“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.”
I applogize if the article covers this but methanol has a very high octane rating which allows much higher compression ratios.
Higher compression, better effiency. This partially makes up for the decreased energy content and is why it is used in drag racing (or something similar, I really need to go to bed)
The down side to methanol is that it is a very good solvent. Most poly lines will eventually degrade. Not imposible to overcome but would require more expensive materials.