Methanol fuel economics

InterGroup Consulting Economists Ltd. (Winnipeg), Economic Prefeasibility Study Large-Scale Methanol Fuel Production from Surplus Canadian Forest Biomass, Part 1, Summary Report, Fisheries and Environment Canada, Environmental Management Service, Ottawa (1976). 

Science Applications, Inc., has recently completed a comprehensive technical and economic assessment of producing methanol from biomass feedstocks employing developed gasification technology. This study includes an assessment of biomass availability and the distribution and markets for methanol fuels as well as thermochemical conversion technology. 

Hagan, D.L, "Methanol — Its Synthesis, Use as a Fuel, Economics, and Hazards", Report prepared for ERDA, December 1976. 

Another potential field of application for direct methanol fuel cells, that of power sources for electric vehicles, is, so far, very remote. A large amount of research and engineering work still has to be done to master this application, mainly, work aiming at improving their technical and economic parameters to solve the particular problems... 

In the UK and the USA the product no longer really justifies itself as an animal feed. The set of conditions in which cheap methane could, through synthetic methanol, be economically converted to protein have now been replaced by others in which carbohydrates from agriculture are economic sources of ethanol, a fuel which directly rivals methanol. The value of the product might be upgraded if it were treated as a raw material from which a number of biological materials might be manufactured, and small-scale processes do exist for a few compounds which could be recovered from the cells. However, other constraints apply in the USSR where about 10 M tonnes of bacterial protein are produced each year from a variety of hydrocarbon feedstocks. ... 

As is clear from the previous discussion, the use of gas as a fuel presents problems of electrode construction and storage, that are not there when the fuel is water soluble. Three substances have been seriously suggested as such fuels—methanol, hydrazine and ammonia. Of these, methanol will probably become more accepted than the other two, mainly for economic and safety reasons. Methanol, if it becomes widely used for fuel cell operation, is likely to drop in price markedly, while hydrazine and ammonia will probably not. This section will describe briefly the methanol fuel cell, although the technology of the hydrazine one is more advanced. 

The direct methanol fuel cell contains methanol as a fuel. Methanol is economical and readily available. Moreover, its storage is easy compared to hydrogen fuel. Figure 1.13 shows the schematic of a DMFC. Two types of electrolytes can be used for DMFC, i.e., alkaline or polymer membrane. It can be seen that the methanol fuel is supplied at the anode. If alkaline electrolyte is used for DMFC, then the anode reaction becomes ... 

Chemicals have long been manufactured from biomass, especially wood (sHvichemicals), by many different fermentation and thermochemical methods. For example, continuous pyrolysis of wood was used by the Ford Motor Co. in 1929 for the manufacture of various chemicals (Table 20) (47). Wood alcohol (methanol) was manufactured on a large scale by destmctive distillation of wood for many years until the 1930s and early 1940s, when the economics became more favorable for methanol manufacture from fossil fuel-derived synthesis gas. 

Ethyl Tertiary-Butyl Ether. Similar to methanol in the MTBE reaction, ethanol can react with isobutylene to produce ETBE. Which alcohol is used to make the ether is highly dependent on the relative cost of the alcohols. To make ethanol more economically competitive with methanol, the federal tax credit for biomass-based ethanol used in fuel also appHes to ethanol used to make ETBE in the United States (24). 

See also Efficiency of Energy Use, Economic Concerns and Engines Fuel Cells Fuel Cell Vehicles Hydrogen Methanol Synthetic Fuel. 

Other energy sector concerns are methane emissions from unburned fuel, and from natural gas leaks at various stages of natural gas production, transmission and distribution. The curtailment of venting and flaring stranded gas (remotely located natural gas sources that are not economical to produce liquefied natural gas or methanol), and more efficient use of natural gas have significantly reduced atmospheric release. But growth in natural gas production and consumption may reverse this trend. Methane has... 

A commonly used catalyst in this process consists of ZnO and Cu. Because methanol is a widely used solvent and fuel, the reaction is economically significant. 

The production of methanol from synthesis gas is a well-established process (23, 102), and there have been predictions that methanol itself could become the fuel of the future (103). Whether or not this prediction will prove correct is debatable4 meanwhile, Mobil suggests that coupling known methanol production technology with their new process provides an economically attractive alternative to both Fischer-Tropsch fuels and direct utilization of methanol (104). 

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