America has an alcohol problem, and it’s not what you think.
It’s time to save the internal combustion engine by expanding beyond the single form we currently use for fuel. In sync with President Donald Trump’s efforts to boost U.S. auto production, it is time to embrace methanol, not ethanol, as a car fuel alternative for the future.
In the 1980s, methanol was used as a vehicle fuel in the United States, particularly in California, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
But then corn lobbyists talked Congress into ethanol as an alternative fuel, something difficult to make but easier for select companies to mass produce and control. Generous federal grants and subsidies flowed to the corn lobby with the move toward ethanol. No one really cared at the time, and adding alcohol to petroleum-based gasoline seemed like a sensible thing to do.
But times have changed. Regulations cripple the U.S. auto industry, and the combustion engine is under attack from proponents of an all-electric future for vehicles. It is time to reexamine the best means of forming a vehicle energy policy. And it is time we recapture an American auto industry that has outsourced — and, in some cases, totally surrendered — production to foreign countries.
Adding methanol as a new fuel option is a free-market approach that benefits the economy and empowers consumers to make the best choices for their families.
Methanol can be sourced from many different materials. Unlike ethanol, which is made from relatively few plants, methanol can be made from virtually any vegetation, landfill gas, or even dirty diapers. This versatility means that any community can make methanol and thus promotes independence from foreign oils.
Methanol is a prevalent fuel in other sectors and parts of the world and can be used in internal combustion engines. China and Israel have ramped up the use of methanol in recent years and even run power plants with it. A growing number of ships are being built to run on methanol. Few people even realize that Indy and Formula One race cars, as well as top-fuel dragsters, run on alcohol, not gasoline.
Using methanol is quicker and cleaner than driving an electric vehicle. You can fill a methanol gas tank in minutes and enjoy an impressive range of travel, even more impressive when compared with current EV charging and range data.
The infrastructure already exists to add methanol tanks and pumps, with no government subsidy needed. Furthermore, the tailpipe emissions of alcohol-burning cars are far cleaner than those of gasoline. It provides a common-sense way to protect our environment, preserve a vital industry, and maintain a way of life that enjoys the freedom of low-cost mobility and the joy of the open road.
Methanol as a fuel also promotes innovation in manufacturing. With lightened fuel economy restrictions, American engines can be larger and produce more horsepower, and vehicles can remain large enough to contain an entire family and even take a family road trip. This revitalization of the internal combustion engine opens more jobs for American auto workers and restores the level of mobility and freedom that was once the envy of the world and that Americans previously took for granted.
It would not be difficult for the United States to convert to methanol, as cars were already using it in the 1980s. It simply means using gaskets and seals that can withstand the more corrosive nature of methanol versus the ethanol mix we use today. This introduces a chicken-and-egg conundrum. Which comes first: the new fuel or vehicles that can burn such fuel? At present, methanol-based fuel is not available for sale to consumers, and no cars built in the U.S. can burn methanol. Even if such fuel were available on the wholesale market, no gas station owner would incur the cost of adding such fuel if there was no market for it.
Herein lies a legitimate role for government: establish a new fuel standard and sensible incentives that help it gain traction.
Importantly, this would not involve spending taxpayer money like charging station installations have over the past decade. Instead, the government could incentivize manufacturers to produce cars capable of burning methanol-based fuel by providing relief under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy regulation for each such vehicle produced. Before long, such vehicles would roll off the assembly line, and the deadlock would break. This could usher in a new era of automotive innovation where the internal combustion engine continues to provide the most reliable and robust form of vehicle propulsion.
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What about ethanol vehicles, you ask? Good news! Ethanol can continue to be sold. In fact, vehicles that burn methanol can also burn ethanol. Thus, the market for ethanol will actually increase if more vehicles are designed to be capable of burning alcohol as the primary fuel.
Not all standards are bad. In fact, the government has a unique and vital role in promoting manufacturing by setting incentives for companies to build methanol vehicles and put methanol in the pumps for those cars. Exploring methanol as a fuel holds great promise for the future of the American auto industry and its consumers. It also saves the incredibly reliable internal combustion engine from being relegated to the ash heap of failed innovations.
Robert E. Norton II is vice president and general counsel of Hillsdale College. He has served as assistant general counsel at Chrysler and as in-house counsel for various national automotive suppliers.