[chuckles]

Well, poison is poison, so it’s sort of a mixed bag what happens with methanol. If you drink it, you can go blind and all kinds of nerve damage happens. It does penetrate the skin, so how long you absorb it is the key there. The area is measured in square inches vs. the length of time before you wash it off. The damage would be slight unless you bathed in it or left it for a long period. But it’s like the question, “ How much mercury is too much?” If I worked at a plant that manufactured methanol, I would want a space suit and breather. Slight spills and breathing daily would have to take it’s toll over the years. There are wino’s that drink Sterno and develop “Jake leg” and other problems. You will generally go crazy and die if you do it too much. I just know that to switch to methanol instead of ethanol would be a mistake. I don’t want to breathe it or touch it or breathe the burnt fumes. All this and it has less BTU’s than ethanol. When this was first talked about in the ‘70s, the selling feature was making it from garbage and scrap wood products. Now that we can make ethanol, I don’t see ANY advantage.

As far as comparing to gasoline, I'll plead ignorance. I washed parts and my hands in gas as a kid growing up( and I built cars and engines). It was later in life I was warned of benzene and other cancer causers in gas. I would leave it on my hands and arms until it started to burn my skin before washing it off. Back then there was also tetra ethyl lead in gas. We all knew of the lead, but figured as long as we didn't drink it, so what? My dad was a mechanic and a car painter for most of his life, and did the same as I did, and died at 85 with a heart attack. He never had cancer, but worried about it. He did have lead in his system from painting most likely. He took chelation treatments for that. I'm 56 now, and my biggest problem is fatness and severe ugliness. I don't think gasoline did that though. Maybe my baldness, who knows. I have stopped drinking Sterno and coke toddies though. I'm sure there are more chemicals to know about in gas, but I haven't studied it that much. Back in the 1800's, they drank petroleum for "miracle cures". The house I live in used to belong to a doctor and I found several bottles of medicine in a box in the attic that has turpentine and oil in it. The human body seems to be tougher than we give it credit for.

[dangerdoc]

Remember that everything is a poison, the question is dose.

Water is a poison at a very high dose.

Ethanol is a poison at a lower dose.

Methanol is a poison at a lower dose. Interestingly, the antedote to methanol poisoning is ethanol. If you drink a six-pack after filling your car, you should be okay.

(note, this is joke, not a professional recommendation)

The big advantage to methanol is that it is not made by fermentation. You do not need alot of fresh water to make the ethanol and then use alot of energy removing the water from the final product.