Forget
electric cars. I want a methanol PFCHV
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
It's
all electromethanogenesis, baby
Forget electric cars?
I must be off my rocker, right? So, which wild hair
crawled up my behind?
Well, I am a fan of fuel cell technology, you see, and
I've long believed that fuel cell hybrid vehicles, not
just battery-powered EVs, are the future. Fuel cells are
just too efficient to ignore.
Yet, fuel cells are not without faults, such as the need
for scarce metals. Still, fuel cell issues, I'm confident,
can be resolved.
It's cracking the hydrogen highway that's the real nut.
Methanol fuel cell plug-in hybrid vehicles, on the other
hand, could use methanol pumped through the current
gasoline infrastructure that dominates American life
today.
No new hydrogen highway.
No new super grid.
No new charging stations - not that they're bad - just not
as needed in the short term with methanol PFCHV's.
But is producing methanol any more favorable than
hydrogen?
It could be a game changer according to an exciting Penn
State University study cited by Green Car Congress.
Turns out electromethanogenesis, produced by microbial
electrolysis, might be a great way to create methane.
So what?
Excess solar power and wind power, for instance, could
potentially be converted into methane in a very
transportable form. Thus, and this is just one tiny
example, instead of homeowners with solar roof tops
selling excess electricity during peak hours to the
utilities for a fraction of the value, it could be saved,
and stored locally for nighttime AC use. Or it could be
used as auto fuel - auto fuel that can be transported
across the country using the current
American fueling infrastructure.
Hence, not only could electromethagenesis be the key to
making alternative energy, such as solar power, terribly
more cost effective - almost instantly - it could unify
the entire energy sector, including autos, into a much
more fungible outcome than electricity alone.
Sure, a plug-in methanol fuel cell hybrid vehicle, if
microbial electomethangenesis can be cost-effectively
commercialized, is still just an electric car, but it
would be an electric car that could use both
grid electricity and methane - methane that can utilize
the same pipeline as today's gasoline.
Range anxiety? Obsolete with such a vehicle.
Obviously, there are issues to resolve before making such
a vehicle a reality, but the potential of this technology
demonstrates that battery powered EVs are not necessarily
the end game, nor necessarily the best path for the auto
industry.
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