I can see the main fuel of the future being methane, we already have an infrastructure for it.
Shale gas and coal bed methane and maybe methane hydrates are large resources.
Non food crops and waste are good feedstocks.
It's storable so can be used in conjunction with other long term energy sources CCGT's could make used of solar thermal systems adding heat to the steam cycle, and CCGT's are a good match to nukes and / or wind, quick to build and flexible

Thank you for this report, which confirms my opinion that gasification is the most expedient way to handle waste biomass. H2 and CO are the most immediate syngas products, which can be used to produce more H2 via the water-gas shift reaction, or combined via catalyst to produce methane (CH4). H2 can be very efficiently used in motor vehicles and in chemical industries, and methane can be transported efficiently via pipelines for home heating and electricity production, as well as in NG-converted vehicles. H2 is difficult to transport, but the partially pyrolyzed waste biomass is compact enough to be transported via trains or trucks to the local communities whereby the H2 can be produced and stored for local use in FCV's, at two to three times the efficiency of conventional ICE (NG vehicles included).

I agree; the methane economy has some huge advantages. True it's a GHG but then again it's wafting up our noses from our guts. Nat gas is 80+% CH4 and it can be blended with fermentation biomethane and bio-syngas. When NG is pricey because we've burned too much in power stations the gas grid will still have a use as a vehicle fuelling network.

I see from the Robert Rapier article in The Oil Drum that GTL has less than half the EROEI of natgas. We're throwing 50% of the energy away just for the convenience of liquid form. Compression of methane into 200 bar cylinders (c.f. scuba tanks) is relatively safe and uses less than 5% of the contained energy. Piston engine cars may need to be van shaped to fit a large cylinder and the engines may need souping up to get petrol style performance. Provided guvmints don't slap huge fuel taxes on CNG then NGVs should compete with PHEVs. The sticker price of the vehicles should be lower since they won't need lithium batteries.

Of course when NG is used up sooner than we think bio-syngas could also run combined cycle generators that cut in when wind and solar fade out. This line of research should be encouraged and also the use of nuclear or renewable hydrogen as an input.

@SJC don't forget about ANG. Adsorbed Natural Gas tanks don't need to be "bulky." If you fill a standard high pressure CNG cylinder with nanoporous material such as activated charcoal (the same stuff used in fish tank filters) the cylinder will hold MORE natural gas at high pressure than a tank would hold without being filled with the material.

Or, in more interesting and game-changing scenarios, the standard high pressure tank can hold the SAME amount of natural gas at LESS pressure, making filling the tank much easier, or ANG tanks can be free-shape containers since the pressures are a lot less and the cylindrical shape is not necessary. A lightly pressurized natural gas tank can look like just about anything and be fitted into the same location as a standard gasoline tank in a car. Tanks can be bigger, have greater volume and hold more gas, thus giving more driving range.

Another thing to consider is octane. With an octane rating of up to 130, NG has the potential to optimize an engine's thermodynamic efficiency through a high compression ratio. With that you'd get more out of the fuel.

I think its similar to LPG but its renewable.
I think it is in some respects. Our government did try to promote the conversion of vehicles to run on LPG. Fuel tax is favourable, so rather than getting raped at the pump for petrol at $7 per gallon, it costs only $4.00. There are a few vehicles that run around on LPG, with an additional tank usually retrofitted in the spare wheel well.

I thought of a conversion myself, but then the Government has stopped any incentives for conversion. By the time you've factored in the cost of conversion, perhaps also increases in insurance premiums and the uncertainty that our government, who treats the motorist as a cash cow, could raise taxes for LPG, it's not worth it. It'll be diesel for me next.

The issue with gasification via pyrolysis is that a lot of the energy in the feedstock is lost as heat. More energy is lost in the conversion of CO+3H2 to CH4+H2O.

Supercritical water gasification may be able to work with nuclear heat from Gen IV reactors, yielding essentially 100% of the chemical energy of the biomass inputs in the product gases. Roughly 30% of the carbon is produced as C1-C3 hydrocarbons which need no further processing to be used as vehicle fuel. See http://www.anl.gov/PCS/acsfuel/preprint archive/Files/40_2_ANAHEIM_04-95_0304.pdf

ANG is good, but you need to clean up the NG a lot before putting it in the tank, contaminants ruin the ability of the adsorbant. It would be good from the stand point of the home refueling station to compress to a lower pressure.

The Honda GX had a bit more than 100 mile range with a big tank. The same tank with adsorbant would go the same distance but at a lower pressure. Any weight saved in the tank would be offset by the weight of the adsorbant. 100 mile range will not make it IMO.

http://www.solarserver.com/solarmagazin/anlagejanuar2008_e.html

In the U.S. we could make 100 billion gallons of methanol OR 100 billion therms of SNG from biomass, but NOT both. We can mix and match according to needs, but we use 230 billion therms of NG now per year.

We can conserve, but just so much and that is it. We can use solar thermal to heat homes and water. We can use PV to conserve NG use at power plants. But we need to shift one heck of a lot to make it even begin to work. Pickens wanted wind turbines to save NG to use in trucks. It might work but requires a HUGE investment.

Still has to be more efficient to burn gas in a generating plant to power EV's than to power individual ICE's. That's what was wrong with Pickens' whole concept.

Once big rig drivers see that using CNG, LNG or DME saves them a lot of money on fuel, they may start to convert. That would presume that the fueling stations would provide the fuel and perhaps endanger the delivery of conventional diesel from their suppliers.