Bikewer
Penultimate Amazing
NPR's Science Friday had a segment Friday with George Olah, author of Beyond Gas & Oil, Building a Methanol Economy. Olah is a Nobel laureate in chemistry.
The segment was kind of funny; they had only allotted 40 minutes out of the hour, and Olah (in heavily Russian-accented speech) adopted a very slow, professorial manner, wanting to discuss the entire history of hydrocarbon energy while the host, Flatow, tried desperately to get him on topic.
The gist is that Olah maintains that production of Methanol for use as a motor fuel would be superior to either ethanol (agriculturally-based) or hydrogen. Hydrogen, used in fuel cells, would require a massive investment in infrastructure to handle the problematic fuel for consumers. Methanol can be stored, transported, and pumped like any other fuel.
Methanol can be extracted from coal and natural gas, of course, and a fairly large industry producing same already exists, with costs running about $1.00 per gallon. Investment in the industry could vastly increase production, either from government subsidy or private investment.
As well, Olah and his university researchers have developed a fuel-cell type catalytic device which can produce methanol from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Recycling CO2 would seem to be a benificial thing.
Olah invisions stationary plants which would produce hydrogen from whatever source, then use it on-site to produce methanol in large quantities.
He's apparently convinced that agriculturally-produced alchohol is never going to be sufficient to adress our energy needs, and is inefficient as well.
I may have to see if I can get hold of a copy of his book.
The segment was kind of funny; they had only allotted 40 minutes out of the hour, and Olah (in heavily Russian-accented speech) adopted a very slow, professorial manner, wanting to discuss the entire history of hydrocarbon energy while the host, Flatow, tried desperately to get him on topic.
The gist is that Olah maintains that production of Methanol for use as a motor fuel would be superior to either ethanol (agriculturally-based) or hydrogen. Hydrogen, used in fuel cells, would require a massive investment in infrastructure to handle the problematic fuel for consumers. Methanol can be stored, transported, and pumped like any other fuel.
Methanol can be extracted from coal and natural gas, of course, and a fairly large industry producing same already exists, with costs running about $1.00 per gallon. Investment in the industry could vastly increase production, either from government subsidy or private investment.
As well, Olah and his university researchers have developed a fuel-cell type catalytic device which can produce methanol from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Recycling CO2 would seem to be a benificial thing.
Olah invisions stationary plants which would produce hydrogen from whatever source, then use it on-site to produce methanol in large quantities.
He's apparently convinced that agriculturally-produced alchohol is never going to be sufficient to adress our energy needs, and is inefficient as well.
I may have to see if I can get hold of a copy of his book.