The Methanol Alternative

The New Atlantis ^ | Summer 2006 | Robert Zubrin

[Delacon]

ny serious energy policy must deal with three critical issues. First, economic: The policy must provide an energy resource base sufficient to allow for continued worldwide economic growth for the foreseeable future. Second, environmental: The policy must be compatible with the long-term flourishing of life on Earth, including human life and civilization. And finally, strategic: The policy must ensure that control of the Earth’s energy resources, and thus its future, lies in the hands of free societies committed to human progress, and taken away from tyrannical and terrorism-promoting states.

George Olah, recipient of the 1994 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, is one of the giants of twentieth-century science, and his coauthors are solid technical men. Together they have written a profoundly important book on energy policy, laying out the basis for a technically achievable approach to all three dimensions of the energy problem.

There is no shortage of energy experts with grand designs and proposals—from technophile dreams of an unworkable “hydrogen economy,” to Malthusian calls for enforced economic limits through conservation, to socialist schemes for creating massive government-subsidized synthetic-fuel industries, to the libertarian faith in the Invisible Hand. Compared to such misguided alternatives, the competence and rationality of The Methanol Economy is refreshing.

The authors begin by describing the dimensions of the worldwide energy problem: Even as our reserves of fossil fuels have grown in recent decades, the demand is growing faster, and as more of the world modernizes, a global energy “crunch” looms. From here, they turn their attention to renewable energy sources and nuclear power, and then they offer a thorough refutation of the technical feasibility of the “hydrogen economy.” This widely-touted panacea cannot work because it takes more energy to produce hydrogen than it yields, because hydrogen is an excessively low-density medium for storing chemical energy, and because an entirely new multi-billion-dollar fuel distribution infrastructure would have to be created to support hydrogen vehicles before any could be sold.

The heart of the book outlines a proposed technical solution to the energy problem. The authors don’t propose new ways of generating energy, arguing that “all feasible alternative and renewable energy sources must be considered and used,” nuclear energy “above all.” Instead, they focus on “the challenges of how to store and best use energy.”

The authors dub their proposal the “methanol economy.” Methanol is commonly known as “wood alcohol” because it can be produced from wood; it can also be made from coal, natural gas, methane hydrates, any type of biomass, or urban waste. It can be used as fuel for internal-combustion engines, and eventually in fuel-cell vehicles. It can also be used as feedstock for producing dimethyl ether, an excellent fuel for non-polluting diesel engines. In short, it is a convenient medium for storing energy and is easily transported and dispensed as a fuel.

Integrating methanol into our energy system would have numerous benefits in the not-so-distant future. As the authors point out, it would make the transportation of liquid natural gas much safer by converting it to less-hazardous liquid methanol before shipping it. Methanol could also be used to produce plastics, synthetic fabrics, and many other non-fuel products currently made from petroleum.

Importantly, methanol can also be produced (in conjunction with an auxiliary electricity source, like nuclear power) by chemically recycling carbon dioxide, which can be found naturally in the air or readily captured from atmosphere-polluting industrial emissions. The methanol produced can, in turn, be used to produce synthetic hydrocarbons and other products now obtained from fossil fuels. If successfully tapped, methanol “has the ability to liberate mankind from its dependence on fossil fuels for transportation and hydrocarbon products,” while reducing the amount of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere.

Consider ethanol as a comparison. The commercial competitiveness of ethanol is somewhat confused by the complex influences of a variety of subsidies and tariffs. By contrast, methanol is currently selling—without any subsidy—for about $0.80/gallon. Given that methanol’s energy content is about half that of gasoline, that price is the equivalent, in energy terms, of gasoline for $1.60/gallon. In other words, we can produce a useful and economically viable vehicle fuel, using a huge domestic and Western hemispheric resource base, at prices lower than gasoline.

So if the economic and strategic questions can be answered, that leaves the matter of methanol and the environment. The authors deal with environmental concerns in a cool, thorough, and methodical fashion. Unlike ethanol, which is edible, methanol is toxic—but so is gasoline. However, unlike gasoline or petroleum, methanol is soluble in water and readily biodegradable by common bacteria, so spills of methanol, whether from defective pumping stations or shipwrecked tankers, would have no long-term environmental impact. Furthermore, as the authors demonstrate, the toxicity of methanol is commonly overstated. In point of fact, methanol is present naturally in fresh fruit, and so low doses of methanol have always been a normal part of the human diet. Unlike gasoline, methanol is not a carcinogen or a mutagen, and the pollutants and other emissions from methanol-powered internal combustion engines are far more benign than emissions from their gasoline-driven counterparts. (Automobile emissions could even be reduced to zero with methanol-based fuel cells.) And if methanol is produced from carbon dioxide or from biomass, its use in place of petroleum acts to counter man-made global warming as well. “Compared to gasoline or diesel fuel,” the authors conclude, “methanol is clearly environmentally much safer and less toxic.”

