About The Economy? (FALC)

[graeme]

I see this as the biggest problem with Ethanol/Methanol. If we don't have enough food for us how can we use it for fuel too?

The more demand there is for ethanol, the faster the techniques to produce it will improve, getting more gallons from each acer planted. At the moment, because the demand is so low, we use the simplest methods to produce it, which are also the least land-efficient.

As for methanol, you can make it in a factory. You don't need any bio-mass or farm land. It's not quite as 'nice' a fuel as ethanol, but it's more sustainable.

[Ferg]

I was reading the Carbon Trust's CO2 equivalences which will be the basis for such things as Carbon Tax etc. Although last published in 2009, they are still the current figures and the reading is quite an eye opener.

Where a unit is a KWh and the Green House Gas per unit conversion is to kgCO2

For purely fuel conversion:
Grid Leccy = 0.544
Natural Gas = 0.184
LPG = 0.214
Gas Oil = 0.277
Fuel Oil = 0.266
Diesel = 0.253
Petrol = 0.243
Industrial Coal = 0.313
Wood Pellets = 0.026

For passenger transport per mile:
Small <1.4L petrol car = 0.2929
Medium 1.4L-2L petrol car = 0.3459
Large >2L petrol car = 0.4790
Average petrol car = 0.3344
Small <1.7L diesel car = 0.2459
Medium 1.7L-2L diesel car = 0.3048
Large >2L = 0.4146
Avg diesel car = 0.3192

[j2 lot]

So if I am interpreting the figures right, a plug-in electric car ( with no back-up fueling /range extender) will produce twice as much co2 as a petrol car per mile? 0.243 against 0.544

[neil]

So if I am interpreting the figures right, a plug-in electric car ( with no back-up fueling /range extender) will produce twice as much co2 as a petrol car per mile? 0.243 against 0.544

That sounds about right, unless you charge it from your own personal wind turbine

[robin]

As for methanol, you can make it in a factory. You don't need any bio-mass or farm land. It's not quite as 'nice' a fuel as ethanol, but it's more sustainable.

Genuine question: How do you make methanol in a factory without using bio-mass?

Cheers,
Robin

[pete]

So if I am interpreting the figures right, a plug-in electric car ( with no back-up fueling /range extender) will produce twice as much co2 as a petrol car per mile? 0.243 against 0.544

That doesn't sound right to me... But I'm not a scientist. And I'm not very clever.

[campbell]

Partial answer to Robin's question? [my emphasis]

Although natural gas is the most economical and widely used feedstock for methanol production, many other feedstocks can be used to produce syngas via steam reforming. Coal is increasingly being used as a feedstock for methanol production, particularly in China. In addition, mature technologies available for biomass gasification are being utilized for methanol production. For instance, woody biomass can be gasified to water gas (a hydrogen-rich syngas), by introducing a blast of steam in a blast furnace. The water-gas / syngas can then be synthesized to methanol using standard methods. The net process is carbon neutral since the CO2 byproduct is required to produce biomass via photosynthesis.

More detail here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Methanol#Production

Not quite sure if using gas to make "petrol" quite solves the problem, but I note that CO2 injection can form part of the process so presumably there is a contribution to "carbon-neutrality" in there?

SE Chemists, reveal yourselves!

[Ferg]

<pedant>Well I reckon there should be a 'Bio-' in front of both ethanol and methanol in all these refs to stop association with the normal production method from crude. </pedant>

[robin]

Methanol is methanol; no need to call it bio-methanol IMHO ... however, I still don't know how you make it without using bio-mass or fossil fuel (very old bio-mass ).

Cheers,
Robin

[graeme]

Robin,

Due to some very bad careers advice at secondary school, I never took any chemistry (not even standard grade) and I've been struggling ever since with even the basics, but here's my understanding:

Stage 1) An Electrolyser (powered by the nuclear power stations we're not building, or any other source in the future).
Inputs: 6H2O
Outputs: 3O2 and 6H2

Stage 2) Methanol Synthesiser (a total black box to me, I admit, but I believe the following is correct)
Inputs: 6H2 (from our electrolyser), 2CO2 (scrubbed from atmosphere or industrial output), and a catalyst (Cu alloys at the moment, but research into others such as graphene is ongoing, improving efficiency)
Outputs: 2CH3OH

At this stage we have our transportable, storable, liquid methanol.

To release the energy in a Direct Methanol Fuel Cell (DMFC)
Inputs: 2CH3OH (from our production process), 3O2 (matches the output from our electrolosis)
Outputs: 2CO2 (matches our input to the methanol synthesiser) and 4H2O

I know there are holes which can be picked in this. I don't know of any gaping flaws though if you are willing to accept that the efficiency of the process will increase over time. I don't see any dependency on bio-mass (fossilised or otherwise) or farm land, but it may be hidden in there beyond my understanding.

[robin]

OK, but that's not a practical solution today; I agree it deserves attention, though. If we had a more-or-less free energy source we could accept the industrial costs of synthesizing methanol (after all, petrol is hardly cheap to produce from crude oil, though some of that cost is offset by the value of the other products, I believe).

Cheers,
Robin

[graeme]

I wasn't talking about today - I was talking long term solutions - ones where the costs will come down with time, not continue to go up like today's solutions. When the line on the graph of £ against time for todays fuels crosses over the line for tomorrow's fuels, that's the point in time I'm talking about this being a success (whenever that may be). Otherwise there's no economic argument for the change. We can influence when that point in time is by investing (brain-hours) up front to bring our costs down faster. Or, if we wait long enough we'll run out of oil and the decision will be made for us, but that that point we'll be so screwed we might not make the best choices.

I don't have any investment in this solution (well, no more than any of us do); it's just the most convincing solution I've heard. If anyone has a better long-term plan I'd love to hear it (and support it).

Anyway, we still need to get on with the nuclear power plants or we won't have any options at all.

[ed]

My mum now has a wind turbine and they are also installing a wood burning boiler. I believe it is no where near as efficient as they were told it would be.

Wish I could do the same, have just paid 57.9 for heating oil.

[tut]

Spend a fair portion of the Worlds GDP in a joint effort to accelerate the means of producing nuclear fusion at room temperature.

Unlimited energy produced from a couple of ice lollies which should solve the World's problems, but of course it wouldn't as they would screw it up somehow.

tut

[kenny]

My mum now has a wind turbine and they are also installing a wood burning boiler. I believe it is no where near as efficient as they were told it would be.

I admire greatly what your mum does, unfortunately the people who sell windymills love to prey on the good intentions of people like your mum. Plenty more people seeking a self sufficient lifestyle will be mislead by the same spin.