Nitrogen+Syngas 370 Mar-Apr 2021
31 March 2021
What about methanol?
“We may be beginning to see the outlines of a new fuel and chemical paradigm”
The ammonia industry seems to have quite a buzz about it at the moment. As can be glimpsed in our Nitrogen Industry News section this issue, the number of proposed green ammonia production sites continues to grow, as does interest in ammonia as a hydrogen or energy carrier, while the shipping sector continues to seriously consider ammonia as a green fuel candidate for the longer term. The latter prospect could see current ammonia demand double by 2050, although as our article on sustainable nitrogen production on page 22 notes, whether enough renewable power will exist by then to generate that must be seriously doubted.
But while ammonia has been grabbing headlines, what about the other major syngas derivative, methanol? Methanol has also been touted as a clean, or at least cleaner burning fuel, with an unsuccessful move into methanol fuelled vehicles in 1990s California, and a far more successful uptake as a gasoline blendstock in modern China. But production of methanol has the potential to be a use for sequestered carbon dioxide streams, and green methanol can be a bridge to production of a wide variety of downstream carbon-based chemicals, from gasoline to dimethyl ether and polyolefins, all using existing technology. One straw in the wind is that this March, Swedish power to fuel company Liquid Wind joined the Methanol Institute. The company says that it is looking at combining captured CO2 with electrolysis-generated hydrogen to produce carbon neutral fuels.
Methanol also has considerable potential as a shipping fuel, and one that might be available sooner and more easily than hydrogen or ammonia. AP Møller-Maersk recently announced that it will build the first carbon neutral ship powered by biomass-based green methanol by 2023; a 2,000 TEU bulk container ship. Elsewhere, Sweden’s Alfa Laval is currently beginning the third stage of a major programme testing methanol’s use in ships in Denmark, in conjunction with engine manufacturer MAN Energy Solutions and the Danish Technological Institute (DTI), as well as biofuel producer Nordic Green. Green methanol, the consortium says, could be burned in unmodified diesel engines, though it would require new engine software, which it hopes to develop as part of the test programme. German energy company Uniper also recently announced that it is launching a program designed to scale up green methanol as a sustainable and carbon-neutral marine fuel.
This flurry of activity in the shipping industry, following on from the publication of IMO Maritime Safety Committee interim guidelines on using methanol as a marine fuel has led the Methanol Institute to suggest that demand for methanol could grow fivefold over the next 30 years, reaching 500 million t/a by 2050 from its 2019 total of 98 million t/a – itself double the 2010 figure. In January the Methanol Institute published a report in conjunction with the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) called Innovation Outlook: Renewable Methanol which “describes an ambitious, yet realistic, energy transformation pathway based largely on renewable energy sources and steadily improved energy efficiency.” The report concludes that by 2050 that 500 million t/a of methanol production could be comprised of up to 135 million t/a of methanol from biomass (biomethanol); a further 250 million t/a of methanol from green hydrogen and captured CO2 ; and 115 million t/a of conventional/legacy methanol made from natural gas.
It is my frequent refrain when discussing such projections that this kind of widespread uptake can only happen if the production costs of hydrogen from electrolysis fall dramatically. However, even an old cynic like me cannot help but be impressed at how far such costs have already fallen in just a decade, and there are no doubt further technology improvements to come which will reduce costs at the same time that economies of scale unlock further per tonne improvements in production economics, just as they did for gas- and coal-based production. It is possible that we may be beginning to see the outlines of a new fuel and chemical paradigm that will transform the 21st century in the same way that oil and gas did the 20th, and the good news for ammonia and methanol producers is that those chemical building blocks may well be at the heart of it.
