To: Sleeperz who wrote (3089 ) 9/9/1998 9:16:00 AM From: Sid Turtlman Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Urlman: To briefly add to CR Lum's comment, methanol contains only half the energy content of gasoline. So you would need two gallons of methanol to get you as far as one gallon of gasoline, assuming that a fc car and a gasoline car were equally efficient. In fact, a fc car should be more efficient, but not twice as much, when you take into account the energy cost of reforming the methanol. So ignoring taxes, your fuel cost per mile should be higher for a fc powered car at the prices you cite. Of course, at the moment, most governments tax gasoline highly and methanol lightly or not at all, so that would aid the adoption of fc cars, but if they were actually successful the government would have no choice but to start taxing methanol as well, or lose the revenues they claim they need.
