Professional Documents
Culture Documents
1
‘Methanol Refueling Station Costs’ by EA Engineering, Science and Technology February 1, 1999.
2
AAA Daily Fuel Gauge (May 1, 2011) - http://fuelgaugereport.aaa.com/?redirectto=http://fuelgaugereport.opisnet.com/index.asp
Methanol Savings vs. Gasoline
For every 10% of the gasoline that we currently use that is replaced by methanol, just over 75 million
gallons of methanol would be consumed each day at a cost of $110.6 million to drivers – compared to
the $149.3 million for the same amount of gasoline at current retail prices. This would create an average
savings of $38.7 million a day for consumers, and over $14.1 billion a year. Each household would be
benefited by over $1,000 average cost savings every year if they filled up with M-85 every day.
Methanol’s price advantage over gasoline is apparent in the above graph of historic prices. The most
common feedstock for making methanol today is natural gas, requiring only 100 cubic feet of natural gas
to produce one gallon of methanol. Methanol is also the most effective and immediate way to take
advantage of the price difference between natural gas and crude oil prices. In fact, researchers from
Massachusetts Institute of Technology completed a study entitled “The Future of Natural Gas” in which
they determined that methanol was “the liquid fuel that is most efficiently and inexpensively produced
from natural gas,” due its mature production technology and the affordability of deploying FFVs capable
of running on all alcohol fuels.
To replace 10% of our current gasoline demand we would use about 2.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas
each year. At a current cost of $4.50 per thousand cubic feet for natural gas, that would mean over $11
billion worth of natural gas would be consumed. This represents a mere 10% of our current annual
production of natural gas in the U.S. – which is expanding with new discoveries and technologies - and
allows us to conserve consumer money, tap into domestic resources, and reduce harmful engine
emissions like particulate matter, cancer causing agents and smog that come from gasoline.
Methanol also benefits from polygeneration – in that anything that is, or ever was, a plant can be used to
produce this biodegradable fuel. Natural gas, coal, biomass, agricultural waste, landfill gas, industrial
waste and even CO2 itself can all be used for methanol production based on existing mature
technologies, as well as cutting edge science. The U.S. has abundant supplies of all of these resources
available to meet our transportation needs, and methanol serves as a gateway technology to advanced
biofuels adoption. Renewable methanol fuel – and derivative fuels such as bio-diesel and bio-dimethyl
ether (DME) – can also help efficiently and economically achieve the U.S. Renewable Fuel Standard
targets.
Methanol Production in the U.S. and Jobs Impact
The number of permanent jobs in present-day large scale methanol from natural gas production plants
is about 120 jobs per facility, producing 1.7 million gallons of methanol per day. Thus, displacing 10% of
the gasoline market with domestically-made methanol would create between 5,000-7,000 highly-skilled,
high-paying jobs in engineering, chemistry and advanced sciences. Using the EIA’s jobs multiplier for
indirect jobs in the communities of these facilities, it is estimated that another 70,000–90,000 jobs would
be created as well as tens of thousands more in the natural gas supply sector.
For methanol manufacturing plants that use biomass, researchers at MIT average that there are 50
permanent jobs per biomass-to-methanol plant - due to their generally smaller scale of about 160,000
gallons a day. Additionally, to satisfy the biomass collection requirements for these facilities if 10% of
gas were replaced, researchers at MIT cited that over 300,000 jobs would be created around the
country. As with most biofuels, these are primarily rural jobs that can help bring vitality back into small
and rural towns decimated by the economic downturn and aid in development of biomass in the
heartland and timber regions of America.
With the demand created by the Open Fuel Standard Act, during the initial construction phase for these
facilities, a large economic benefit would be immediately realized by communities. About 40% of the
cost of a new methanol plant is labor for installation, with some of the largest new plants costing
upwards of $1.2 billion each. With more than 40 of these plants needed to offset gasoline consumption
by 10% with all domestically produced fuel, there would be up to $20-22 billion of short-term, immediate
investment and then over $7 million in payroll at each facility each year.