Petropoly: The Collapse of America's Energy Security Paradigm | Energy Policy Book | Geopolitical Analysis | Perfect for Students, Researchers & Policy Makers

If, in fact, flexible fuel vehicles can be manufactured at low additional cost and capable of operating on any combination of gasoline, ethanol, or methanol, the oportunity to disrupt the existing OPEC monoppoly on fuel supply and dramatically lower fuel costs in the trasportation sector, is very real. The feasibility of this approach has already been demonstrated on a large scale in many areas of China, with mixtures of gasoline with methanol (methyl alcohol) as M15, M85 and even M100. Methanol can be prepared at much lower cost and from a variety of feedstocks including natural gas, low grade coal, biomass and combinations of those. Competition would be introduced in fuel chioice by making methanol and ethanol available for refueling either as separate fuels or blends with gasoline. The book does not discuss the effect on the American job situation, but that the large number of new alcohol plants, each with many emplyees, should also be a positve factor favoring this approach. With petroleum at $100/bbl, the cost per vehicle mile traveled could be reduced by a factor of three (by my estimates) with M85 made from biomass and natural gas while also substantially reducing greenhouse gas and other harmful emissions