The book’s greatest shortcoming is in its policy recommendations. It has none. While describing the technological basis for a future world of progress, freedom, economic development, and an acceptable environment, the authors offer no plan for how to make it happen. Given the highly technical and scientific orientation of the authors, this is perhaps understandable, but it is unfortunate.

Indeed, by focusing on the best technical solution without regard to policy implications, the authors sail past essential matters without stopping to seize them. This is most evident on the subject of Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs), automobiles that can operate with gasoline and/or various mixtures of gasoline and alcohol. The most common FFVs in the United States are E85 or M85, meaning that they can function with up to 85 percent ethanol or methanol and 15 percent gasoline. On the subject of FFVs, Olah and his colleagues say:

Although the flexibility of the FFVs represent a powerful means to circumvent the fuel supply conundrum, and also a way to build up the demand for methanol, it must be borne in mind that this is only a compromise.... In the long term, the use of cars optimized to run only on methanol (M100) would be preferable, and would also greatly facilitate the transition to methanol-powered fuel cell vehicles.

Yet without the short term, there is no long term. The authors are correct that, in the abstract, “cars optimized to run only on methanol” would be preferable. But such cars would find no buyers today—because there are no pumps to fuel them, nor will there be, until millions of such cars are on the road. Thus the FFVs, which can run on a combination of gasoline, methanol, and/or ethanol, are not “only a compromise.” Rather, they are the key transitional technology that can make the methanol economy a reality.

Manufacturing a car as an FFV requires only the use of a corrosion-resistant fuel line and a change in the programming of the chip controlling the car’s electronic fuel injector. Thus FFVs can be produced—and currently are being produced in two dozen models, amounting to about 3 percent of total automobile sales in the United States—with essentially no price differential between them and comparable models that only use gasoline. As a result, there is no downside to making flex-fuel capability the standard. If it were required that all new cars sold in the United States had to be FFVs, there would be 50 million automobiles capable of burning methanol on the road in the U.S. within three years. Under such conditions, with methanol producible for a fraction of the cost of gasoline, the methanol pumps would appear soon enough, and the methanol economy envisioned by Olah and his collaborators would soon follow.

But one should not complain too much about the book’s omissions, since it maps out a viable technical approach for addressing our energy problems. They have shown us where to go; now it is time for policymakers to help get us there.

---

Robert Zubrin, an aerospace engineer, is president of Pioneer Astronautics, a research and development firm.

Robert Zubrin, "The Methanol Alternative," The New Atlantis, Number 13, Summer 2006, pp. 85-88.

[Delacon]

Methanol ready cars would cost the same as current gas powered cars. Methanol sells for 1.60/gal without subsidies. Methanol can be produced usings any kind of plant matter. The middle east can go back to being the backwater is so richly deserves to be.

[maine-iac7]

The middle east can go back to being the backwater is so richly deserves to be.

That sounds right

In the meantime, I'm in the market for a good donkey.

[ClearCase_guy]

I don’t want to be a meth addict ...

[Citizen Tom Paine]

One practical problem with methanol for use in internal combustion engines that I never hear mentioned is that methanol dissolves water like a shot. If you fill up a gas tank with methanol and let in set it absorbs a lot of water in a week or two.

[dodger]

How about nuclear power? You know, the same stuff that the greenies (now global warmers) stymied the past thirty years and, thereby, tied us into muslim oil ....

[Delacon]

“One practical problem with methanol for use in internal combustion engines that I never hear mentioned is that methanol dissolves water like a shot. If you fill up a gas tank with methanol and let in set it absorbs a lot of water in a week or two.”

That surely doesn’t sound technologicly impossible to resolve and cheaply.

[theBuckwheat]

I cannot eat coal, oil, or oil shale. I can eat corn and sugar cane. At present, the world grows just enough food to feed everyone at present levels of caloric intake. Even then, some people are so poor they cannot afford enough food to satisfy their hunger.

It is worse than foolish to contort the economics of fuels so that fuels made from food is less expensive than fuel made from something we cannot eat. Sadly, in the US, the people who scold us with their heightened expressions of concern for the “poor” are in with the same crowd that prefers we allow the price of some food grains double because of their energy policies.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl

[Boiler Plate]

Isn’t methanol highly toxic?

[Delacon]

“How about nuclear power? You know, the same stuff that the greenies (now global warmers) stymied the past thirty years and, thereby, tied us into muslim oil ....”

