What the hay?

This truck, which was hauling hay, gave me an idea for a post. It made me wonder if raising hay for biochar and methanol would be worth it.

The process would be as follows:  after collecting the hay, pyrolyze it into syngas and biochar.  Using the syngas, synthesize methanol.  Ship the methanol to the final end purchasing site where it is reformed into hydrogen for fuel cells.

The biochar would be used for improving soils and could also serve as a carbon sink.  Since the entire process doesn't use fossil fuels, it is actually carbon negative.  Some of the carbon goes into the soil, the rest is recycled back into the atmosphere where it can be harvested again some day.

You would obtain the necessary platinum from mining asteroids. If the price of platinum can be brought down low enough, the final end result could be a cleaner source of energy at a reduced cost. How could you lose?

How much fuel could you get out of this much hay?

Update:

Only three posts in this series, but I wrote extensively on the subject of using seaweed in the Dead Zone of Gulf of Mexico to clean it up and make biofuel out of it.

Part 2
Part 3

Many of the posts for this could be found in the category labels that are at the end of this post or others in the first two parts may give leads to finding more reading.