European Energy’s partnerships with LEGO, Novo Nordisk and Maersk represent as many practical cases of green fuel for the chemical industry, plastics and transport that can be used in Romania, claims the Danish company.
“European Energy has established a partnership to supply green e-methanol to LEGO, Novo Nordisk and Maersk, demonstrating that global industry leaders are taking steps towards climate neutrality. Renewable energy, while reducing electricity prices, will not be able to achieve the necessary reduction in CO2 emissions on its own, as industries with high gas emissions have an impact on climate change. For this reason, more investments are needed in deep decarbonization, in the development of Power-to-X technologies, such as e-methanol and green hydrogen, allowing heavy industries to switch to ecological fuels,” said Ioannis Kalapodas, Head of the Bucharest Office of European Energy.
“European Energy, despite an extremely turbulent year, has invested 800 million euro in 2022 in the development and construction of wind and solar energy capacities, as well as green hydrogen and e-methanol production facilities. The main reasons that keep us on track – this is our contribution to carbon neutrality both in energy production and in the decarbonisation of industry and transport, supporting the European economy, society, stability, independence and last but not least, taking care of our future generations,” added Ioannis Kalapodas.
Industries with high emissions
By the end of 2022, renewable energies accounted for 40% of installed energy capacity worldwide, according to IRENA, which represents very good progress in changing the global energy mix, reducing CO2 emissions in the energy production sector. But what about industry, including the chemical industry and the production of formaldehyde, acetic acid and plastics, polyethylene and polypropylene, what about transport, vehicles, ships, industrial boilers that use mainly fossil fuels or methanol produced from fossil fuels?
For example, 60,000 commercial ships sail the seas, accounting for 2.89% of global CO2 emissions. Aviation accounts for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, but contributes about 3.5% to climate change and is one of the fastest growing sources of greenhouse gas emissions. In Europe, trucks account for 15% of the continent’s CO2 emissions; in America, the corresponding figure is 26%. Heavy industry is responsible for nearly 40% of global carbon dioxide emissions. With numbers like these, it’s easy to see why greening these industries and sectors is vital to mitigating climate change.
The impact of climate change
Unfortunately, the reductions in CO2 emissions due to improvements in the energy intensity of GDP and the carbon intensity of energy have been smaller than the increase in emissions due to increased levels of global activity in industry and across all economic sectors. At the same time, the negative impact of climate change and the increase in average annual temperature will make every region of the world face other dangers, such as health problems, floods, loss of biodiversity in terrestrial, freshwater and ocean ecosystems, as well as a decrease in food production, landslides, lack of available water, etc. with social, political and economic impact.
The growth of RES and the need for greater investment in deep decarbonisation
With almost 295 gigawatts (GW) of renewable energy added worldwide in 2022, resulting in a 9.6% increase in the renewable energy stock, we still see a lack of investment needed to to achieve Europe’s goal of net zero emissions by 2050. Investments worth 1 trillion euro per year are needed in the European Union to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030. This amounts to 356 billion euro more per year than what is currently invested not only in renewable energy, but also in the deep decarbonization of all economic sectors.
What is deep decarbonization and the Power-to-X solution
The key to the deep decarbonization of industries is represented by alternative green fuels such as green hydrogen, green methanol, which can later be used for road transport and industrial purposes, or can be converted into environmentally friendly fuels, chemicals and materials.
Electricity from the sun or wind can be used to produce green hydrogen and e-methanol, the so-called Power-to-X process, which offers the possibility to substantially decarbonize these big polluters.
Examples of Power-to-X projects in Denmark
Denmark is a world leader in planned Power-to-X (PtX) projects. According to the Methanol Institute, Denmark has 11 PtX projects underway, the second highest number in the world after China. European Energy is behind five announced projects in Denmark and is pursuing the development of PtX facilities in many of the markets it operates in, including the US, Brazil and Australia. This is part of the company’s ambition to build PtX facilities around the world to produce green hydrogen and e-methanol, or so-called e-fuels, using renewable energy.
European Energy’s collaboration with LEGO, Novo Nordisk and Maersk – cases
In 2023, European Energy will start production of environmentally friendly hydrogen and e-methanol at the world’s largest e-methanol plant, using electricity produced by its own 300 MW Kassø solar power park. When fully operational, the facility will be able to produce 32,000 tons of e-methanol annually. The Power-to-X projects will enable the decarbonisation of heavy fuel and plastics industries, having supply agreements with the world’s largest toy company – LEGO Group, the leading health company – Novo Nordisk and the largest transport company maritime in the world – Maersk. With Maersk, the supply agreement provides for the delivery by European Energy of 10,000 tonnes of carbon neutral e-methanol for the recently ordered fleet of green ships.
Five things about green e-methanol worth knowing:
- It is a versatile fuel that can be used in internal combustion engines as well as hybrid and fuel cell vehicles and ships. It is a liquid at ambient temperature and pressure and is therefore easy to store, transport and supply. It is compatible with existing distribution infrastructure and can be mixed with conventional fuels;
- Methanol is a key product in the chemical industry. It is mainly used for the production of other chemicals such as formaldehyde, acetic acid and plastics. About 98 million tonnes (Mt) are produced per year, almost all of which is produced from fossil fuels (either natural gas or coal).
- Green methanol could play a greater role in decarbonising certain sectors where options are currently limited – notably as a feedstock in the chemical industry or as a fuel in road or maritime transport.
- The cost of e-methanol is highly dependent on the cost of hydrogen and CO2. The cost of CO2 depends on the source from which it is captured, for example from biomass, industrial processes or directly from the air. The future cost of green hydrogen production depends mainly on the combination of further reducing the cost of renewable energy generation and electrolysers and increasing efficiency and sustainability.
- Annual world methanol production is expected to increase from 100 Mt today to over 120 Mt by 2025 and 500 Mt by 2050.
In conclusion, the national economy must achieve climate neutrality not only by greening the energy mix, but also in heavy industry and transport, by addressing process differences and by facilitating the expansion of production and use of green hydrogen and green methanol. Certainly, cost reduction will require a range of policy interventions. With appropriate support mechanisms such as the tax regime, long-term agreements with operators, financial risk mitigation instruments, renewable methanol and hydrogen could become more price competitive against high energy prices electricity and fossil energy, which would make the transition to green fuel consumption in heavy industry and transport more realistic.
