Can Methanol Really Make a Dent in US Oil Demand?

Energy Tribune - Opinion
Posted on Jul. 29, 2009
By John Lynn

Ed note: A few days ago, we ran a piece by Geoffrey Styles which was extremely skeptical about the ability of methanol to displace traditional motor fuels. We were contacted by the methanol industry which, understandably, wants to give their side of the story. To be clear, we at Energy Tribune remain skeptical about methanol. But in the interest of equal time, we agreed to publish this piece by John Lynn of the Methanol Institute.

For an alternative transportation fuel system to succeed, you need to have several ingredients. Since the world’s fleet of cars, trucks and buses require a lot of fuel, you need a large feedstock resource base for the alternative fuel to make any kind of a meaningful dent in oil consumption. The extraction, refining and distribution of gasoline and diesel fuel is highly efficient and cost-effective, so for alternative fuels to compete at the pump you have to find a way to do so economically (preferably without the need for expensive and long-term government incentives). Alternative fuels will also have to do better than the petroleum-based products on the “well-to-wheel” analysis, showing significant reductions of greenhouse gas and criteria pollutant emissions. Finally, you can’t forget the consumer. The transition to any alternative fuel has to be smooth and simple for the customer at the pump (or plug). It has been more than a decade since a US automaker sold a methanol flexible fuel vehicle, but no other alternative fuel has really taken off in the intervening years. Methanol is now re-emerging as the clear alternative transportation fuel precisely because it has all the necessary ingredients for success.

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