The Methanol Economy: Forget about the hydrogen economy. Methanol is the key ...

Technology Review ^ | March 2, 2006 | By Kevin Bullis

[Brilliant]

methanol is part of the "hydrogen economy" though.

[cripplecreek]

I think we'll see a mixture of a lot of things fueling America in the future. Very diverse in the beginning but finally settling on two or three different things.

[bert]

check this out....
http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/05/EPSCoR/pdf/wed_am/Tennant.final050610%20EPSCoR.pdf

Eastman built plants in the early 80's to produce syn gas from coal. Methnanol is just a short step away. They have two big plants operating all the time and a third government research plant that might not be still operational. They built the plants so they could eliminate natural gas as feed stock

[mountainlyons]

Methanol destroys rubber hoses and corrodes metal. It causes reduced fuel mileage and has much less BTUs per gallon. It would cost a fortune to retrofit older vehicles and I doubt it would work in a modern vehicle! The city of Denver tried a tanker of it and within a couple of hours none of the police cars were running.

[FreePaul]

This article doesn't address the main problem with methanol. In order to produce large quantities of methanol it is necessary to rely on those evil companies who drill wells to produce natural gas. Or we could get those other evil companies who kill trees to double their efforts. No, methanol is evil because of the way it would be produced the same as any petroleum based product.

[mvpel]

So instead of volatile hydrogen, you wind up with poisonous methanol, which soaks through the skin and can cause kidney and nervous system damage, including blindess.

[RS]

"We were co-inventors of the direct methanol fuel cell."

(... and the co-patent holders primed and ready to score massively if we can talk people into using this ! )

[VOA]

bump

[FreePaul]

Methanol destroys rubber hoses ...

That didn't stop the idiots in government from issuing a mandate to reformulate diesel fuel a few years ago. I had to eventually replace every rubber hose and fitting in an older vehicle. I did it myself at a nominal cost. Had I not kept a close watch I could have easily been stranded somewhere by one of these failures. I can't imagine how much it cost others who had to take their vehicles to shops for service.

[MineralMan]

"Methanol destroys rubber hoses and corrodes metal. It causes reduced fuel mileage and has much less BTUs per gallon. It would cost a fortune to retrofit older vehicles and I doubt it would work in a modern vehicle! The city of Denver tried a tanker of it and within a couple of hours none of the police cars were running."

Bingo! This is the thing that will kill any methanol implementation. Check your owner's manual for any car made after about 1990. It will specifically tell you that using fuel containing methanol will void your warranty.

[cripplecreek]

So instead of volatile hydrogen, you wind up with poisonous methanol, which soaks through the skin and can cause kidney and nervous system damage, including blindess.

I suggest not swimming in it.

[GeorgefromGeorgia]

I think the methanol/ethanol solution is a dead end.

[FreePaul]

My post number ten should have been directed to you. I wasn't watching where I was going.

[taxcontrol]

you can take carbon dioxide and water, and if you have electric power, you can chemically reduce it into methanol.

Hmmm, I just bet that the process takes a LOT of energy. Ok boys, fire up those nuke plants.

[IronJack]

Ethanol is C2H5OH. Methane is CH4. Ethanol is basically two methane molecules sharing a hydrogen bond, with one of the carbons holding a hydroxyl radical instead of a hydrogen.

An alcohol is formed by hydroxylating an alkane, which is exactly what ethanol is -- hydroxylated ethane. Remove the -OH radical and it is a simple hydrocarbon, methane's older brother. I'm not sure how you'd go about adding the hydrogen to the ethane molecule, but doing so would render one ethane into two methanes, and it would all still originate with ethanol.

[Realism]

Im trying to escape the rising price of NG, not use more. This is no better than using NG to generate electricity. It's not renewable.

[mountainlyons]

If you have steel gas lines they will have to be replaced also. Methanol dissolved the lining on my tractor fuel tank. Carburetors are susceptible to corrosion and a custom made carb will be required after a while. The vitron tip of the needle valve will dissolve causing problems. You will not be able to use much of a concentration of methanol in the fuel because evaporation of methanol will be deadly!