Could this green car breakthrough drive fuel cell future?

A breakthrough by a team of Chinese researchers could see family sedans travelling up to 1,000km on a tank of methanol, eclipsing the performance of hybrid cars.

The new technology, reported in a recent issue of the journal Nature, converts the methanol to hydrogen gas, which is then used to power fuel cells generating electricity. The vehicle would be fast, quiet and emit no smog-producing pollutants.

Methanol, an alcohol made easily from coal, is the preferred fuel of many racing drivers, because it burns efficiently, is less likely to overheat a high-powered engine, is less flammable in an accident, emits less pollutants, and costs just a fraction of the price of petrol or diesel.

But drivers do not get much mileage from a methanol-burning internal combustion engine and the fuel is also toxic and requires careful handling. Previous attempts to mass-market methanol-powered cars to drivers in America in the 1980s and 1990s failed.

But in China, a country rich in coal resources, interest in methanol has been rekindled. Car industry entrepreneurs and leading energy scientists are lobbying the government to embrace the “methanol economy”, an idea proposed in the 1990s by Nobel Prize winner George Olah, to reduce oil and natural gas imports and improve the quality of air in big cities.