Hopeful - Maybe this article will help make you understand what's going on behind the scenes:
Posted by Forbes Business Magazine:
May 19, 2015
In Midst Of Oil Boom, Perhaps U.S. Should Look To Another Fuel: Methanol
American energy executives and policymakers are basking in the country’s newfound oil production clout. They’re reveling in the comeback story, written by improved techniques for shale oil and gas extraction, that have made the United States the largest oil producer in the world, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia.
But amid the congratulations, some smart people are offering a warning. Being an oil and gasoline giant is nice, they say, but it also presents a problem: It lulls Americans into believing that there’s no harm in relying almost exclusively on gasoline and diesel as transport fuel. Outside of a few wealthy people who can afford an $85,000 Tesla, our transportation sector and ergo our whole economy, they say, is addicted to petroleum. This is why they’re urging U.S. energy policymakers and industrialists to return to the complex work of getting more of us into cars and trucks that can run on alternative fuels.
So what should be done? The answer is obvious to Korin and Luft: bring more choices for transportation fuel to the market. Compressed Natural Gas is an obvious possibility, but its traction has been poor — only 987 CNG fueling stations existed in the United States at the end of 2012. Today there are more than 1,500, which is still a small number — and only about half of those stations are open to the public.
Beyond CNG, Korin and Luft champion a lurking giant: METHANOL!
Methanol, other than being a carbon-based molecule that can be used for fuel, has little to do with ethanol, the corn-based fuel that has received plenty of deserved scorn during the last several years. Methanol is a basic alcohol — a simple hydroxide molecule paired with CH3, creating CH3OH. Fortuitously for the United States, the authors say, about two-thirds of worldwide methanol production comes from natural gas, something the U.S. has in abundance at the moment. Methanol can even be made from coal, another feedstock that’s bountiful in the U.S.Modifying normal gas engines to consume methanol costs only about $100 to $200 more than outfitting vehicles to be ethanol-gasoline flex-fuel ready, a common factory feature these days.
Various methanol blends ranging from 5% (M5) to 100% (M100) are already being used abundantly in China, where it is made from coal. The Chinese, of course, don’t make energy policy for show; they’re focused on efficiency and cost. So it’s more than intriguing that methanol already accounts for about 8% of China’s transportation fuel slate, mostly in light-duty trucks and public transit. In 2012, China had 1,200 methanol service stations and 200 methanol factories. If the United States doesn’t make more methanol, China will go it alone, right on American shores, as Chinese companies have plans to build six new plants on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. to produce methanol for export to China.
There is a bill in Congress now worth watching. The Fuel Choice and Deregulation Act of 2015 was introduced in the Senate by Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA),and in the House by Rep. Rod Blum (R-IA). The bill aims to provide regulatory relief to alternative fuel producers and consumers by providing Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) credit for automakers that produce vehicles allowing for methanol as a preferred alternative fuel.
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