Archive for the ‘methanol’ Category

Cellulosic methanol

Thursday, December 11th, 2008

A recent Japanese study titled “Biomethanol Production and CO2 Emission Reduction” concludes:

This study demonstrates that the practical oxidation reaction during gasification of readily available biomass materials could be optimized for methanol production, yielding ca. 40 to 60% of dry weight. This opens the way to utilization of a wide range of harvested plant material low in sugar and starch, including byproducts of other processing operations such as sawdust, bran, straw and husks of rice. Sawdust, rice bran and rice husks are particularly attractive biofuel resources since factories
already produce large quantities.

The potentially positive economic impact of biomethanol production on Japanese farming and social systems from planting grasses and trees in unutilized land is immense. Reduced CO2 emissions, recycling of abandoned upland and paddy field and woodland in mountainous areas, and recycling of wastes of agricultural products would all be possible by promoting biofuel production systems based on this new method of gasification. This
technology is particularly attractive since biomethanol can be produced from a wide range of biomass raw materials.

More info: Paper, Slides

Another interesting presentation:
North Carolina Animal WAste as a Potential Resource for Reducing CO2 and Methane Emissions—note the diagram showing production of methanol from biogas. If new cars were flex fuel vehicles warranteed to operate on ethanol, methanol, and gasoline, that methanol could then be used directly to fuel cars.

One more, hot off the press, by Kristiina Vogt et al:
Bio-methanol: How energy choices in the western United States can help mitigate global climate change: “As a gasoline substitute, bio-methanol can optimally reduce vehicle C emissions by 2–29 Tg of C (23–81% of the total emitted by each state). [...]In the state of Washington, thinning “high-fire-risk” small stems, namely 5.1–22.9 cm diameter trees, from wildfire-prone forests and using them to produce methanol for electricity generation with fuel cells would avoid C emissions of 3.7–7.3 Mg C/ha. Alternatively, when wood-methanol produced from the high-fire-risk wood is used as a gasoline substitute, 3.3–6.6 Mg C/ha of carbon emissions are avoided. If these same “high-fire-risk” woody stems were burned during a wildfire 7.9 Mg C/ha would be emitted in the state of Washington alone. Although detailed economic analyses of producing methanol from biomass are in its infancy, we believe that converting biomass into methanol and substituting it for fossil-fuel-based energy production is a viable option in locations that have high biomass availability.”

Senators urge inclusion of Open Fuel Standard in any auto bailout

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008

Senators Salazar, Cantwell, Brownback, Collins, Dorgan, Landrieu, Johnson, Ben Nelson, and Lieberman sent a letter to Senate Majority Leader Reid and Minority Leader McConnell, urging that assistance to automakers “be predicated on an agreement to increase the percentage of new cars and trucks configured as Flexible Fuel Vehicles (FFVs) – vehicles with the ability to use any percentage of gasoline and ethanol or methanol.”

The Senators noted:
“In 2006, the Big Three automobile manufacturers committed to making at least 50 percent of their new vehicles FFVs by 2012. We respectfully request that, during any negotiations over providing additional federal assistance, you insist that the CEOs of the Big Three reaffirm their earlier commitment and also agree to meet a second milestone of 80 percent FFVs by 2015.

“By integrating such goals into their future plans now, automakers will be able to make the necessary changes to production lines without undue disruption or appreciable additional cost. We note that the marginal cost of manufacturing a FFV is less than one hundred dollars per vehicle, while the resulting fuel cost savings to consumers from increased fuel competition could be hundreds or thousands of dollars over a vehicle’s lifetime.

“[...] we favor the adoption of Senate Bill 3303, the bipartisan Open Fuel Standard (OFS) Act, which would apply these FFV requirements to all manufacturers of new cars sold in teh United States.”

Read the entire letter here.

Set America Free’s Gaffney on the bailout

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

Frank Gaffney in the Washington Times:

Tie the bailout to the adoption of a new “Open Fuel Standard” (OFS) that would have the effect of giving U.S. automakers a distinct, near-term competitive advantage, while making a giant leap on one of our most important national security challenges – energy security.

