Published on August 8, 2013

With every country aiming to become environmentally conscious, studies and experiments to find a viable alternative non-renewable fuel have increased. Could methanol be the answer to years of toil and hard work? Let’s find out.

Methanol for decades has been utilized as fuel for various forms of transportation- from racecars, to fleet vehicles, to passenger cars and aircraft turbochargers, replacing gasoline in various parts of the world.

The 1980s and 1990s witnessed use of methanol-fueled fleet vehicles in UK, New Zealand, Japan, Canada, Sweden and Norway. Countries like South Africa and Germany have manufactured methanol from coal, whereas Europe has increased its reliance on methanol owing to environmental reasons. Israel recently got government approval to utilize M15, 15-percent-methanol variety of gasoline that is used in conventional engines. Dor Chemicals has decided to establish a million ton/year methanol plant (US$700) in Israel that would enable them to benefit from the country’s large reserves of natural gas. The country aims to reduce their reliance on petroleum by 60% by 2025.

Iceland is home to a renewable methanol producing unit. Methanol in the said unit is produced using waste carbon dioxide. Global environmental decline has motivated Sweden to produce fuel-grade methanol from biomass. However, China has surpassed every other nation with respect to its methanol use. When compared to other countries, China blends the largest amount of methanol into its gas supplies which enables them to limit fuel costs. What has worked in their favour is the abundant supply of coal and massive amount of oil imports. With numerous major developmental projects methanol use in China’s transportation sector has succeeded in replacing nearly 8% of the country’s gasoline requirement.

China is also encouraging construction of smaller facilities to convert municipal waste into methanol and is developing alternative fuel vehicles with internal combustion engines. China intends to sell 500,000 flex-fuel vehicles every year by 2015 and 5 million a year by 2020.

The coming years are likely to see increased methanol consumption by China. They also aim to boost their methanol production capacity to 50 million tons by 2015. The methanol’s fuel market share is also expected to increase as a result of domestic availability and cheaper cost of methanol when compared to gasoline.

China is also looking to establish innovative projects focused on conserving energy and preventing pollution.

Thus either in times of a temporary oil crisis or when in need of an alternative to petroleum based fuels, China will always be well prepared. However the major concern associated with China’s methanol production and consumption is that the country produces its methanol from coal. Coal-based methanol is said to have a greater carbon footprint than gasoline when utilized as a transportation fuel. Increased use of methanol produced from coal will also lead to a hike in world coal prices.

Natural gas is often considered to be a better option than coal while producing methanol. Apart from China some of the major countries like USA produce methanol from natural gas. However this would not affect prices of natural gas in countries that have abundant reserves of shale gas and other renewable resources.

In U.S.A, ethanol fuel is considered to be a much more viable alternative to methanol fuel, mostly because ethanol is less toxic and has a greater energy density. However producing methanol sustainably proves to be cheaper and provides an economical way to lessen carbon footprint. But a mixture of methanol, ethanol and gasoline is preferred as the said blend provides greater opportunity for optimizing engine performance, fuel availability, toxicity and political advantage.

Methanol, for many countries including emerging economies, is a fuel that can be sustainably produced, has a favourable financial side, and can be easily integrated with the present fueling infrastructure. Lack of domestic oil reserves can never be a hindrance as methanol can be used as an alternative feedstock. Further methanol helps reduce toxic emissions, eliminates harmful aromatics like benzene, xylene etc, and is biodegradable. Thus methanol doesn’t create long-term threats for the environment. With all these benefits methanol does seem like a feasible alternative to the petroleum-based fuels and can help us attain the ideal of an environment safe from threats to its existence.