Psst! Want to hear an idea for freeing the U.S. from foreign
oil?
Alright, I know you’ve probably heard this a dozen times. There
isn’t anybody left in America who hasn’t been told of some magic
formula or exotic fuel additive that is going to cut gasoline
consumption in half and liberate us from the clutches of OPEC.
But this idea has merit. It doesn’t involve any hocus-pocus or
technological breakthroughs. It simply comes from the realization
that we now have a lot more natural gas than we ever expected and
we haven’t yet figured out what to do with it. There’s a very
simple way that natural gas — methane — can be transformed into a
substitute for gasoline in our cars.
It’s called “methanol.”
What is methanol? Well, it’s the simplest of the alcohols, made
from substituting one hydroxyl ion — OH- — for one of
the four hydrogen atoms surrounding the carbon atom. Instead of
CH4, which is a gas, you have CH3OH, which is
liquid at room temperature. On paper it looks simple enough but in
reality the problem is twofold: 1) finding an adequate carbon
feedstock, and 2) devising a nice, low-energy process to make the
transformation.
Historically, methanol has been distilled out of wood, which
gave it the name “wood alcohol.” That’s a poison, unlike its cousin
ethanol, which is only intoxicating. In fact, methanol is commonly
used to “denature” ethanol products such as solvents and cleaning
fluids so that people won’t drink them like whiskey or gin.
Both methanol and ethanol will burn in your car engine with
about 65 percent of the potency of gasoline. So it’s a trade-off.
You need a bigger tank and may have to go to the gas station a
little more often, but if it’s cheaper than gasoline, it’s worth
it. All you need is a few adjustments to your carburetor. The auto
companies can make any new car methanol-worthy for $100 a vehicle
and your local mechanic can do a retrofit for $200.
So how do we know methanol can power cars as well as gasoline?
Well, believe it or not, the fastest cars in the world are already
running on it. In 1964, racing car drivers Eddie Sachs and Dave
MacDonald were killed in a fiery crash at the Indianapolis 500.
Their cars both caught fire and the smoke was so dense that five
more cars plowed into them. One of those cars, driven by Johnny
Rutherford, was running on methanol. Track officials later noted
that, not only did the methanol fire not spread but it could be
extinguished with water, whereas water only spreads a gasoline
fire. Indianapolis Star writer George Moore initiated a
campaign and the following year all the drivers switched to
methanol. They stayed with it until 2007, when farm belt
pressure forced a switch to corn-based ethanol.
In one of California’s many attempts to force technology, a
fleet of methanol vehicles was also mandated there in the 1990s. By
2004 the Golden State had 10,000 on the road. The problem was
finding a supply of methanol. The traditional feedstocks of wood,
farm wastes, and household garbage weren’t adequate. There are
other pathways but they aren’t very economical. One is to fuse
hydrogen with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Only this week
researchers at the University of Freiburg announced it has improved
this method. But the simplest way to produce methanol is to take
plain old natural gas and bathe it in steam. “It’s basically early
20th century technology,” says Yossie Hollander, a
California entrepreneur who has founded the Freedom Fuel Foundation
in order to promote alternatives to foreign oil. “The problem has
always been that there wasn’t enough natural gas.”
The California experiment finally ground to a halt in 2005 as
natural gas prices rose to $11 per thousand cubic feet (mcf) while
gasoline was $2 per gallon. Methanol was just too expensive. Now
that has all reversed. With the hydrofracking revolution, natural
gas is struggling to stay above $2 per mcf while gasoline is near
$4 per gallon. The situation has completely reversed. It’s just
that nobody has taken much notice.
There has been a lot of talk about running cars on natural gas.
T. Boone Pickens made a valiant effort 2008 but didn’t get very
far. The problem is that so far these efforts have been built
around two rather awkward technologies: 1) liquefied natural gas
(LNG), and 2) compressed natural gas (CNG).
Liquefied natural gas is propane or butane, which are liquid at
room temperature. Both can be synthesized from methane but are
usually derived from crude oil during refining. Each can be stored
and transported without much trouble. The problem is that they are
heavier than air and tend to collect around a vehicle when there is
a leak, increasing the danger of an explosion. Also they do not
pump well and require about 20 minutes for refueling. Propane has
been employed in run buses, garbage trucks, and delivery vans but
is not yet used much in cars. There are currently about 150,000 LNG
vehicles on the road in the U.S.
Compressed natural gas is methane stored under high pressure.
This demands a sturdy gas tank but 3M has just come up with a
product that may do the trick. The reinforced container adds
considerable cost, however, and conversion of older vehicles can
run around $6,000. CNG vehicles are common abroad and Honda, Fiat,
and GM all have models. Brazil has a particularly large fleet and
there are 115,000 CNG on the road in the U.S. But CNG can’t use
existing gas pumps or storage tanks and distribution would require
a whole new infrastructure.
So the question is: Instead of employing these difficult
technologies, why not just convert methane to methanol and utilize
the existing infrastructure?
We already have a thriving methanol industry with 18 plants
producing 2.6 billion gallons annually. Methanol is sold for
manufacturing and denaturing and it’s 30 percent of your windshield
fluid. Of course that 2.6 billion gallons is a long ways from the
136 billion gallons we would need to replace half our gasoline
consumption. But the potential is there.
Yossie Hollander suggests manufacturers could locate reforming
plants at the terminus of natural gas pipelines, then truck the
methanol to gas stations. “It wouldn’t require any new
infrastructure,” he says. “You could use the pumps and storage
facilities we have now.” At current prices, methanol would sell at
the equivalent of $2 per gallon. “You wouldn’t need subsidies,” he
says. “The market would take care of everything.”
Is there a catch to all this? Well, yes, there is one. Currently
it’s illegal. “When the EPA wrote its regulations for auto
emissions it approved only one fuel — gasoline,” says Hollander.
“Ethanol makes it into your gas tank because it’s classified as an
‘additive.’ The EPA could easily write new regulations for methanol
or classify it as an additive. It’s just a question of getting them
to do it.”
Fuel Freedom is running a very smart campaign, enlisting
national security experts, free market enthusiasts and
environmentalists to the cause. “Methanol burns cleaner than
gasoline,” says Hollander. “It would mean a big improvement in air
pollution.” With prompting, a bipartisan coalition is currently
shepherding the Open Fuel Standard Act through Congress. The law
would require automakers to produce cars that can run on a variety
of fuels, including methanol. “Right now the auto companies could
produce flex-fuel vehicles any time they want,” says Hollander.
“Their answer is always that they’ve tried before and nobody wanted
to buy them. That could now change.
“The pieces are all in place,” he concludes. “All that’s needed
is a shove in the right direction.”
With the natural gas industry wallowing in a glut, leading
drillers such as ExxonMobil and Chesapeake are pulling their rigs
out of the Marcellus and sending them in search of oil. Some wells
are shutting down, waiting for the price to rise again. There’s
talk of exporting gas but it’s a long slog. Cheniere Energy just
received permission to construct an LNG terminal in Louisiana, but
the opening is at least five years away.
So with a surplus of natural gas and a $780 billion annual bill
for oil imports, is there any chance that a new methanol industry
might resolve both problems at once? It sure looks plausible.
