
Methanol as a marine fuel
14 March 2023
Summary
The climate impact of e-methanol is mainly determined by the use of renewable energy throughout the whole production process and by the source of CO2 used as input to the production of the fuel. [...] As the combustion (or its use in a fuel cell) of e-methanol releases CO2 into the atmosphere at the end of the fuel’s lifecycle, the CO2 needs to be removed from the atmosphere beforehand in order to balance out the CO2 emissions downstream. [...] The largest growth in demand for methanol observed in Figure 1 is in the production of olefins or methanol-to-olefins (MTO), which is driven in particular by China who seek to replace the use of naphtha as a feedstock for the production of olefins that are used as raw materials in the manufacture of chemical and polymer products like plastic, rubber, and food packaging. [...] Some of the monkeys showed cystic degeneration of the outer granular layer of the retina, demyelinisation of the optic nerve and histological lesions in the putamen and nucleus caudatus. [...] (2021) suggest that the use of an oxidation catalyst should be obligatory in the future and that the additional effort required should be “manageable” as the catalyst technology required for the reduction of formaldehyde is not as sophisticated as that for 36 The dataset on average emission factors cited in the bullet points below are for a marine engine size of over 1 MW and an engine load of ove.