Well its not real portable. Batteries and motors big enough, efficient enough and powerful enough to duplicate the performance of gasoline or methanol powered cars are not technologicly or economicly feasible. But going nuke on a massive scale will be required probably to meet the energy demand required for production of methanol in the quantities needed to replace our oil consumption.

[purpleraine]

I recommend folks read Energy Victory.

[Delacon]

“It is worse than foolish to contort the economics of fuels so that fuels made from food is less expensive than fuel made from something we cannot eat. Sadly, in the US, the people who scold us with their heightened expressions of concern for the “poor” are in with the same crowd that prefers we allow the price of some food grains double because of their energy policies.”

Methanol production doesn’t require delving into food supplies. It can be made from methane(the current method), CO2(hello global warming greenies) or ANY KIND OF PLANT MATTER, like wood waste products. Wheat chaff. Grass. Weeds. You name any plant matter that we dont eat and it can be used to make methanol unlike ethanol.

[Outland]

Methanol makes sense, even if the $1.60/gallon will only get you 2/3 as far as a gallon of gasoline. I don't expect it to get far though, since ADM isn't into methanol because it is chiefly made from bio waste materials. My opinion is that ADM is the main reason why ehtanol has made so much noise.

[Delacon]

“Isn’t methanol highly toxic?”

Jeeze guys. Read the article.

“Unlike ethanol, which is edible, methanol is toxic—but so is gasoline. However, unlike gasoline or petroleum, methanol is soluble in water and readily biodegradable by common bacteria, so spills of methanol, whether from defective pumping stations or shipwrecked tankers, would have no long-term environmental impact. Furthermore, as the authors demonstrate, the toxicity of methanol is commonly overstated. In point of fact, methanol is present naturally in fresh fruit, and so low doses of methanol have always been a normal part of the human diet. Unlike gasoline, methanol is not a carcinogen or a mutagen, and the pollutants and other emissions from methanol-powered internal combustion engines are far more benign than emissions from their gasoline-driven counterparts. (Automobile emissions could even be reduced to zero with methanol-based fuel cells.) And if methanol is produced from carbon dioxide or from biomass, its use in place of petroleum acts to counter man-made global warming as well. “Compared to gasoline or diesel fuel,” the authors conclude, “methanol is clearly environmentally much safer and less toxic.””

[Delacon]

“Methanol makes sense, even if the $1.60/gallon will only get you 2/3 as far as a gallon of gasoline.”

From the article: “Consider ethanol as a comparison. The commercial competitiveness of ethanol is somewhat confused by the complex influences of a variety of subsidies and tariffs. By contrast, methanol is currently selling—without any subsidy—for about $0.80/gallon. Given that methanol’s energy content is about half that of gasoline, that price is the equivalent, in energy terms, of gasoline for $1.60/gallon. In other words, we can produce a useful and economically viable vehicle fuel, using a huge domestic and Western hemispheric resource base, at prices lower than gasoline.”

[Outland]

The only water that methanol would be sucking up in your fuel system would be whatever small amount of humidity that sneaks in during refueling. Otherwise, your fuel system should be sealed unless you’re driving something fairly old or you lost your gas cap.

[bigbob]

Wood...Methanol can be made out of Algore?

[Chairman Fred]

All of this is the stuff that exits the south end of a north-bound horse.

We have untold resources in uranium; we also have several Persian Gulfs' worth of oil in the ground, not only offshore or in Alaska, but in those oil shale deposits in Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and even North Dakota. All of this can be accessed with off-the-shelf technology. No science-fictional breakthroughs are necessary.

Alcohol-based electricity generation represents desperation, not advancement. It is less efficient (and dirtier, in the long run) than either nuclear or hydrocarbon-fueled electricity generation. Not to mention fuel for cars.

Don't buy into anything Sheik al-Gore is peddling. It isn't even good drugs.

[JustaDumbBlonde]

The U.S. can produce far more grains that it can consume. If we can utilize it for some other reason than food, what is your gripe? Are we now obligated to grovel in the middle east so that we can feed the ungrateful world that could not possibly care less whether we live or die? Just asking.

[crz]

Spent Liquor Gasification.
Do a search on it.

Spent Black Liquor is a byproduct of papermaking. In Escanaba Mich, they plan to build a plant that uses Spent Black Liquor to make bio fuels (synthetic gas and diesel) and that plant will produce up to 13 MILLION GALLONS of bio fuel per year using a byproduct of papermaking from ONE PAPERMILL.
Now times that by the number of papermills in the USA that could convert to making such a product.

Fact is...we dont need all that oil to drive our buggies.