Assessing the prospect of bio-methanol fuel in China from a life cycle perspective

Along with rapid industrial development, China has become the world's largest energy consumer and CO2 emitter. In recent years, bio-methanol has been used as one of the low-carbon alternative energy sources in the transportation sector. This study assessed the development prospects of bio-methanol fuel with corn straw as a common feedstock in China in terms of energy consumption, environmental emissions, and economic costs based on life cycle assessment. In this study, the life cycle of bio-methanol fuel was divided into three stages: biomass growth, biomass collection, and methanol production. The results showed that the energy consumption of methanol extracted from biomass was 51.02 x 104 MJ/ton, CO2 emission was 667.53 kg/ton, and the economic cost was $502.0/ton (UD$ in 2022). Compared with coal-to-methanol fuel, although the life cycle economic cost was increased by 24.46%, the CO2 emission was reduced by 59.39%. If the bio-methanol fuel is applied to the marine industry, which currently has high carbon emissions and operating costs, the carbon emissions could be reduced by 54.01% per km, and the economic cost could be saved by 14.81% per km compared to the conventional diesel fuel. Some policy recommendations for developing bio-methanol in China are provided in the end.

Automated summary

With rapid industrial development, China has become the world's largest energy consumer and CO2 emitter. This study assessed the development prospects of bio-methanol fuel with corn straw as a feedstock in China. The results showed that bio-methanol fuel has lower CO2 emissions compared to coal-to-methanol fuel and can reduce carbon emissions and save costs in the marine industry.