alcohol fuels

The current high price of oil is good news for the alternative fuel industry. We are seeing the beginning of an ethanol industry in Australia with a major ethanol refinery coming on line next year. However I'm into two minds on the matter.

There are real concerns about ethanol. To me be it makes no sense to convert food crops into fuel, also it takes energy to grow and process the grain so I'm doubtful about any net energy gain. I realise the Brazil has made huge progress with ethanol fuels but they use sugar not grain.

On the other hand we can certainty grow sugar crops. We already do in Queensland of course but we could grow lot more in the Ord and Northern Australia. Also theres cellulosic ethanol, a way to convert virtually any plant material into ethanol. Its still in the early stages but some processing plants are now going into production. Much of the political support for ethanol comes from the rural sector. The NSW government has mandated 2% ethanol in our petrol as a way of helping rural areas.

Now theres another fuel alcohol, methanol, methylated spirits. Its cheap, and can be produced from hydrocarbons like gas or coal as well as biological matter. However it has the great disadvantage of not having a well organised farming lobby behind it. American rocket scientist Robert Zubrin. Makes a strong case for methanol and will have a new book on the subject, Energy Victory, out soon.

I agree with Zubrin, the best reason to replace oil is to stop pouring money into Islamist states like Saudi Arabia. Cut their source of revenue and it would be a major blow to terrorist. I like his proposal, he wants the US government to mandate that all new cars sold be flexi-fuel, capable of running on any mixture of petrol, ethanol or ethanol:

Seventeen million news cars are sold each year in the United States. So within three years of enactment of a flex-fuel mandate, there would be more than 50 million cars on the road in the United States capable of burning high-alcohol fuels. This would unleash market forces that would quickly call into being high-alcohol fuel pumps across the nation, and mobilize large amounts of private capital to support vigorous research programs to develop ever cheaper ways of synthesizing alcohol fuels.

I doubt that such a mandate scheme could be introduced by Australia alone. Our market is only a fraction of the US market, but if the American did we wouldn't be far behind. We would be major methanol exporters too as we could convert our abundant hydrocarbons into the fuel. Zubrin was successful in convincing NASA to adopt his radical Mars Direct scheme for human Mars mission s as their design reference so he has some clout. With a Presidential election happening next year I hope his book has some influence.

Final comment. Australians buy about 1 million new cars a year. How about say, a $2000 government cash back for any new flexi-fuel car sold? That might kick start the industry.