Decarbonizing Energy of a City: Identifying Barriers and Pathways

As researchers and ultimately deployers of energy decarbonisation solutions, we collectively see significant but often siloed efforts that in isolation may appear as an appropriate solution to an aspect of energy decarbonisation. However, when systemwide thinking is applied, a former attractive solution may become more challenging and, likewise, a less attractive silo may become more appropriate as part of an energy systemwide approach. Thus, the aim of this paper is to combine proposed energy decarbonisation concepts, e.g., electrification, hydrogen, biogas etc., with the status of the system in which they intend to operate, and then highlight the barriers, opportunities, and alternatives that may come into play when the whole system is taken into account. This is a hypothetical study using the city of Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK as an example and reflects, in part, the city’s desire to decarbonise while enhancing its economic prosperity. The “system” is defined as the region boundaries, i.e., Northern Ireland will supply the energy (all or in part) to the city of Belfast. The methodology deployed here therefore is a framework of energy thinking that is the basis of such energy decarbonisation plans at a city-wide level

Technical and Environmental Analysis of Methanol Synthesis from Solid Recovered Fuel and Lignite

The purpose of this work was to perform a technical and environmental analysis of methanol production from solid recovered fuel (SRF) and lignite feedstocks. The main driver was to ensure that while pursuing the dual goal of improving security of supply within the EU and reducing carbon dioxide emissions from the power and transport sector, other environmental issues were not engineered into the system, and to provide recommendations to improve the process sustainability. The technical analysis was carried out using the inhouse ECLIPSE software and SimaPro was used for the environmental assessment. Data for the modelling was supplied by project partners, supply companies, databases, and literature where necessary. The results showed that increased SRF in the feedstock mix, decreased the environmental impact of methanol production, however, the environmental impact was greater than the natural gas reformer used for benchmarking. The sensitivity study considered off-gas thermal recovery and carbon capture, which for the 80% SRF, the impact was less than the natural gas reformer. It was concluded that SRF mixed with lignite to produce methanol could achieve the dual goal, providing off-gas recovery and carbon capture was employed. Other recommendations include considering onsite renewable electricity generation for process electricity.The authors kindly acknowledge the financial support of the European Project LIG2LIQ (RFCS-01-2017 GA796585) co-funded by the European Commission managed Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS)

Methanol Production from Solid Recovered Fuel and Lignite: Techno-Economic and Environmental Assessment

The main purpose of this work is to examine the techno-economics and environmental assessment of the Solid Recovered Fuel and Lignite to methanol pathway. Methanol is produced by gasifying the solid fuels to carbon monoxide and hydrogen and then reacting to produce methanol under pressure during the methanol synthesis process. The data obtained from the partners is used to adapt this study for the liquid fuel synthesis application. The in-house personal computer-based process simulation package, ECLIPSE, is used to perform process modelling and the techno-economic assessment of methanol production. The @Risk 8.2© software is used to estimate the cost contingency of the project. The SimaPro © software package was used to carry out the Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). The gasifier plant contributes significantly to the capital costs. The results show that increased Solid Recovered Fuel (SRF) in the feedstock mix has favourable economics due to the negative SRF charges resulting in a lower break-even selling price (BESP) than feedstock mixes with higher ratios of Lignite. Plant availability, capital investment and the time value of money are the factors that have the greatest impact on BESP. Increasing the SRF in the feedstock mix decreases the Global Warming impact of the methanol production compared to higher proportions of Lignite. However, the resultant impact is much greater than that of a natural gas reformer. Furthermore, the employment of off-gas recovery and carbon capture can further reduce both the Global Warming impact and the overall Single Score of the process, making it favourably comparable to the natural gas water gas shift configurations.The authors kindly acknowledge the financial support of the European Project LIG2LIQ (RFCS-01-2017 GA796585) co-funded by the European Commission managed Research Fund for Coal and Steel (RFCS)