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.

[dangerdoc]

It’s also toxic through skin exposure.

[purpleraine]

Thanx

[dangerdoc]

Much better energy density than hydrogen. Much easier to transport than hydrogen. Does not require new technology for current use but is compatable with future fuel cell use.

Energy density is compensated by high octane. There is a reason that methanol is used in the racing industry.

Methanol has always been considered a good fuel alternative the biggest concern has been toxicity and it’s solvent effects.

[Mr170IQ]

Back in 2005, I posted a paper “After petroleum is gone, what then?”

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1465729/posts

It spelled out several of the points that Zubrin makes here...

Synthesis gas. Gasification of natural gas and other light hydrocarbons is termed “reforming.” Natural gas is much easier to convert to synthesis gas than coal, since coal is a solid containing considerable ash. The energy required for gasification either can be supplied by partial oxidation of the natural gas, or by heating a natural gas and steam mixture in a furnace called a reformer. Production of ammonia, methanol, acetic acid, etc., is accomplished in many national and international facilities today by means of these steam reformers producing synthesis gas.

Synthesis gas can be processed into a wide variety of liquid fuels. Shell is producing premium diesel in Malaysia from natural gas liquids. FT synthesis is also employed in South Africa SASOL facilities. Methanol is produced directly from synthesis gas today. In theory, methanol is a very good SI engine fuel, but it is not widely used.

Methanol can be converted directly to high-octane gasoline by the Mobil M-gasoline process. This process was to be commercialized in New Zealand, but low petroleum prices have confused the situation. Synthesis gas can be converted into dimethyl ether, which is a good diesel fuel, whereas methanol is not.

...
There are two broad technologies for gas to liquid (GTL) to produce a synthetic petroleum product, (syncrude): a direct conversion from gas, and an indirect conversion via synthesis gas (syngas)
...
Indirect conversion can be carried out via Fischer-Tropsch (F-T) synthesis or via methanol.
...
Conversion of the syngas to liquid hydrocarbon is a chain growth reaction of carbon monoxide and hydrogen on the surface of a heterogeneous catalyst. The catalyst is either iron- or cobalt-based and the reaction is highly exothermic. The temperature, pressure and catalyst determine whether a light or heavy syncrude is produced.

For example at 330C mostly gasoline and olefins are produced whereas at 180 to 250C mostly diesel and waxes are produced.
...

There are two methanol-based routes to gasoline. Mobil’s methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) process based on the ZSM-5 zeolite catalyst was commercialised in 1985 in a plant now owned by Methanex in New Zealand. Commercial applications of the MTG process are now anticipated to use a fluid bed reactor with their higher efficiency and lower capital cost.

---

There are catalysts for converting syngas into a mixture of methanol and butanol. Butanol is especially useful - it has a volumetric energy density almost equal to gasoline, it does not attract or blend with water, and it can be blended into diesel fuel at about 35%, which reduces emissions without reducing MPG too much.

[Uncledave]

Renewable Energy Ping

Please Freep Mail me if you'd like on/off

[antiRepublicrat]

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.”

I haven't read this yet, but too many people misconstrue hydrogen as a new energy source, but it's not designed to be that. Hydrogen is only one method of making energy portable. Any non-oil method of portable energy will reduce our reliance on foreign oil and make the air cleaner. I tend to like hydrogen because the power comes from highly-efficient power plants and not inefficient internal combustion engines. Compared to alcohol the total energy consumed should be less.

[antiRepublicrat]

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.

And this is a way of producing an extremely inefficient internal combustion engine. The engine needs to be designed for methanol, with forced induction, a very high compression ratio, and corrosion resistance throughout. Otherwise we'll be wasting millions of gallons of methanol every day.

[antiRepublicrat]

Given that a gallon of gasoline now costs $3, then methanol costs ($1.6/67%)=$2.5 and is cost competitive even in a mix with gasoline, but not by a lot.

I don't think anybody counted profit in the methanol supply chain or fuel taxes into this.

[antiRepublicrat]

. It all has to be grown on some amount of land by farmers that otherwise would be growing something else.

Would seaweed and kelp work? Water lilies work great to suck up sewage and grow like crazy in such an environment. Can we dredge those up?

[Balding_Eagle]

Isn’t that what MTBE does?

MTBE is responsible for at least 10,000 wells in CA alone being poisoned and left unusable.

Small amounts spilled at gas stations and elsewhere found its way into the ground water, and from there into the wells, rendering them unusable.

[antiRepublicrat]

That makes it kinda dangerous if you get it on your clothing and catch it on fire...it’s hard to put out a flame that you can’t see.

