Reply #27: All the positive aspects of methanol apply also to ethanol - BUT [View All]

[JohnWxy]

Methanol is toxic and ethanol is not.

I know the oil and gas industry is gung-ho on methanol because you need to use natural gas to make it from biological sources (such as wood). It sounds like a green fuel but it's not. Ethanol requires only a fraction of the fossil fuel needed to make methanol (just the fossil fuel to make nitrogen fertilizer and to operate farm equipment and provide energy at the ethanol plant). (ethanol production will be using more bio-fuels in the future - biodiesel for farm equipment and methane from manure for the ethanol production process - enabling it to use even less fossil fuel). But much less fossi fuel is required to make ethanol compared to methanol.


NPR is I'm afraid committed to being toadies to the Republican Party. I guess they feel they need to do this to survive (much the same goes for Public Broadcasting Corp -(tv).

When cellulosic ethanol becomes commercially viable in 5 to 6 years ethanol will be made form agricultural and forest product wastes and fast growing energy crops. This will be several times as productive as starch based ethanol.