Re: Maybe you guys can understand this (methanol related)


"G. R. L. Cowan" <gcowan@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:44CA4CB0.544E7ABA@xxxxxxxxxxx
AKA Gray Asphalt wrote:

This article seems to answer a lot of questions brought up here about
methanol, but I can't understand it very well, as it is pretty technical
for
education level in science. Maybe you guys can translate and critique it
...

http://www.fuelcellsworks.com/Supppage4854.html

Only one lie that I could see:

"... In 2001, Prakash and his colleagues developed a new membrane
... With this refinement, the direct methanol fuel cell
gives an efficiency of 35 percent,
about twice that of an internal combustion engine ..."

35 percent is in fact about what car engines give at the
driveshaft. Powertrains lose some, so not so much arrives
at the tire contact patches, but it's very dishonest to
suggest that the 35 percent that may, conceivably, have been
seen in a very low-specific-power methanol fuel cell
wouldn't similarly collapse like last year's jack-o'lantern
if it came off a lab bench, and kilowatts-per-kilogram were added,
and an EV powertrain, and manufacturability and durability.

Aside from a little extra bulk and weight, methanol, IIRC,
is a pretty decent diesel fuel. If it ever drives a production
car, it will do so in the same way it now drives race cars:
by burning.


--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
"Boron: A Better Energy Carrier than Hydrogen?"
http://www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/Paper_for_11th_CHC.html

Thanks for reading the article and giving your thoughts. The 35% is a very
important number, though. But I wouldn't call it a lie, just yet. It may be
a difference in terminology or something else, no? What do you mean by 'very
low-specific-power'? Does that mean that the battery was tested at low power
and torque? Are you saying that methanol batteries aren't now and never will
be viable power sources for vehicles?
How about for grid power? Replacement for petroleum in plastic production?


.

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