It's kind of funny to watch an indy car driver just sit there, and suddenly jump out and roll around for no apparent reason. OTOH, we won't we wearing flame-proof suits so we'll immediately know if we're on fire, plus everything that the methanol fire ignites will give off normal smoke and flame.

If this stuff is so great, why don’t we just make our ethanol additive a 50-50 mix of ethanol and methanol?

Because current engines can't handle it. I put unknowingly put a lower methanol mix in my car back in the 90s and things were going so bad took it to a mechanic. Luckily he just told me to put in straight gas and the problem would solve itself.

[Delacon]

“Given that a gallon of gasoline now costs $3, then methanol costs ($1.6/67%)=$2.5 and is cost competitive even in a mix with gasoline, but not by a lot.
I don’t think anybody counted profit in the methanol supply chain or fuel taxes into this.”

You got your numbers wrong. Zubrin says that methanol currently sells for $.80 and he goes on to divide that number by .50(to account for methanol’s lower bang for your buck than gasoline) to come of with the $1.60 figure. So he already factored that in and at an even lower rate than you did. Now if we use your figure of .67 and divide that into $.80 for the current price of menthanol then we come up with $1.19 per gallon comparable price of methanol to gas’s 3 bucks per gallon.

[Delacon]

“MTBE is responsible for at least 10,000 wells in CA alone being poisoned and left unusable.

Small amounts spilled at gas stations and elsewhere found its way into the ground water, and from there into the wells, rendering them unusable.”

Your statement contradicts the article. One of you is wrong.
From 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.”

[Balding_Eagle]

MTBE and methanol are the same? I wasn’t sure, thus my question.

From what you posted, they are not the same.

[antiRepublicrat]

I didn’t do the numbers, I just asked if profit all the way to the pump and taxes are figured in. I just looked it up, and the average price for wholesale gas was $2.34 when it was over $3.10 at the pump.

And the taxes will remain. The government loves its taxes. The most hypocritical ones will be the Europeans who call their gas taxes “environmental taxes.” There’s no more reason for these taxes when what you’re pumping is no longer bad for the environment, but they’ll remain because government budgets rely on milking the drivers in the name of environmentalism.

[Delacon]

“Would seaweed and kelp work? Water lilies work great to suck up sewage and grow like crazy in such an environment. Can we dredge those up?’

So I am told. As poster mamelukesabre was kind enough to point out methanol is made from plant fibre or cellulose, the stuff that usually gets left behind or throw out in the havesting of food crops. We could be putting that to good use making methanol without upsetting the farmers ethanol money train.

[Delacon]

Oh I never disagree with the assertion that the government will figure a way to screw with us. I simply said the numbers were wrong and I apologize if I led anyone to believe they were your numbers. But methanols retail price of $1.19 or $1.60(methanol’s actual comparable price) still beats out gasolines wholesale price.

[Delacon]

Right. From wiki “MTBE is manufactured by the chemical reaction of methanol and isobutylene. Methanol is a derived from natural gas, and isobutylene is made from crude oil or natural gas, thus MTBE, as used in motor gasoline, is a fossil fuel.” So MTBE has nothing to do the subject of the article which is switching to a methanol economy. MTBE get created only if isobutylene is introduced to the process of making methanol and I don’t know why would want to do that or how it could happen accidentally. MTBEs are used to increase gasoline’s octane number. Methanol already has a higher octane number than gasoline.

[chuckles]

...."Don’t drink it.".....

Don't get it on your skin and breathe it either. It has less BTU's per gallon( which seems to be a humongous deal if we had been discussing ethanol).

Methanol is nasty. We don't want to go there. One advantage of ethanol is it can now be made from normal methanol stocks. Ethanol can now be made from wood, oil, coal, and other plant matter and has more BTU's per gallon and isn't poisonous. The challenge is cost of conversion right now, but that is falling. We could easily get all our fuel from coal and waste products in the future. One problem we have with ethanol is corn state pols have a strangle hold on the industry. If and when we get serious about ethanol fuel you will see us drop the tax on Brazil and start making it from potato's, rice, sorghum, rotten fruit, etc. Ethanol can be made from almost anything, but for some "weird" reason, in the USA, it must be made from corn only. If we burn the Iowa congresscritters at the stake, then maybe we can move into the future. Methanol is not even a poor substitute. The only thing that may prove better than ethanol as a liquid fuel MIGHT be butanol.

[Mr. Lucky]

Do you really think Americans are eating too little corn starch?