Make Way for Methanol Fuel

By Nell O'Connor
Published on March 1, 1981
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PHOTO: NEIL OCONNOR
A standard Ford sedan modified to run on methanol fuel. 

Over the past couple of years, ethyl alcohol–the clear, clean-burning liquid usually made from farm products–has been pretty much accepted as a viable substitute for our expensive (and in finite supply) petroleum-based fuels. However, ethanol isn’t the only member of the alcohol “family” that can serve this purpose. There’s another form of fluid energy–methanol–which not only does, under certain circumstances, cost less than either grain alcohol or gasoline, but also can be manufactured from virtually any source of biomass, including wood wastes and garbage!

An Urban Energy Alternative

Obviously enough, even though ethyl alcohol could be made on a large scale (then distributed locally as are petroleum products), it’s more cost-effective–because of handling and transportation expenses–for a farmer to distill his or her own fuel from surplus and spoiled crops readily at hand. Unfortunately, methanol fuel (or wood alcohol, as it’s sometimes referred to) doesn’t easily lend itself to small-scale production. Therefore, industrial –rather than individual–manufacture of this type of alcohol is most practical (especially in light of the fact that the end product can be as much as 52% less expensive than farm-produced ethanol, even with local transportation costs considered).

What this means, of course, is that methyl alcohol can be to the urbanite what ethanol is to the farmer: a way out of the fuel crisis. And fortunately, there are people marketing methanol, right now, with just that notion in mind. One such individual is Charles Stone, president of Future Fuels of America.

Blending for the Better

The California entrepreneur’s venture revolves around what he calls “Methanol X,” a blend of pure methyl alcohol and several other volatiles. The production of the fuel is accomplished by breaking a hydrocarbon feedstock down into carbon monoxide and hydrogen (using a destructive distillation process), then forcing the gases to react in the presence of a catalyst–and under elevated temperatures and pressures–to form liquid methanol.

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