MSNBC’s Alan Boyle takes a look at the role that methanol - as opposed to ethanol - could play in making America less dependent on imported oil.
Rocket scientist Robert Zubrin lays out the case for an alcohol-based fuel economy in a new book titled “Energy Victory” – and although ethanol is the best-known alcohol replacement for gasoline, Zubrin focuses on a different brew called methanol, also known as wood alcohol.
The concept behind “Energy Victory” is to go after energy independence as a means to cut off the flow of money through the Middle East to terrorists – and that concept surfaced just a few days ago in the presidential campaign, courtesy of GOP hopeful Mike Huckabee.
“Every time we put our credit card in the gas pump, we’re paying so that the Saudis get rich - filthy, obscenely rich, and that money then ends up going to funding madrassas” - religious schools “that train the terrorists,” Huckabee said last weekend on CNN. As a result, American money ends up financing both sides in the war on terror, Huckabee argued - and that’s why he says it’s imperative to move to energy independence within the next decade.
That argument gets a thorough airing in “Energy Victory.”
“The world economy is currently running on a resource that is controlled by our enemies,” Zubrin declares on the first page. “This threatens to leave us prostrate. It must change - and the good news is that it can change, quickly.”
“I was actually a nuclear engineer before I became a rocket scientist, and was well-acquainted with energy policy” said Zubrin, who’s best-known nowadays as the president of the Mars Society. “And furthermore, the work that I did relating to Mars taught me a lot about fuel synthesis. It became apparent to me that the Bush administration’s hydrogen policy was completely unworkable, but the easiest liquid fuel to make would be methanol.”
Methanol? Yes, methanol, not ethanol.
Zubrin says, “Methanol can be made from any kind of biomass without exception,” ranging from raw plant cellulose to paper waste. It can also be made from stranded natural gas or coal, turning not-so-portable fossil fuels into liquid energy that could power a car or an airplane. In fact, methanol-powered cars passed technical tests at Ford 20 years ago, and at Daimler five years ago.
All well and good, but methanol needs also to be more environmentally friendly than ethanol or gasoline to make it a true long-term solution.
2 Comments
Methanol is slightly more toxic than gasoline when ingested but much more environmentally friendly.
A major spill in the open ocean dissipates in a matter of a day or two. Being water soluble spills are easily washed away.
The carcinogenic additives and combustion products of gasoline are far greater than with methanol.
Cleaner burning, with oxygen carried in its chemical structure means less particulate emissions also.
See ‘Beyond Oil and Gas: The Methanol Economy
George Olah (1996 Nobel Prize in Chemistry)
Methanol from Biomass is environmentally much friendlier than ethanol from food. Developing countries like India understand this - there being an incentive to growing trees and shrubs on marginal land.
The argument from the environmental benefits of keeping oil money out of the hands of Muslims and therefore their ability to build their institution of jihad trumps all these other reasons IMO.
Hemp, it seems, is the perfect biomass material yet noone wants to touch it because of its relation to marijuana. Am I missing something here?
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