The idea is straightforward. The Big Three have produced approximately 6 million vehicles now on America’s highways that are equipped with what is known as a Flexible Fuel Vehicle (FFV) capability. FFVs can be configured to run on ethanol or methanol – fuels that can be manufactured from a variety of sources that we have here in abundance – or on gasoline, or some combination of the three.

The American auto manufacturers have also produced many more such vehicles for the Brazilian market where an OFS is effectively the law of the land, ensuring that all new cars offer consumers “fuel choice.”

Brazil’s experience is instructive. Where fuel competition is afforded and the monopoly gasoline currently enjoys in the United States is broken, the costs of powering the transportation sector are dramatically reduced. What’s more important, billions of dollars that might otherwise go to purchase oil from sources that are unstable at best and unfriendly at worst can be kept at home.

During the recent presidential campaign, both Barack Obama and John McCain endorsed the concept of an Open Fuel Standard. Legislation that would institute it has been introduced on a bipartisan basis in both the House and Senate (H.R. 6559 and S. 3303, respectively).

By incorporating the bills’ requirement that, by 2012, 50 percent of all new cars sold in this country be Flexible Fuel Vehicles – which Detroit’s auto companies have already committed and are planning to do – we can begin weaning America off of our cars’ current, absolute addiction to oil. The legislation would require that by 2015, a further 30 percent of these fleets be equipped with FFV technology, something that today costs less than $100 per car.

Imagine a President Obama as one of his first initiatives formally embracing the Open Fuel Standard, rewarding Detroit for taking a step that is highly desirable from both an environmental and national security perspective with a bailout tied to the imposition of such a standard on both domestic and foreign cars. The new chief executive could inspire his people and advance his stated agenda of achieving energy independence by calling on the American people to purchase a vehicle with FFV capability. Until foreign manufacturers retool and conform to the Open Fuel Standard, most of those FFVs will be sold by the Big Three – a shot in the arm for them, our economy and the national interest more generally.

An additional benefit for an Obama administration concerned with alleviating world poverty is that the adoption by this country of an Open Fuel Standard will have the effect of establishing it as a global standard. Car manufacturers will sell their FFVs all over the world, enabling about 100 countries to grow the fuels they need to power them, ending their dependence on foreign oil and reducing dramatically the petro-wealth transfers being used by freedom’s enemies to our collective detriment.

Set America Free’s Woolsey on the bailout

Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

In a Huffington Post interview Jim Woolsey notes:

Any bailout money for Detroit should be used to maximize the speed of a shift toward the use of electric hybrids and flexible fuel vehicles. Both are necessary in breaking oil’s monopoly on transportation in the U.S. Both would utilize existing infrastructure such as electric power grids and filling stations, and the technology is already there, and in use, for the engines themselves. So it can be done relatively quickly.

When I say electric, I don’t necessarily mean all-electric cars. With an electric hybrid, you only need a battery than can take you 30-40 miles on an overnight charge — along the lines of what the Chevy Volt (scheduled for 2010) can do. Three quarters of the cars in the U.S. go less than 40 miles a day. On three days out of four, you can use all electricity. For anything beyond that, with a hybrid, you’d have liquid fuel to take you the rest of the way where you need to go.

Flexible fuel vehicles should have an “open standard,” which means they can use not only ethanol but methanol, butanol or other alcohol-based fuels. This can be done quickly. Brazil went in only three years from having 5 percent of its news cars using flexible fuel to 75 percent.

Putting this shift front and center will not only help save jobs in the auto industry but create news jobs — for example in the production of batteries for electric hybrid vehicles. It will create a whole new set of suppliers.

Read the whole thing.

