Methanol has a surprisingly low energy density. Here's a comparison with other fuels: - methanol: 20 MJ/kg - ethanol: 30 MJ/kg - crude oil: 42 MJ/kg

Methanol has a surprisingly low energy density. Here's a comparison with other fuels: - methanol: 20 MJ/kg - ethanol: 30 MJ/kg - crude oil: 42 MJ/kg - gasoline: 46 MJ/kg - methane: 54 MJ/kg Currently the world ships about 400 million tons of LNG per year. To get the same quantity of energy, you'd need to ship 1 billion tons of methanol. It does not automatically follow that methanol would be a bad alternative to LNG. Even if you need 2.5 methanol tankers for each LNG carrier, overall their cost could be lower, because they are simpler machines. The transportation cost would be probably higher, but transportation is not a huge component of the price of energy (it's just maybe 2%). The storage at the receiving site would be much simplified. Maybe the loading and unloading would be faster, even with the 2.5x multiplicative disadvantage. But overall this 2.5 lower energy density is still a very unpleasant aspect of the methanol as an alternative fuel.