Methanol economy
The absurdity of the methanol economy
I had not actually heard of it, but a colleague mentioned it in the course of conversation: George Olah, the Hungarian-born U.S. chemist whose research is focused on hydrocarbons, strongly advocates the introduction of methanol as a chemical energy carrier.
The basic idea is that, to be sure, we need to find a replacement for the short chain alkanes that constitute the major part of gasoline, aviation spirit, etc., and which are used as the source of motive power for vehicles.
Currently, attention seems to be focused on two rival alternatives. The first is ethanol, produced by time-honoured microbial fermentation (e.g., of sugar cane), and which, as a liquid, can be handled in much the same way as gasoline. Indeed, in some countries, most notably Brazil, with a reasonably well developed a chemical industry infrastructure and a climate very well suited to the cultivation of sugar cane, ethanol already constitutes a significant proportion of the fuel used by road vehicles. The second is hydrogen, the idea of using hydrogen, which is of course a gas and ambient conditions, came from the time when nuclear fusion was supposed to produce abundant electricity at very low cost, which could then be used to electrolyse water, yielding abundant and she cheap hydrogen.
Unfortunately nuclear fusion has persisted in remaining on the horizon as a possible energy sources, and hence other strategies for generating hydrogen have been extensively investigated, including the photoelectrolysis of water driven by sunlight.
Nevertheless, it is fair to say that a suitable supply line for hydrogen is not well established at present.
The main considerations for a chemical fuel are the heat of combustion (∆H) and density (ρ). Together these determine what might be called a "fuel quality factor". In the table below, we use X as a factor, defined as ∆Hρ/Mr. This is appropriate if volume, rather than weight, is the limiting design
I had not actually heard of it, but a colleague mentioned it in the course of conversation: George Olah, the Hungarian-born U.S. chemist whose research is focused on hydrocarbons, strongly advocates the introduction of methanol as a chemical energy carrier.
The basic idea is that, to be sure, we need to find a replacement for the short chain alkanes that constitute the major part of gasoline, aviation spirit, etc., and which are used as the source of motive power for vehicles.
Currently, attention seems to be focused on two rival alternatives. The first is ethanol, produced by time-honoured microbial fermentation (e.g., of sugar cane), and which, as a liquid, can be handled in much the same way as gasoline. Indeed, in some countries, most notably Brazil, with a reasonably well developed a chemical industry infrastructure and a climate very well suited to the cultivation of sugar cane, ethanol already constitutes a significant proportion of the fuel used by road vehicles. The second is hydrogen, the idea of using hydrogen, which is of course a gas and ambient conditions, came from the time when nuclear fusion was supposed to produce abundant electricity at very low cost, which could then be used to electrolyse water, yielding abundant and she cheap hydrogen.
Unfortunately nuclear fusion has persisted in remaining on the horizon as a possible energy sources, and hence other strategies for generating hydrogen have been extensively investigated, including the photoelectrolysis of water driven by sunlight.
Nevertheless, it is fair to say that a suitable supply line for hydrogen is not well established at present.
The main considerations for a chemical fuel are the heat of combustion (∆H) and density (ρ). Together these determine what might be called a "fuel quality factor". In the table below, we use X as a factor, defined as ∆Hρ/Mr. This is appropriate if volume, rather than weight, is the limiting design