Edwin Black calls for Open Fuel Standard on Glenn Beck

Wednesday, September 24th, 2008

Set America Free Coalition member Edwin Black, who just came out with a new book titled “The Plan: How to Save America When the Oil Stops -or the Day Before” appeared on the Glenn Beck show on CNN last night:

BECK: Edwin, you say democracy — fuel democracy should be the rule. What exactly does that mean?

EDWIN BLACK, AUTHOR OF “THE PLAN”: Well the fuel democracy that I’ve called for mandates that our country take whatever good alternative fuel and propulsion method is best at hand, whether that`s compressed natural gas, whether that is sugar cane ethanol, where that is methanol, whether that is bio-fuel, second generation bio-fuel. That is the way that we will get off of oil, and that really calls for an open fuel standard, a flex fuel standard and what’s more important is that our nation is completely unprepared for an oil interruption.

BECK: Edwin, please, talk about that just a little bit, because I don`t think people understand. The straits of Hormuz; that is right off of the coast of Iran, just Iran just said deciding to say we`re just going to make sure we shut this down. That would, what would that mean to America and our economy?

BLACK: The Strait of Hormuz is the only place that can kill America. It is two miles wide in each direction. It is right off the coast of Iran, going underneath the pockmarked caves of Iran which is rich with silk worms, exsiccate missiles, the Al Qaeda is there. If the Strait of Hormuz is blocked, it`ll block 40 percent of all sea-borne oil, 18 percent of the global supply and 15 percent to 20 percent eventually of America`s supply.

Iran and Brazil Can Do It. So Can We.

Wednesday, July 16th, 2008

Set America Free Coalition member Gal Luft in the Washington Post:

When the founding fathers declared our independence, they could not have imagined that, 232 years later, the United States would be so spectacularly dependent on foreign countries. It would be roughly
eight more decades before oil gushed from a well in Titusville, Pa., marking the beginning of the global
oil economy; it took eight decades more for the United States to become a net oil importer. But the
republic’s disastrous dependence on foreign oil has increased by leaps and bounds ever since.
In 1973, when OPEC imposed its oil embargo, U.S. oil imports composed 30 percent of our needs;
today, they make up more than 60 percent, with a growing proportion of that crude coming from the
world’s least stable regions. At around $145 a barrel, the United States, by my calculations, will spend
more on imported oil this year than it will spend on its own defense budget, and much of that money
will flow into the coffers of those who wish us ill.

Read the whole thing.

Caroline Glick: the West has to get its act together

Tuesday, July 1st, 2008

Caroline Glick calls on the West to break its dependence on foreign oil:

On a macroeconomic level, as people like R. James Woolsey, Gal Luft, Robert Zubrin, Frank Gaffney, Anne Korin and others have explained convincingly over the past several years, the West needs to end its addiction to foreign oil as quickly as possible. Energy security is a paramount issue.[...] The best course is to seek other means of fuelling cars, trains and airplanes. The key to everything as far as I can see is for all cars to have the capacity to run on fuels other than gasoline – what are called “flex fuel cars” and to have the capacity to run on electricity – what are called “plug-in cars.” What is needed is not so much one solution – but the ability to use many other fuels at once.

Once cars are able to run on methanol and ethanol and electricity as well as gasoline, then you have a lot of options for action. It makes sense to increase the supply of oil as much as possible by drilling in as many places as possible and increasing refining capacities. It also makes sense to start developing massive quantities of methanol that you can produce from just about anything. It makes sense to develop clean coal, increase nuclear energy supplies.

It makes sense to put a floor on the price of imported oil at $60/barrel to ensure that alternative energy sources that are now being developed can be competitive. It would prevent the Arabs from prolonging our dependence on them by flooding the US with cheap oil and pushing all alternatives off the market.

China’s race to alternative fuels

Monday, April 21st, 2008

Last Thursday, Set America Free held an educational briefing in the House of Representatives on China’s very rapid progress on alternative fuels and advanced vehicle technology.

Greg Dolan of the Methanol Institute spoke about China’s progress on massive expansion of production and use of the alcohol fuel methanol

Dr. Paul Werbos of the NSF spoke about China, Japan, and Korea’s advances in battery technology and plug ins.

