Forget the hydrogen economy, go methanol!
 

"Scientists in Germany and Italy have discovered a way to derive hydrogen gas from methanol at low temperatures and pressures using soluble ruthenium based ‘pincer’ catalysts."
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/si...nation_630.jpg

Supercharging methanol for fuel cells

This seems a much better idea as it's sticking with a liquid fuel. One that can initially be made from natural-gas prior to more renewable sources coming on-stream.

...bet the "...soluble ruthenium based ‘pincer’ catalysts." ain't cheap?!?

But by definition, a catalyst is not consumed in the reaction.

Liquid fuels beat all gaseous fuels hands down, but natural gas production is currently consuming fresh water at an unsustainable rate, and causing way more pollution than we know or can handle.

Methanol is good stuff, especially for biodiesel production, bet we need to make it from something else, like cellulose.

When you refer to natural gas, are you quoting fossil natural gas? One thing that I consider a shame is that many biomethane is wasted at landfills and sewage treatment stations while all that fossil natural gas is extracted :mad:

My diesel is methanol ready.
Heck any diesel could use methanol to reduce diesel consumption for maybe $1000 right now.
Methanol is so much easier to make than ethanol.

Attempts to reinvent how we power personal transportation as the age of oil wains have time and again run into the brickwall of the fossil infrastructure that already exists. ~ for instance, even though pure BEV are perfectly useful today for over two-third of all journeys the average driver won't be even considering them as a second car.
- The thing I like the look of for this methanol tech is the infrastructure adjustments appear to be far easier, whilst issues like range anxiety and 'charging time' are sidestepped.

The methanol should not be produced from any fossil source ideally, that's a given. But realistically we need a way to give momentum to newer to technologies (momentum that hydrogen will never gain IMO [and for good reasons]), but personally I'd rather water that we can't be spared (in an ideal world) was used for turning a relatively low carbon fuel like NatGas into an efficient, workable road fuel than have fresh water [and NatGas!] consumed in, say, upgrading tar-sands; continuing business-as-usual!

I am not sure you are considering biodiesel.

UFO, as your signature asserts, "no oil for blood"... but the same is true if a rich minority of the world's pop. is going to steal the 'bread basket' from the poorest, surely?

To be fair, the future of energy is going to need to be much more diverse than the 20th century was, but unless a diesel or petrol replacement can be made today by means that won't be in competition with someone's arable land (like a way that the whole of the Sahara can be pumping out oil from captured sunlight) I don't see how we aren't going to require some fossil-fuels to make the transition - and natural gas is better than the others!

Biodiesel can be produced from algae and wastewater. Not bread. Natural gas is not better, it's a fossil fuel and it is consuming our fresh water to produce (far more scarce and valuable).

What are the global projected quantities that could be realised for producing Biodiesel "from algae and wastewater"? ... a tenth of current diesel use; a hundredth? - It's not so simple when looked at in these terms.
That's the 'well' part of the equation; what about the 'wheel'? - nice clean methanol (of what ever source) sloshing around in a fuel tank has the potential (via the tech above) to turn (I'd estimate) three-quarters of it's chemical energy into driving (via a fuel-cell/e-motor) the wheels -full cycle- ... biodiesel is only suited for an ICE and will be lucky to return one quarter chemical efficiency full-cycle; plus it does nothing to encourage wider changes in infrastructure, etc.