Methanol, the Future?

It should be. 

Based on everything that has been talked about and proposed, the best solution to the energy and oil problem (in my opinion) is methanol.  Methanol is superior to ethanol, the current fuel of choice for the U.S. government.  Why aren’t we using methanol?  Oil lobbyists and Corn producers. They make a lot of money from growing corn to make ethanol.  So, again we have an example of a product that is subsidised and basically forced down our throats.  Even though ethanol is not a long term, sustainable source of fuel.  Methanol is.

Methanol is by far better, as anyone can make methanol out of just about any organic material.  Dead trees, fallen leaves, corn stalks, etc.  The cost of making a flex fuel engine able to burn methanol (in addition to ethanol) is under $100 at the manufacturing stage.  Think about harvesting dead trees from the forest and using all of the landscape, corn stalks and timber waste to produce a fuel that has less emissions than gasoline and is less volatile..  It also costs UNDER $1 per gallon presently.  It is much more environmentally friendly, AND you can MAKE it rather easily. 

The State of California ran an experimental program from 1980 to 1990 which allowed anyone to convert a gasoline vehicle to 85% methanol with 15% additives of choice. Over 500 vehicles were converted to high compression and dedicated use of the 85/15 methanol and ethanol, with great results. Detroit was not willing to produce any methanol or ethanol vehicles without government subsidy.  (Big oil is powerful.)

In 1982 the big three were each given $5,000,000 for design and contracts for 5,000 vehicles to be bought by the State. That was the beginning of the low compression “FLEX-FUEL” vehicles which we can still buy today.

In 2005, California’s Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, terminated the use of methanol after 25 years and 200,000,000 miles of success, to join the expanding use of ethanol driven by producers of corn. (Anytime you mandate a product, rather than letting the free market decide what is best, you have problems like the energy crisis we find ourselves in right now.)  In spite of this, he was optimistic about the future of the program, claiming “it will be back.” Ethanol is currently (as of 2007) priced at 3 to 4 dollars per gallon, while methanol made from natural gas remains at .47 cents per gallon.

Imagine a fuel source that we can MAKE, rather than one we have to FIND, like oil.  It’s being made already into many products, including window washing fluid.  All that would have to happen is for the auto manufacturers who already are making flex fuel engines, enable them to run on methanol.  The cost would be around $30-$100 per engine!

Now, of course, if we had a million cars running on methanol tomorrow, the price would go up.  But experts believe it would level out at around $2.30 per gallon.  It would also put tremendous pressure on oil, and that would would force gas to come down in price as well.  It would also greatly reduce our dependency on foreign oil.  Gas would be cheaper, and we would have another fuel source that we could mass produce ourselves easily.

That is the BEST solution.  Why aren’t the car manufacturers pursuing this?  Ask the corn producers and the oil lobbyists.  Sometimes, what’s really the best thing for the people is NOT what actually is done.  Hopefully enough people will wake up and put pressure where it will make a difference.

Methanol, it should be the future. 

Check out rocket scientist, Dr. Robert Zubrin’s website http://www.energyvictory.net/ for more information.  Dr. Robert Zubrin (Indian Hills, CO) is president of Pioneer Astronautics and also president of the Mars Society. For many years he worked as a senior engineer for Lockheed Martin. He is the author of the critically acclaimed nonfiction books The Case for Mars, Entering Space, Mars on Earth; the science fiction novels The Holy Land and First Landing; and articles in Scientific American, The New Atlantis, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Mechanical Engineering, and The American Enterprise. He has appeared on major media including CNN, CSPAN, BBC, Discovery Channel, NBC, ABC, and NPR.

Tags: alternative fuel, corn, energy, energy crisis, ethanol, flex fuel, fossil fuel, gas, government, methanol, oil, solution, solutions