On August 2, I published an open wager on National Review Online. I offered to bet up to ten people $10,000 each that I could take my 2007 Chevy Cobalt, which is not a flex-fuel car, and, running it on 100 percent methanol, get at least 24 miles per gallon on the highway. Since methanol averages less than half the price of gasoline — and can readily be made from coal, natural gas, or any kind of biomass without exception — this would demonstrate superior transportation economy from a non-petroleum fuel that is producible from plentiful American resources.
Unfortunately, no one took the bet. That fact alone says a lot. Of the 7 billion people on this planet, there are about a million or so who know a great deal about cars. Clearly, not one of them was sufficiently doubtful that it could be done to put his money on the line. Although it left me short a nice chunk of easy cash, the refusal of anyone to accept my challenge should have settled the matter. But some people, while refusing to take the bet, still demanded that I conduct the test anyway. I did, and here are the results.
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First, I ran the car on 100 percent methanol. This required replacing the fuel-pump seal made of Viton, which is not methanol compatible, with one made of Buna-N, which is. The new part cost 41 cents, retail. In order to take proper advantage of methanol’s very high octane rating (about 109), I advanced the timing appropriately. This dramatically improved the motor efficiency and allowed the ordinarily sedate sedan to perform with a significantly more sporty spirit. As measured on the dyno, horsepower increased 10 percent. With these modifications complete, I took my Cobalt out for a road test. The result: 24.6 miles per gallon.
When I first made the bet, many commentators thought that I would aim for high-efficiency performance with high-octane fuel by increasing the compression ratio of the engine (which is how race-car drivers using methanol have done it for the past half-century). However, with modern cars using electronic fuel injection, this is unnecessary. Instead, the necessary changes to the engine can be made simply by adjusting the Engine Control Unit software. Thus, except for switching the fuel-pump seal as noted above, no physical changes to the car were required.
Other critics commented that while I might be able to achieve good fuel economy, the idea was impractical because the emissions would not be acceptable. In response, I had the car tested for emissions with 100 percent methanol (M100), 60 percent methanol (M60), and ordinary gasoline (i.e., E10, which contains about 10 percent ethanol), and for comparison, did mileage tests for these alternatives as well. The results of all these tests are shown in the table below.
It can be seen that, far from failing to meet emissions standards, the Cobalt running on methanol was extremely clean, beating both the strict Colorado emissions standards and the national EPA averages by an order of magnitude. The complete elimination of carbon-monoxide emissions when using M60 is particularly remarkable — so much so that I initially thought it was an experimental error caused by faulty equipment at the emissions test station. I tested it again at a different station and got the same result.
Returning to the subject of fuel economy, this can be evaluated by dividing the miles per gallon by the pre-tax spot price of the fuels in question in order to obtain the pre-tax miles per dollar shown in the table above. It can be seen that when methanol is used, fuel-economy improvements of 40 percent can be achieved. (The spot price shown in the table is the New York Harbor spot price of gasoline and the non-discounted Methanex spot price, both averaged over the past year.)
Dr Zubrin,
your article was summarized so well even one of the "non-million" car knowers could understand the technology and the benefits. Which I'm sure was your intent. Task accomplished Sir!
I've forwarded your article to my sons in college. We discuss energy resources and work opportunities in the field frequently.
Intriguing results. Given that methanol is a basic chemical commodity, important on it's own but equally important as a starting point for more complex chemicals and that it can be made from various feedstocks (oil, coal, shale gas, as well as plants), use of it as a fuel makes much more sense (and cents) than ethanol.
It seems M60 is the sweet spot here, especially for CO output. M100 CO output per gal is unacceptable, especially when considering you have to burn more gallons of it.
My question, though, is how much energy and how much environmental impact does the methanol manufacturing process involve?
The ethanol craze has been proven to be a scam since it takes at least as much energy to create a gallon of ethanol as it produces. What about methanol?
First off, the "Captia" for allowing me to post was "Marital aid".. Hmm really??
Jerry_J those were the same thougths I had as I read the article. THink about the sheer amount of clean water it takes to make a gallon of ethanol, I wondered what are the downsides to the manufacturing of Methanol? The articles Author focuses on the all the plus side beneifts of his" study" without talking about what the downsides are or may be. To me if you are truly confident in something like this you are willing to brinig the counter points to what it is you advocate and answer them before your opposition even gets around to firing them off. ( i,e. blow up their ammo before they even get to use it agasint you). As some of the otehr poster have mentioned there are other factors surrounding the methanols use in modern engines that the author didn't talk about. I'm all for an open fuel debate so long as we in the debate are open to "vetting" all the pros and cons of any alternative fuel/ hybrid option.
I understand he used non-subsidized prices. The only reason that happens for ethanol is because of subsidies, so it is still profitable to make it even with a net decrease in energy. The unsubsidized price per joule would never be less than the alternative if it took more energy to create than can be extracted from the product, otherwise the sellers wouldn't make a profit. Though there might be economy of scale issues, if it is economical without subsidies, then it is that economical without subsidies
The main concern I would have is if it is corrosive to the engine(not sure if it is) the the energy cost of a new car might be more than the savings from using methanol.
This is a excellant article and tests, it is also a "no brainer", so any politician against it can be said in keeping our money flowing to the middle-east and truely not wanting jobs to be created here. Which can also be said of our President that doesn't want America to be energy independant but helps develope other country's energy, like South America. Can you imagine all the money spent on solar and wind, to his donation buddies, we could have a network in place for this kind of energy, we would spending less and having more money to spend on our families, so I'll be contacting my congressman and senator, but we need to bring it up with the republican canidates and make sure they are in favor of it..
The shortcoming is in parts durability, not necessarily in mileage. Methanol also absorbs water, so even a 100M fuel will contain more than trace amounts of water in a practical fuel cycle. This means corrosion-resistant fuel injectors or more frequent maintenance and replacement. Neither answer is too expensive, but this does need to be factored in.
Another question is fuel safety, to understand the difference in volatility and flash point from those of gasoline. Again, this is a small additional cost to train EMS people and service station owners on what to watch for.
Methanol is a safer fuel to use than gasoline, which is why open wheel auto racing switched to it the middle of last century. In an accident where the fuel cell is punctured, methanol is much less likely to catch fire than gasoline, all other things being equal.
The only drawback regarding fire is that a methanol fire is invisible in daylight. Seems like I read somewhere that something can be added to create "color", but not 100% sure on that.
Why is it taking so long for this country to end its energy independence of arabian oil? We refuse to exploit the tar sands, our natural gas, and now Methanol.
You would think a study like this would be block buster news, that our government would be screeming for lower emmissions and new American jobs...but no, the are not. Why does our government insist on sending our money to people and governments who want to kill us?
How exactly are we refusing to exploit methanol? This is not the same as rules and regulations limiting drilling for oil, this is the market determining methanol is not wanted.
This was not a study, it was a gimmick. The question is not whether a single car or a thousand cars can be made to run on methanol at a price that is less than gasoline. The question is whether it makes sense to structure our entire transportation infrastructure around using methanol as a major fuel sourse. So far the market says no.
