methanol fuel march 2012 final

The Business Opportunity of the Decade

Methanol Fuel

Eyal Aronoff - Fuel Freedom Foundation, March 2012

Methanol Fuel Life Cycle

Feedstock

Natural Gas Production

Increased production causing the price to collapse

Natural Gas as Feedstock

1.7 trillion qft

$3.5 billion

17 billion gallon

methanol

10 billion gallon

gasoline

1.3 mbpd

$38 billion

12%of oil

import

Processing and Distribution

Advantages of Upstream Processing

Small addition to existing infrastructure

Up to 25% of the feedstock could be naturally occurring CO2 Could substantially boost methanol yield Lower the carbon footprint of the fuel

But requires methanol distribution system

Effective where large metro areas are in close proximity to the gas fields

Natural Gas Processing Plants

Gas Station Solution

Methanol production on demand Container-size gasifier connected to

municipal water and municipal gas No need for truck delivery and

underground storage tank Even at a commercial gas rate of over

$8/Mcf, methanol produced for under $1.5 a gallon

Profit margins are huge compared to profit from gasoline sale

The Methanol Car

For new cars: Open Fuel Standard For existing cars:

Activate E85 fuel flexibility + replace elastomers (seals and O-rings) = You get M60 compatibility

Upgrade to higher methanol blends with a simple spark table modification

The Methanol Car - Results

Very low tail pipe emissions 15% improved MPG relative to

gasoline on energy content equivalent

These results are similar to the results published by the Chinese experiment “16 gallons of methanol equal to 10

gallons of gasoline”

From Idea to Reality – What Needs to Happen…

Pass the Open Fuel Standard with methanol support requirement

EPA to define a standard for fuel-grade methanol including additives

EPA to relax after-market conversion rules EPA to give a waver for the 1 lb. rule UL certification for methanol mixer pumps National open source repository for

replacement fuels spark tables (a.k.a. “tunes”)

Work With Us

To capitalize on this trillion dollar-a-year opportunity we all need to work together

The Fuel Freedom Foundation is an NGO committed to opening the fuel market to competition

FuelFreedom.org