Air quality programs as driving forces for a transition to methanol use

The continuing failure of many urban areas to meet air quality standards for ozone, inhalable particulate, and some toxic hydrocarbons is generating increased interest in substituting methanol for gasoline and diesel fuel. ‘Conventional’ hydrocarbon reduction strategies do not appear capable of providing the required emission inventory reductions. A new photochemical modeling study of the Los Angeles air basin shows that methanol substitution in motor vehicles would provide important reductions in peak one-hour ozone levels, and even larger benefits in such basin-wide ozone measures as total hours above episode levels. The results indicate that the emissions from methanol-fueled vehicles have substantially less photochemical reactivity-in the range of 25% to 50% of the emissions of gasoline vehicles. When combined with available methanol cost projections, the results indicate that methanol can be a cost-effective ozone control strategy. However, this cost-effectiveness depends strongly on methanol costs and oil prices and on whether the higher costs of methanol are allocated to any of the other benefits such as reductions in ambient benzene.