[Whitecrab]

After finishing the book Methanol: Bridge to a Renewable Energy Future by John H. Perry Jr. and Christiana P. Perry (made in the 1990’s), I’d like to take another crack at outlining what methanol can and can’t do. To be fair, I think the authors (a father/daughter) own the Seafuel process described below, so they’d obviously be biased in favour of a methanol economy. Nevertheless, facts are facts…

I’d like to use MeOH as the shortform for methanol. (This is how an organic chemist might write it.) I’ll look into any questions until I have to return the book to the library.

MeOH as a fuel:

MeOH has been used as a fuel for 200 years. Early on it was distilled wood alchol, made from a liquid produced during charcoal production. Was a lighter until whale oil took over. MeOH was used in the earliest vehicles wasn’t really available in commercial scales until 2 decades after gasoline was established as the car fuel. Today MeOH is proven technology for running vehicles, although it is obviously very rare. Methanol has been used successfully to run cars, golfcarts, pickups, and even speedboats. Not sure if it could feasibly run aircraft though.

It can be blended into gasoline in low amounts (15% I think is the max) without changing engine technology. Existing cars can be refitted to run on M85: 85% MeOH and 15% gas. This costs, in 1990 US$, about $1000/car. If you were running a small production run you could make new cars M85-compliant for $750/car. If new car designs were geared to M85 it would cost little or no extra charge vs. a normal engine. There have been a number of government test-cases where retrofitted M85 cars were used with little increase in maintenance or loss of fuel economy. Blending the fuel is difficult because if water gets into the tank, the MeOH and gas will separate. Also, MeOH can cause some corrosion/maintenance and cold weather start-up problems in cars not geared to it’s use. (The ways around these problems are proven technology, just, today’s cars aren’t necessarily built to cope).

Oh, Ford suggested they could build “Flexible Fuel Vehicles” (FFVs) that can run on MeOH, gasoline, or any combination. It costs $50-200 per vehicle (1990 US$?) to convert existing designs to FFVs, depending on the conversion run size. The Calfornia Energy Commission had 6 vehicles successfully in use at the time or writing of the book.

If it is used entirely as it’s own fuel, it can actually out-perform gasoline. It can get better fuel economy, better octane ratings, etc. because if you vaporize it then it becomes a superior fuel to current gasoline. The degrading affects and cold-start issues do have real, existing fixes (i.e. more fluoride in the plastics used in certain areas).

Compared to gasoline, the environmental hazard is less: yes MeOH is a hazardous chemical if ingested or inhaled, but as a liquid it vaporizes less then gasoline at ambient temperatures so there’s less exhaust fumes to deal with (it’s a small polar molecule so it stays as a liquid easier). As for spills, gasoline is water insoluble so collects in one spot, severely damaging life in that area for a long time. MeOH is water soluble, so it spreads more easily. However that means it also dilutes into less serious concentrations, and more organisms are able to break it down. So the spills are less of a concern in most cases too. As for the combustion effects, no sulfur, less NOx, and if you used biofuels or CO2 from the air to make the MeOH, there would be no net CO2 emissions.

Using Methanol as a diesel fuel is possible, but difficult. The ease with which diesel fuel will ignite is measured by the % of methylnaphthalene (aka cetane) in the fuel. Diesel fuel is 40-45, methanol is 3. However, it can be used as an additive, and the book then goes onto mention about 3 techniques that have successfully created diesel MeOH engines by changing spark plugs, adding additives, or whatever.

Generation:

Methanol can be made from natural gas, coal, wood, and the Seafuels process. This makes it a great world-round fuel because each nation can use what’s onhand and plentiful to generate their own resources, and we have room to adapt without redoing our entire infrastructure again.

