The global transition towards sustainable energy has placed green fuels at the forefront of efforts to decarbonize aviation, maritime, and heavy industries. These green fuels — renewable diesel (RD), liquefied natural gas (LNG), hydrogen, ammonia, and methanol — promise a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels. However, mainstream adoption requires overcoming significant barriers, including scalability, infrastructure […]
Navigating the seas with green methanol: A low-carbon marine fuel
Methanol is a versatile chemical traditionally used to produce a wide range of other commodity chemicals like formaldehyde, acetic acid, and MTBE. Formaldehyde, acetic acid, and MTBE are the three primary chemicals that make up around 85% of methanol’s use in chemical applications. Formaldehyde is used to make urea-formaldehyde and phenol-formaldehyde resins, which are widely […]
Methanol for Power Generation
The discovery and rapid development of shale gas and unconventional oil plays has dramatically increased the supply of natural gas in North America. This growing natural gas resource can be monetized in several ways including conversion into liquefied natural gas (LNG), methanol, or other liquid hydrocarbons. Given the promise of new, cheap supply and methanol’s […]
Natural Gas Utilization via Small-Scale Methanol Technologies
Low natural gas prices have helped in driving new attention and interest to natural gas monetization options, which will play an important role in spurring natural gas demand. One promising gas monetization option is the production of methanol using small-scale plants. Conceptually, small-scale methanol plants offer a number of advantages. The first advantage is that […]
Will Expanded Emission Control Areas Lead to Faster Adoption of LNG by Marine Vessels?
Large volumes of cheap North American natural gas from unconventional plays are driving companies to monetize the new supply in several different ways. One is to use LNG as a marine fuel. We have briefly touched upon the benefits of using LNG as a marine fuel in a previous article. There are two main drivers […]
Two Paths Forward for Natural Gas in Marine Applications
With tighter emissions regulations looming over the heads of marine vessel fleet owners, there is new interest in alternative fuels that are more environmentally friendly than diesel or heavy fuel oil. The expanded supply of North American shale gas is giving fleet owners two environmentally friendly options for alternative marine fuels: LNG and methanol. Both […]
Monetizing North American Shale with Methanol
As shale-led natural gas production increases in North America, companies around the world are exploring different monetization options. Producing methanol from natural gas has emerged as a popular option for several reasons. Natural gas is a cheap and abundant feedstock in North America, methanol is easy to transport, methanol has numerous uses, methanol prices tend […]
