) but we now have them as common units.

I suspect that it is an answer to environmental concerns which are taken very seriously in Japan and there are probably good tax breaks for companies that develop such items and get them to the marketplace. MAybe in 10 or so years, OF's like us will be saying, "I remember the old methanol motors, they used to be so slimy putting all that oil through them".