Posted on 03/27/2006 7:44:35 AM PST by aculeus
Methanol is another good fuel. However, too often, we see promoters and people looking for the next "technological silver bullet" that will cure all of our energy problems.
Once upon a time in the US it was "hydro" (TVA, BPA, Hover Dam, etc.) At another time it was nuclear power. At another time it was central station coal fired power plants. Recently it has been natural gas fired combined cycle combustion turbines. Wind seems to be in vogue again as "the solution."
The point is that different technologies are promising. We should not over promote any of them and we should develop all of them that we can, but not put too much faith on any of them as "the single solution to our future."
Dear Robert357,
"...but not put too much faith on any of them as 'the single solution to our future.'"
Great point. However, mostly what I see here at FR and at other sites I see these questions discussed is that the naysayers of a given technology are usually the folks characterizing the technology as a potential "silver bullet." And then, after creating that straw man, they knock it down.
Thus, biodiesel from waste products, ethanol production, oil from ANWR, oil from shale, off-shore oil, expanded nuclear, etc., are all considered unrealistic answers to the problem of energy production because no one of these solutions appears to be the single answer.
However, if each of these potential sources can add modestly to our overall domestic energy production, we would greatly expand overall energy production, and be able, if we decided as a country, to reduce reliance on foreign energy imports.
Folks will point out that these alternatives are costly, certainly more costly than the production costs of Arab or Venezuelan oil. However, that's only when we're looking at the direct costs, and ignoring the externalities.
Who here thinks that the Middle East would play such an important role in our foreign policy if these countries didn't supply crucial world energy supplies? Who here thinks that Saddam Hussein would have ever become so powerful and dangerous without critical oil reserves?
sitetest
As long as the windmills are kept out of the view of wealthy leftists' residences, and far away from birds.
One thing I noticed was the lack of any numbers as to the amount of land that would be required to grow the organic material, usually corn, as the basis for the fuel. It may look like a boon for the corn people, but i wonder just how much of the mid west would have too be put to corn to replace the gasoline used just in the US.
So methanol is an element now?
What's its symbol - Mth?
You sure you're not thinking of ethanol?
Methanol is a tad too volatile, and also poisonous. One does not need to drink it - inhaling the vapors will do over prolonged exposure.
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Oh... you mean just like gasoline.
A bit worse. Methanol is both more toxic and more volatile [i.e. there are more vapors].
bttt
Methanol is very soluble in water. If it starts to be used in motor fuel it WILL turn up in the ground water. MTBE, a substance used in small percentages and which isn't extremely soluble in water, has already been causing problems in people's water wells on a fairly large scale.
Put windmills on the Mall in Washington DC. . .Congress will be able to power the entire CONTINENT for decades to come. . . (evil grin)
windmills = aviary cuisinarts
I regularly burn methanol..... best fuel for an accohol lamp.
One of my relatives used to be a physician-narcologist [treating alcoholics] in Vitebsk [Belarus]. Once he was called to head an emergency medical response team - in an industrial setting the workers found a 55 gal [200 liters]drum labeled "methyl alcohol" [i.e. methanol]. The word "alcohol" they understood, the word "methyl" they did not, skull/crossbones they did not believe - and so they [several hundred of them] drank it. Well, if I remember right, my uncle's team managed to save about a hundred of them - but they got blind.
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