The bottom line: the Chinese are moving much more rapidly than the U.S. Alternative fuels and advanced vehicles are a top priority for the Chinese government.

Batteries for plug in hybrids are cheaper in China by factors of two, three, and more than comparable batteries in the U.S., and Chinese firms are expecting to have plug in hybrids ready for the mass market this year and next.

I feel the need, the need for speed

Monday, March 10th, 2008

Well we’ve got more details on that Lotus Exige 270E Tri-Fuel, a GEM FFV (which stands for gasoline-ethanol-methanol flex fuel vehicle, but you knew that already right?):

The heart of the Exige 270E Tri-fuel is a Roots-type supercharger (with a sealed-for-life internal mechanism meaning that it does not require the use of the engine’s oil) and air to air intercooler attached to the tried and tested 4-cylinder, 1.8 litre 2ZZ-GE VVTL-i engine. Using a development of the supercharger and intercooler package from the Exige S, the Exige 270E Tri-fuel has peak power of 270 hp (201 kW / 273 PS) at 8000 rpm, 184 lbft (260 Nm) of torque at 5500 rpm, up by 51 hp (38 kW, 52 PS) or 19% and 25 lbft 45 Nm or 14% over the standard gasoline Exige S. Maximum engine speed is 8000 rpm (8500 rpm transient for up to 2 seconds).

The low carbon number alcohol fuels methanol and ethanol give more power when burned in the engine than conventional gasoline (petrol) fuel. The performance benefits come largely from the high heats of vaporization of methanol and ethanol, which give strong charge-cooling effects, and the increased octane ratings. There are other secondary thermodynamic effects. Methanol’s higher heat of vaporization leads to a slightly higher performance relative to ethanol. All charge air ducting has been kept as short as possible with large diameter pipes making sure that the bends in these ducts are not too tight, to the benefit of throttle response and efficiency. The Roots-type Eaton M62 supercharger is turned by the crankshaft, and has an integral bypass valve for part load operation.

The 2ZZ VVTL-i engine has two cam profiles – a high speed cam and a low speed cam. The seamless switch point between these two cams is completely variable depending upon driving conditions and engine load. This gives the Lotus Exige 270E Tri-fuel a smooth and linear surge of power from idle speeds all the way to the maximum 8500rpm. An electronic drive-by-wire throttle ensures the quickest engine response possible whilst keeping the emissions as clean and as low as possible, to meet relevant legislative demands. Six fuel injectors have been fitted to increase fuel flow to the engine at normal and higher engine speeds and loads.

We called Lotus but it seems this car is not being offered for sale by Lotus U.S.dealers (Lotus is a British firm.) As always — this is a good opportunity to let your local auto dealers know that you want fuel choice, and they should bring it on.

Stop OPEC’s hold

Sunday, March 9th, 2008

Scott Blanchard writes in The Birmingham News:

A little-known section of the Energy Security Act of 2007 contained a provision that would require within five years all new vehicles sold (foreign and domestic) in the United States be capable of running on alcohol fuels (a k a “flex fuel”) as well as gasoline. It costs, on average, about $100 to make a car flex-fuel capable. The most common flex fuel available today is ethanol, or E85, but flex-fuel cars can run on any alcohol-based fuel such as methanol or butanol and, of course, on gasoline.

This one provision would have had the effect of creating an international standard for flex-fuel automobiles. In turn, it would have had a domino effect forcing foreign automakers to equip their vehicles for flex fuel (or risk losing the huge U.S. market). [...] gasoline would be forced to compete with alcohol fuels. [...]

[Let's] seek to persuade our members of Congress that it is in our interest to have fuel choice. Had the Open Fuel Standard mentioned above been enacted (and not removed at the last moment due to lobbying by Nissan Motor Co.), we would be well on our way toward weaning ourselves off the shackles of our oil addiction.