Natural Gas
---
-Easy to make MeOH from it: CH4 becomes CH3OH
-Because MeOH can be easily transported, by shipping or pipelines or tankers or whatever, it can use natural gas stores that are otherwise not worth developing. So, if you have a small nat. gas source somewhere that’s not worth connecting to the existing piping network or building a LNG terminal for (both are very capital-intensive so you need a lot of nat. gas for it to be worthwhile), you can build a small MeOH plant to get the job done instead.
-Some ideas have been floated for making small, easily reassemble-able(!) MeOH plants that could be set up at remote sites. And, plans for a floating, driving MeOH plant ship that could set up shop where we’d otherwise have to just flare the gas and call it a loss. I’m seriously sceptical of these claims.

Coal
---
-Making MeOH from coal is rarely done because it’s more costly, but if nat. gas shoots up in price it will be competitive again. The high cost is mostly due to a large upfront capital cost.
-1920’s method: react coal w/ steam and oxygen to produce a synthetic gas:
C + H20 -> CO + H2
-Recent, better method:
CO + H20 -> H2 + CO
-When the coal is gasified during the process, sulphur can be (and must be) removed to protect catalysts used during later steps. Therefore coal-made MeOH will have no significant sulphur problems

Wood/Biomass:
---
-Process similar to what’s used in coal: gasify the biomass and then manipulate the carbon:hydrogen ratio of the synthetic gas
-Matt Savinar’s book says MeOH from wood has an EROI (energy return on investment) of about 2.6. This book didn’t have any EROI unfortunately.
-Because trees can be grown in marginal farmland, maybe this would help avoid the “biofuels take up valuable farmland!” argument somewhat
-International Harvester has developed small, modular package plants (16,500 barrels/day) that could be delivered by truck or rail to forested sites, helping if you had several rotating farms or wood far from civilization

EXAMPLE ACTUAL AND CONCEPT BIOMASS PLANTS
(all 1990 figures, I must assume):
-Evergreen Energy Corporation + Texaco created a plant in Waltham, Massachusetts. 55% efficiency. Accept 3500 tons/day greenwood to create 330,000 gal/day of MeOH (about 3% of New England’s motor fuel needs if you blended that in w/ gasoline). $250mill capital costs, about 80c/gal cost.
-Batelle Pacific NW Laboratories conceptualized a $146mill plant in Richmond, Washington that would process 1800 metric tons/day wood for 900 mt/day MeOH (350,000 gal/day) at 69c (1981 dollars)/gallon.
-North Carolina study: MeOH from peat reserves. Planned a 175,000gal/day plant at $210 million 1981 dollars. Use 2,000 mtd peat to make MeOH at 75c/gal
-New York state study found:
1. Small-scale MeOH plants are feasible but not economical vs. the 60c/gal prices at the time
2. In the long term producing from several indigenous resources (forest biomass, peat, landfill gas and unconventional shale gas) could contribute up to 1 million barrels/day

Seafuel Synthesis Process: MeOH from Oceans
---
Again, I think the authors developed this process, but to pass on what they have:

-The core of the SSP process is mixing elemental hydrogen and CO2, and reacting them with a catalyst to produce MeOH & H2O. Then you distill out the MeOH. No hydrocarbon feedstock outside of construction (and perhaps electrical power).
-Ways to get CO2:
a) use power to get CO2 from air
b) use power to get CO2 from calcium carbonate
c) use heat and power to ferment one ton of 5% carbohydrate plant material for CO2
d) Couple process to another process that generates CO2 anyway, perhaps as a waste
-Ways to get hydrogen:
a) Electrolysis from water
b) Produce chemically, or couple SSP to a process that generates excess H2 anyway (ex: caustic soda and chlorine)

The authors had a plant actually running, taking in sea water for the hydrogen source and producing fuel. They had pictures of a golf cart, pickup truck, and speedboat all powered by their fuel.

The best site would be a tropical island, where you had limited energy needs, plenty for renewables to tap into, and a ready supply of seawater and calcium carbonate. However, it could be run elsewhere. The same MeOH making process could also be coupled to a nuclear or fuel-powered plant without too much difficulty (you could CO2 scrubber a fossil plant).

