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Things I'm wondering: At scale, could it be cheaper to convert methane to methanol for export, compared to exporting LNG? Would it be difficult to convert che
by DennisP 4y ago
Things I'm wondering:
At scale, could it be cheaper to convert methane to methanol for export, compared to exporting LNG?
Would it be difficult to convert chemical plants using methane feedstock to use methanol instead?
I'm assuming natural gas power plants wouldn't be convertible, but coal plants maybe would. What would that cost?
- 323 4y agoI think the majority of gas, at least in EU, is burned in residential heating units. Even assuming new burners that would work with methanol, I don't think you could send that through the existing gas pipes.
- andreareina 4y agoIs methanol even safe to burn?
- aaaaaaaaaaab 4y agoWhat do you mean “safe”? methanol + oxygen = water + CO2 + energy This is high school chemistry…
- p_l 4y agoThe exact physics of the reaction impact burner design and how much work is needed to adapt a burner designed for one fuel to another (sometimes impossible even if you're replacing gas with gas).
- Jabbles 4y agoMethanol is highly toxic; it is important to consider how we can make pumping it into people's homes as safe as possible.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- worik 4y agoIs methanol more toxic than gasoline?
- throwaway821909 4y agoNot sure if you meant something else but just in case, "the majority of gas, at least in EU, is burned in residential heating units" means natural gas i.e. methane, not petrol/gasoline
- jabl 4y ago> I'm assuming natural gas power plants wouldn't be convertible Nah, gas turbines are relatively flexible wrt fuel. Might need different injector nozzles.
- ncmncm 4y agoThey will mostly all be converted to burn ammonia before long.
- alliao 4y agoa lifetime ago my physics prof quipped that fluid dynamics was so difficult to model injector nozzles were still bit of a trial and error, wonder if this is still the case with all the modern computing prowess and perhaps better understanding of fluid dynamics?
- credit_guy 4y agoMethanol 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.
- jacquesm 4y agoBut it's safer to transport and does not require pressurization and it boils off much less.
- thinkcontext 4y agoThis has happened in WEst Virginia. They have stranded natural gas, that is no easy pipeline access, so it is available at a discount. China uses enormous amounts of methanol, so they funded a plant to convert the methane to methanol for export to China.