Methanol as a Transportation Fuel

In our quest to find sources of energy to replace petroleum, it is hard not to look at other fossil-based resources that haven’t been over-utilized and are abundant in the United States and the Americas. Natural gas definitely fits the bill.  Natural gas is an excellent energy carrier and is available domestically. However, transporting the fuel and retrofitting vehicles to use it as a primary fuel source is labor intensive.  When you compare the issues surrounding acquiring and transporting petroleum from the Middle East, the vehicle conversion and transport efforts seem worth pursuing.

When investigating a project of this magnitude, looking at scale and efficiency through picking a path with the least amount of changes to affect the largest number of outputs can make the difference between success and failure.  In this light, the idea of retrofitting every single transport vehicle seems very labor intensive if the changes are significant. A more effective solution would be to transform the energy source into a fuel that can be consumed in existing vehicles with little or no modification. You make a change to the fuel that can be used in an infinite number of vehicles. This seems like the better option but is it possible?

Natural Gas is made up of more than 80% methane. Methane can be transformed into a liquid fuel called methanol. Methanol is a simple alcohol that is more energy dense than ethanol and is less likely to absorb moisture. It is, therefore, able to be transported in existing pipelines and tankers and can be stored in the same underground tanks as gasoline and petroleum.

A Sustainable Methanol Cycle

Gasoline vehicles can use methanol as a fuel with small modifications to the engine computer and by replacing fuel hoses with an alcohol-resistant, fluoroelastomer equivalent.  Diesel vehicles can use a dehydrated form of methanol called Dimethyl Ether (DME) with similar modifications to engine control and fuel hoses.  While this isn’t zero modifications to existing vehicles, the changes are minimal.

Retrofitting our transportation infrastructure to use methanol has future renewable implications as well. Methanol can be manufactured from renewable feedstocks such as biomass and can be formed through chemical recycling of carbon dioxide through selective absorption of CO2 from the atmosphere! Yes, we can make fuel from CO2 and help solve the issue of carbon pollution!

How can you help with the transition?

1. Read the “Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy” by nobel laureate George Olah to learn more about methanol and its use as a petroleum alternative.
2. Educate your friends, neighbors, coworkers and children about the benefits of methanol as a road fuel
3. Contact your state and federal Congressional representative and ask them to push for funding research for methanol.

Beyond Thunderdome

I’m a Mad Max movie buff so I couldn’t resist writing a post comparing the energy embargo scene in Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome to our current world oil addiction.  Beyond Thunderdome is set in a post-apocalyptic world where we’ve destroyed civilization and a few survivors struggle to live on the leftovers of mankind.  Bartertown is one of the towns where people have gathered to live.  Deep underground, there is a large pig farm where workers feed and raise pigs to produce methane to power the generators that provide electricity to Bartertown.

Tina Turner is the leader of Bartertown on the surface but Master Blaster, the leader of the pig farmers underground, demonstrates that he has the real control.  He controls the energy supply.  At one of the key scenes of the movie, Master Blaster turns off the power and makes Tina Turner announce to the whole town that, “Master Blaster runs Bartertown.” After she submits to him, he turns the power back on.

I can’t help but call out the similarities between the United States and Bartertown.  We are addicted to oil.  Everything we do and use is somehow tied to oil.  From transportation to plastics; from fertilizers to animal feed.  They are all directly tied to petroleum.

Unfortunately, we cannot produce enough of our own oil to meet demand.  We purchase it from countries and regions that mostly do not like America.  Now that China and India are industrializing, these oil producing countries will soon not need the United States to sell their product.  As world demand for oil continues to grow and supplies become more difficult to extract and process, these oil producers will be able to pull the strings and hold our economy hostage.

You don’t think this could happen to the US? Think again. In October of 1973, some of the Arab members of OPEC proclaimed an oil embargo in reponse to the US resupplying Israel during the Yom Kippur War. The embargo was lifted only after the US helped negotiate the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Golan Heights. I remember the lines at gas stations and only being able to fill up on odd or even days.

Who runs Bartertown?  Who controls the United States?  OPEC will… if we don’t do something about it soon.

For those of you who haven’t seen the Mad Max movies, here is the embargo clip from Beyond Thunderdome.

Zubrin, an aerospace engineer and president of Pioneer Astronautics, comments on the book,  Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy written by Nobel laureate chemist, George Olah.  His commentary takes a very technical tome and provides a concise summary of the case in language that the average reader can understand.

Read the entire essay, The Methanol Alternative, at New Atlantis.