China investing in something worse than bad ethanol: methanol
Here we're quite happy to report about progress on the so-called "Second Generation" biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol, which yield cleaner results than "First Generation" ones like corn ethanol. However, there is also something that the French site MoteurNature calls "Zero Generation" biofuel: methanol. Methanol can be considered even worse than first generation biofuels because it needs a lot of land and energy to be produced. The topic was brought up during the last China Synfuels Summit, held a couple of weeks ago.
Methanol is a simpler form of alcohol which is can be obtained from wood or, more commonly, from coal. The Chinese seem to be working on it because it's an alternative to the day-by-day, more expensive oil, not because it brings environmental benefits. Methanol is a very poor performing fuel. Let's take an ideal car that gets 10 l/100 km (23.5 mpg). The same vehicle on ethanol gets 12.5 l / 100 km (18 mpg) and 15 l / 100 km (15.5 mpg) on methanol.
Two Chinese carmakers, Changan (one of its models pictured above) and Chery, have already introduced methanol prototypes, which have similar modfications as other flex-fuel cars. China is proposing to introduce M85 (85 percent methanol, 15 percent of gasoline) at pump stations. Estimates are that there could be about 50,000 M85 / flex-fuel ready vehicles ready for next year.
Related (and smarter ways of producing and using methanol):
[Source: Moteur nature]
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Domenick 8:36PM (12/12/2007)
The wiki entry doesn't make it sound so bad. I always heard to hemp pyrolysis to methanol was a decent idea. I'd do more in-depth comparison but I'm off to work.... anyone else? rgseidl?
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OhmExcited 9:53PM (12/12/2007)
http://www.etrucker.com/apps/news/article.asp?id=62865
http://setamericafree.org/wordpress/
For a long time Set America Free has emphasized the benefits of full fuel flexibility which includes ALL alternative fuels, not only ethanol. We have nothing against ethanol but we oppose the myopic, ethanol-only approach that currently dominates our energy debate.
Volvo has recently validated our approach, producing seven truly flexible diesel trucks modified to run solely on biodiesel, ethanol, methanol, DME, synthetic diesel, and hydrogen gas combined with biogas. Volvo conducted a comprehensive assessment of which fuels faired the best. There were seven categories: impact on climate, energy efficiency, land use efficiency, fuel potential, fuel costs, vehicle adaptation, and fuel infrastructure.
The results may surprise many:
First Volvo showed that ethanol and methanol work equally well in the same system which means that there is no reason why flex fuel cars sold in the U.S. not be able to run on methanol in addition to ethanol.
Second, the comperative study showed that DME and methanol ranked among the highest in all but the last two, while ethanol ranked low to lowest in all categories.
The promising results for methanol and DME were based on the assumption that the fuels would be produced via the black liquor gasification process, which has been developed in Sweden. Black liquor is a sludge byproduct of paper pulping.
According to the methanol Institute if every paper mill in the U.S. used this process we could produce 9.3 billion gallons of methanol per year–almost double the amount of corn ethanol currently produced in the U.S.
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GreyFlcn 11:19PM (12/12/2007)
==Here we're quite happy to report about progress on the so-called "Second Generation" biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol, which yield cleaner results than "First Generation" ones like corn ethanol.==
Who is "we", and where are your facts?
http://greyfalcon.net/cellulosic
http://greyfalcon.net/cellulosics.png
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TG 11:39PM (12/12/2007)
Graphs are like statistics. They must be taken with a grain of salt. However. . .
Electricity is lower than the Ethanols here because the fact that 52% of electricity in the USA is made using coal-gen is figured in.. no doubt.
http://climateprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2007/05/ft-diesel.gif
We should all be screaming for closure of coal to liquid plants. There is a huge plant in Africa that should be clean-coal-tech equipped or mothballed. = TG
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GreyFlcn 11:54PM (12/12/2007)
Incidentally, Coal-to-Liquids is the same technology as Biomass-to-Liquids.
They both use Fischer Tropsch.
(Or atleast the ones that are any better than a corn ethanol plant)
Don't you think spreading the proliferation of Fischer Tropsch might have consequences to it?
Especially when you consider there's nowhere near enough biomass to even begin to replace our current liquid fuel use.
(Leading people to switch from Green to Black biomass)
http://greyfalcon.net/perlack
http://greyfalcon.net/biolimits.png
http://greyfalcon.net/fossilenergy.png
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GreyFlcn 12:01AM (12/13/2007)
==Electricity is lower than the Ethanols here because the fact that 52% of electricity in the USA is made using coal-gen is figured in.. no doubt.==
Dude, even if you powered your electric car on 80% coal electricity it would be like driving a hybrid in emissions.
http://greyfalcon.net/plugins3
Which incidentally is better than diesel
http://greyfalcon.net/electriccars2.png
And diesel is better than corn ethanol.
http://greyfalcon.net/lca.png
_
Which isn't to say that Coal is clean.
It's to say that Electric cars are amazingly efficient vehicles.
_
By comparison, Hydrogen created from a natural gas electricity grid results in a fuel which is dirtier than petroleum.
greyfalcon.net/hydrogen2.png
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Mack 2:21AM (12/14/2007)
It really sounds like cars are just not an efficient means of transportation. A train wreck makes the news. How many cars wreck every hour, every day?
Twenty minute drives take one or two hours.
In the US I think there is 1.13 cars for every person. In China there is like 9 for every 1000.
It is my opinion that the smart manufactures will fall back to the future.
But most of them are in China. And you can see why.
However, when was the last time you saw a car add that depicted reality? There is the new 08 model.
It is shown in stop and go traffic? Grid locked just like the 72 model.
I am not against cars. I love them. The US just needs more, a lot more light rail and rail.
The first to figure this out is going to be?
Fuels and alternative fuels will not solve the problem.
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litteuldav 3:34AM (12/13/2007)
quote "Let's take an ideal car that gets 10 l/100 km"
This is not ideal at all, many here would have nightmares with a 10 l/100 km and a 1.20 € the litre (diesel).
The average is more like 6 l/100 km for a new family car (think VW Passat) or 5 l/100 km for a normal car like VW Golf/Rabbit.
Welcome to the present times, welcome to Europe !!
Stop living in the past :-D
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GreyFlcn 5:41AM (12/13/2007)
==It really sounds like cars are just not an efficient means of transportation.==
Well consider this.
Engine Efficiency:
15-20% Gasoline
30-40%
~50% Gasoline Hybrid / HCCI Engine
~60% (?) Diesel Hybrid
80-90% Electric Engine
A large part of why trains are so efficient is that they are almost all diesel-series-hybrids.
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Domenick 6:32AM (12/13/2007)
Drats, forgot to include the wiki....http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol_fuel
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arcel 7:47AM (12/13/2007)
another step in solving global warming
http://cars.ozfreeonline.com
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Angelo 8:25AM (12/13/2007)
I often find great information on this site, but why is it that nearly every author has to express their own feelings on every topic so strongly? If they are going to do this, they better be able to back it up.
Case in point, this author makes some very strong statements, then backs them up with some quotes of MPG? What a terrible way to measure efficiency.
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Xavier Navarro 3:10AM (12/14/2007)
Angelo,
The mpg calculations weren't made by me but they come from the source - if the post resulted too strong is because I tried to reflect Moteur Nature's strong opposition to that use of methanol.
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