$2.65 to $2.85 per gallon, including a $1.45 margin.

When you can make more than $1 per gallon when the wholesale price for regular gasoline remains above $3 per gallon, it is a good business venture.

There are potentially some unknown problems with this technology. However, this is something that we could do today.

Think positive the methanol will clean out the pipes.

If we pass OFS, there will be millions more cars able to run M85 each year. This will provide us more options at a time when we can use them.

Why would M85 be a "no-brainer"? By using your brain, you could do the following:

Utilization of M85 (or preferably M100) in a turbocharged DI engine would enable use of the evaporative cooling effect to obtain an equivalent octane number of up to 200, as described by MIT already a couple of years ago. You would get a dramatic improvement in engine efficiency, potentially equaling - or beating - the diesel engine. You could make this engine fuel-flexible but you would have to reduce the power considerably when running on gasoline, due to the low octane of gasoline. Since methanol is the most efficient liquid fuel you could produce from natural gas (and syngas), the combination with the most efficient engine (fuel converter) would be unbeatable. Whether you could improve further by using a fuel cell as energy converter remains to be seen.

M100 engines aren't on the market yet. FF engines are, and there are probably 10 million of them in the USA right now. If we're looking at ways to drive the existing fleet, M85 cuts out the cost and energy loss of the MTG step; it is the obvious choice. I suspect that existing non-FF vehicles could run M10 or M15.

Regarding the piping of MeOH from the North Slope, this is also a good choice for a number of reasons:

1. It increases the product volume of the Trans-Alaska pipeline, keeping it well above minimum operating levels and preventing the need for intermittent operation.
2. It reduces the viscosity of the product, reducing pumping energy requirements.
3. It eliminates difficulties with ice and methane hydrates.
4. The anti-freeze nature of MeOH may make the pipeline immune to the "lipstick" phenomenon if it has to be shut down in cold weather and the crude gels; allowing all-weather restart capabilities is a big advantage.

According to some on here, it has a LOT to do with EVs. I have read people post that we should not do liquid fuels at all, that EVs will save the day and any attempt at liquid fuels will just delay the day of enlightenment.

I think it will be a while, there will be the early adopters which could include people that buy the first of everything, but whether it will continue to grow rapidly in sales remains to be seen. I hope it does.

Maybe I should ask people to read my comments more thoroughly… Since I am mostly discussing issues like this with engineers I might have been too brief, so I will elaborate a little more this time.

I did not refer to heavy-duty vehicles at all. There are many options (including M85) that would come before M100 in heavy-duty vehicles. I was referring to M100 in fuel-flexible cars. With new injection technology, blending with 15% gasoline would not be necessary. If we distribute M100, a blending pump could provide both M85 and M100 at the refueling station. This is if we want both options during a transitional period (i.e. M100 as the final solution) but we might also settle with M85.

US flex-fuel cars in the 1990's could use methanol. Most of them are scrapped now. New cars are optimized for E85 and often lack the volumetric capacity in the injection system to run M85. Some might not even tolerate M85 due to material compatibility. You would need a new generation of E85/M85 vehicles to be able to use M85 (again). A M85 vehicle can use both M85 and E85; an E85 vehicle cannot use M85. Note that it is not at all a difficult technical task to make M85 vehicle. By the way, M85 cars are produced in China today, albeit in low numbers so far.

Cars that are not fuel-flexible should tolerate a few per cent methanol. In Europe, blending is limited to 3% in the gasoline specification, so car manufacturers must adapt to this level. The limit is probably similar in the USA. However, there is a practical restriction with low-level blending. The oxygen content of gasoline is limited and when ethanol is already used as a blending component (E10), there is “no room” for methanol. Thus, methanol blending could only be done in those areas where ethanol blending is not used. Still, the potential is great and this is definitely the easiest way to introduce methanol on the market. One problem with low-level methanol blending (not with M85) is the increase in vapor pressure. Thus, the base gasoline must be modified. This is already done with the gasoline in E10 but the capacity to produce this gasoline quality would have to be increased. (The increase in vapor pressure is higher for methanol than for ethanol.)

Alcohol blending provides little – or no – improvement in engine efficiency. With dedicated vehicles (M85 or M100) optimized for the high methanol content, we could improve efficiency and displace more gasoline. Therefore, this solution would be desirable on a long-term horizon. However, gasoline via MTG could be introduced on the market without any of the considerations discussed above.

I did not refer to heavy-duty vehicles at all.

New cars are optimized for E85 and often lack the volumetric capacity in the injection system to run M85.

An alternative which requires only material compatibility is to use a lower methanol content so that the volumetric fuel requirement does not exceed specs for E85. I make that around M50. Calculating backwards from the delivered cost of MTG gasoline at Valdez, the cost of the methanol is around $.65/gallon; M50 would be very attractive at that price.

Cars that are not fuel-flexible should tolerate a few per cent methanol.

gasoline via MTG could be introduced on the market without any of the considerations discussed above.

I might add that if you run a three-way catalyst at high power under lean conditions, you will kill it in a very short time. Stratified charge engines today only run lean at low loads. At high loads, they all run stoichiometric or slightly rich.

Furthermore, a recent study in Australia showed that you could run into this problem also with low-level blending if the blending level is too high (>10%).

EP is right, the ag lobby made sure that FFVs were ethanol only. Methanol will come along over time. People don't care that much what fuel, as long as the car runs and it does not break the bank.

That is why we need the OFS, to make all new cars sold in the U.S. true FFVs that will run gasoline, ethanol AND methanol. There will be a bill supported by both parties in the U.S. Congress soon. The U.S. automakers have said that they are willing and able to make these cars and that the incremental cost is small, around $200 extra per vehicle.