There was no cost estimates or EROI calculations, alas. -_-

Web searches turned up nothing on the process. Although since they have full colour photos of a plant, Seafuel ® driven vehicles, and a plant process diagram and such, they must have built one successfully.

Transportation/Storage:

MeOH can be and is transported by it’s own tankers. Maybe we could use oil tankers to transport it too. LNG pipelines can transport it with little-no difficulty.

On the gas-station level, MeOH can have it’s own pump/storage systems built, or be used in most existing gasoline systems. (Some older designs that leaked used materials MeOH could corrode. These were being replaced with new tanks that could use MeOH).

Costs:

In January 1988 the Department of Energy created two case studies, to summarize how by the year 2000 we could:

To replace 1 MMB/D of oil with MeOH:
-30 million vehicles start using MeOH
-150,000 dispensing units
-$30 billion cost to the program

To replace 2 MMB/D of oil with MeOH (easier once the first MMB/D is done):
-91 million vehicles start using MeOH
-344,000 dispensing units built
-73 billion gallons/yr MeOH needed
-Infrastucture cost (less fuel production): $6.1-$11.2 billion
-Possible effect on oil prices: $4/barrel reduction

Cost break-down from 2 MMB/D study:
$2-10 million per terminal
$5-35 thousand per retail outlet
$50-200 per car

A bridge to Hydrogen:

MeOH can be used as a bridge to hydrogen. Similar to how some people suggest using natural gas to store hydrogen, MeOH can store it too. And it can be transported as a liquid. Plus, some of the MeOH generating processes involve making H2, so as methanol becomes more prevalent and important we’d be more likely to find improvements quickly.



Summary

So, there’s the case. Obviously, this doesn’t easily or quickly solve peak oil, by any means. We have no infrastructure, where it would take decades to get ready. We have only a few plants producing methanol as a chemical right now anyway. Once natural gas runs out it will be less economical, and the EROI is marginal (may even become negative if we have to go all-out coal for it). There’s no political will or real plans for methanol fleets anymore. The biofuels and Seafuel processes, the long-term approaches, are iffy in terms of EROI or even feasibility. This doesn’t change the fact that petrochemical industries will have to learn to live mostly off coal, biomass, and the remaining trickles of petroleum from tar sands and TD plants.

However, I’m suggesting methanol, perhaps coupled with plug-in electric hybrid technology or something, is a good way for governments to go. This seems the most practical means of keeping some kind of motorized transportation going; maybe we can eke through the peak with hard-core public transit and better city planning. Methanol’s available for immediate use with proven technology. We have some production capacity in place already, and it’s not that hard to get more. It can use a variety of feedstocks, and it can work in our current distribution systems with little extra work. We can even retrofit cars to use it, and create bridge vehicles that can run on any mix of MeOH and gasoline. Lastly, if hydrogen ever does start working, a methanol-based economy would convert more easily then a petroleum-based one.

So, barring the success of algae biodiesel or something, a methanol/electric hybrid solution seems like the best bet to suggest we try. Can anyone put forward a case that that having plants that generate vegetable oils would be better?

[Andy]

If the Seafuels process actually works at scale, this can change the equation for a methanol economy. My main problem with a methanol economy was the carbon source and hence sustainability. This solves that issue. I am not sure if compared to using H2 directly however, it would be better. For long distance transport, I can see it beating H2 but otherwise, direct H2 will be more efficient. We could end up with a triple carrier economy (electricity, H2 for local, regional use and methanol for long distance energy transportation)

[Whitecrab]

Page 3 of this electic vehicles thread: http://www.peakoil.com/fortopic1285-30.html has gone into great detail about methanol.

For the purposes of good archiving, I thought this thread should point to that one.

[The_Virginian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'b')ecause if you vaporize it then it becomes a superior fuel to current gasoline.