Chinese Chemists report new DME (fuel) syntheses from biomass.

[NNadir]

"Methanol and dimethyl ether (DME) produced from
biomass are promising as a carbon neutral fuel. They
are ultra-clean, emitting none of the air pollutants SOx,
NOx, VOS, or dust, and they could provide a major
alternative for the transport sector worldwide in a
greenhouse-gas-constrained world.1 Several authors
have reported the syngas stream compositions of benchscale
and pilot biomass gasification units.2-13 However,
the utilization of biomass for methanol or DME production
via gasification faces the problem of a low H2/CO
ratio and a large excess of carbon dioxide in the produced
syngas. The large CO2 content lowers the overall
yield of methanol or DME.14 The H2/CO ratio can be
adjusted either by adding hydrogen or by a water gas
shift (WGS) reaction. The addition of hydrogen allows
better utilization of the carbon contained in the biomass,
with a high fuel production rate. But hydrogen admixture
to the syngas requires large supplementary investments.
The WGS reaction converts the large amount of
CO to CO2, and the stoichiometric adjustment can be
accomplished by removing excess carbon dioxide. However,
due to the extremely low carbon conversion efficiency
of about 20% of the biomass carbon content, the
methanol or DME production costs become very high."

From the upcoming March edition of Energy and Fuels.

[Botany]

1. Godless Chinese scienetists ......

......... but we don't teach our kids 'bout evolution or any of that science stuff.
Jesus wants us to burn fossil fuels. Because the end times are coming.

:bounce:

[AllyCat]

2. Now we're in trouble

We can't attack China and make them burn fossil fuels...well, we'll just have to sell more of our debt to them so they can't afford to produce clean fuels!

[Massacure]

3. methanol doesn't have a high energy storage capacity.

Isn't it in the around 60,000 BTU per gallon? What about BME?

I always thought algae was a good choice as you can get 10,000 - 20,000 gallons of biodiesel per acre. It would only take a 200 x 200 mile plot of land. It does give off NOx though.

If worst comes to worst, it can't be that hard to increase the size of the fuel tank though. Better yet, they could even make more efficient cars.

[hunter]

4. Large scale monoculture of oil producing algae would be as hazardous...

... to the environment as other large scale agricultural projects.

It would be similar to shrimp farming, non-organic rice cultivation, and so on.

To reduce non-productive competitive species of bacteria and algae a lot of antibiotics and other chemicals would probably have to be added to the water. Imagine how herbicide resistant crops are cultivated, and you'll get a good idea of how oil-producing algae would be cultivated.

Did you mean DME, not BME?

DME, Di-Methyl-Ether, is handled almost exactly like propane. It is not corrosive and not as toxic as methanol. A liquid gallon of DME carries about 85% the energy of a gallon of commercial propane-butane "bottled gas."

1.7 gallons of DME is the energy equivalent of a gallon of gasoline, although in practice a DME fueled diesel engine would probably be more efficient than a gasoline engine, which brings that number down somewhat.

Here's a quick chart of gasoline energy equivalents by volume--

Fuels that can be used with existing technologies:

gasoline  1
propane   1.5
ethanol   1.6
DME       1.7
methanol  2.4
cng       3.0  (compressed natural gas) 

Fuels that would require use of advanced technologies:

lng                    1.3  (liquified natural gas)
wood pellets           2.1
liquid hydrogen        3.7
compressed hydrogen   10.1 

Diesel engines get better milage than gasoline engines. DME would be used in diesel engines.

In practice, the use of bio-diesel reduces milage by 2-7%

Hydrogen, either compressed or liquid, in comparison to other fuels, does not fare well. Liquid hydrogen and compressed hydrogen are difficult to handle and would require the use of exotic high-efficiency technologies such as fuel cells to be practical.

I put wood pellets in this chart because a few months ago we were talking about wood-pellet fueled tractors and railroad locomotives in this forum.

[NNadir]

5. DME utility need not be limited to diesel engines.

It is also usable wherever either propane, butane, diesel fuels, or natural gas are used. Thus it is usable in direct turbine systems. The pollution profile is about the same as natural gas, although it has a much lower greenhouse potential owing to its short atmospheric lifetime (less than a few weeks.) If it generated from either biomass or from the fixation of synthetic syn gas from CO2 and hydrogen, it can be, CO2 greenhouse neutral.

It is also theoretically usuable in fuel cells.

It is already used as a refrigerant and has replaced CFC's in many applications as a propellant.