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ALTERNATE ENERGY SOURCES ARE NOT ALTERNATE FUELS
We have been developing "Alternate Energy"
- Solar, Wind, Geothermal etc. for 30 years since the first oil embargo
in 1973. While these have niche applications, they are not fuels. They
are intermittent, costly and unlikely to replace more than 10% of our
current fossil fuel needs.
These alternate energy sources diverted our attention from the real
problem during the waning days of cheap oil. Oil is a fuel
and its products can be used anywhere, anytime. The era of "cheap
oil" is over. Now we need to find alternate fuels.
Since we only have two types of engines today, we need to find replacements
for gasoline and diesel. There aren’t many choices. The alcohols
methanol and ethanol are excellent replacements for gasoline either
as a 10% blend (gasohol) or an 85% blend, widely used in Brazil. Methanol
is widely used at the race tracks because of its high octane and lower
cost.
Synthetic diesel was developed during WWII and South Africa has long
used “Fischer Tropsch” diesel made from coal. Now we have
“biodiesel” made from vegetable oils and fats or used cooking
oil widely available in the US.
It costs energy to make energy and the proponents of each fuel claim
special virtues for each fuel. We have developed ethanol from corn as
an alternate fuel. According to the US Department of Energy, for every
100 energy units it takes to raise and distill corn, we get 137 units
back. Not very profitable, but better than nothing. Proponents of biodiesel
claim that over 300 units are in the fuel for each 100 units of input.
In 2002 we obtained over 80% of world energy from petroleum, our "birthright"
gift from Mother Nature. Predictions differ as to when world petroleum
production will peak and then start to decline. Some say as early as
2008; others pooh pooh this and act as if tar oil shale, sands, bitumen
and other ucky stuff will prolong the oil age (but at ever increasing
prices) through their lifetimes and that seems to be all they care about.
If you think we have plenty of time to develop alternate fuels, check
out the time of peak oil production and other links at "Oil".
I have 4 children and 7 grandchildren (not to mention the rest of you)
who will also need liquid fuels, so I have been motivated for 25 years
to find alternate, renewable fuels. Unfortunately, the oil companies
are not motivated to encourage any competition from alternative fuels.
Read how they killed methanol
in 1974.
Some liquid fuels (ethanol) are made by biological processes, slow with
lots of water. They are currently not competitive with oil except with
subsidies. Others (synthetic methanol, Fischer Tropsch diesel) are made
by gasification
of organic energy sources (biomass, coal and natural and landfill gas)
and conversion to liquid fuel.
In 1973 (the year of the first OPEC Fuel Crisis) I began testing methanol
as an alternative fuel with great success in 10% blends with gasoline
in 10 cars. I wrote an article for the journal Science "Methanol:
A Versatile Fuel for Immediate Use" (Vol. 182, pp 1299,
1973) showing that methanol was the easiest alternative fuel to make
by gasification and one of the best for engines and fuel cells. That
article changed my life from being a material scientist at MIT to a
fuel scientist at NREL, the Colorado School of Mines and now the Biomass
Energy Foundation. In addition to methanol there are groups that promote
"ecalene", a mixture of many alcohols that have more energy
than pure methanol and are more compatible with gasoline.
I have operated my own personal cars on mixtures of 10% methanol and
pure methanol. Methanol is a component today in making biodiesel which
we also developed at the Colorado School of Mines in 1990.
-Dr. Tom Reed
