Methanol investment costs

Investments. Several studies have been published, evaluating the investment costs of methanol production from coal, lignite and biomass. The set of values have been selected as shown in Table IV ... 

Investment costs in methanol plants from wood, coal or lignite have the same order of magnitude. For a 1,000 t/day plant this cost is in the range US 140 to 180 million under present conditions in Brazil. 

Investment costs for methanol plants from wood ought to be less than for methanol plants from coal because wood has a very low ash content and is practically free of sulfur. 

Methanol production is not a "capital intensive" process as compared to other synfuel production systems. Fixed capital cost is between US 0.21 and 0.35 per liter/year of installed capacity. This investment cost is similar to that needed for ethanol production in Brazil. 

We have made cost analysis for the solar methanol production for the system of Fig. 1. In this analysis, SCOT-solar farm (Solar Concentration Off-Tower central receiver beam-down configuration) is used for solar concentrating system(Fig.2). This solar concentrating system has an economical advantage, since the heavy chemical plant can be installed on the ground. Since the high temperature of 1000-1200°C is obtained by the SCOT-solar farm, chemical plant (or reactor) for solar-assisted coal gasification can be operated. Table 1 shows estimated investment cost... 

The configuration of a 7000 MTPD DME plant is based on the combination of methanol synthesis and methanol dehydration. Attractive features of this process include lesser total investment cost and lesser oxygen consumption when compared with the methanol/DME coproduction route or direct DME synthesis route. Also, carbon dioxide is not produced in the DME synthesis step of this process. As shown in Fig. 6, this process utilizes a steam reformer, TEC s TAF-X reactor, oxygen reformer, TEC s MRF-Z methanol reactor, and TEC s DME reactor. 

Still several problems remain unsolved to make the DSHP-HPPO process economically viable (i) safety the reaction of H2 with O2 in the presence of a flammable solvent (methanol) puts high hurdles on safety (ii) removal of acid and bromide the Bronsted acid and the bromide needed to produce HP from the elements have to be removed before the generated H P solution can be used for epoxidation (iii) solvent recycle after the generated H P solution has been used for epoxidation, the methanol has to be separated and recycled. During work-up some additional by-products are formed formaldehyde, acetaldehyde, propionaldehyde, methyl formate, dimethoxymethane, 1,1-dimethoxyethane and 1,1-dimethoxypro-pane. These compounds are difflcult to separate (many make azeotropes with methanol), so the recovered methanol will be contaminated. However, even small amounts of aldehydes or formates can poison the Pd or Pd/Au catalyst. Additional equipment needed to solve these problems will increase the investment costs. 

A 300 MW IGCC power plant with electricity and methanol cogeneration has been proposed where 88 % of the carbon introduced by the coal can be extracted as CO2 with an acceptable amount of energy and investment cost which is partially utilized in combination with H2 from an external carbon-free source for methanol production. The overall balance for a 354 MW power plant (234 MW for the gas turbine and 120 MW for the steam generator) is an input of 2300 t of coal, 780 t of hydrogen, and 5500 t of CO2 (as intermediate product) per day to achieve a daily output of 3800 t of methanol and a total net power output of 310 MW [44]. 

A direct ethylene oxidation process for the acetic acid production was commercialized by Denko in 1997. This process is only competitive for small- or medium-scale plants. The raw material ethylene is more expensive than methanol and carbon monoxide, but the investment costs of these plants are much lower. Table 6.15.1 gives an overview of the catalysts, reaction conditions, yield, and byproducts for the major acetic add processes. The different processes are discussed in more detail in Sections 6.15.1-6.15.4. 

In 1998 a report prepared for the California Air Resources Board (CARB) called Status and Prospects of Fuel Cells as Automotive Engines favored methanol fuel cell stacks in cars over a direct-hydrogen infrastructure. Hydrogen is not as ready for private automobiles because of the difficulties and costs of storing hydrogen on board and the large investments that would be required to make hydrogen more available. 

The formation of prepolymer can also be achieved by transesterification of dimethyl terephthalate (DMT) with EG, releasing the by-product methanol. High-purity DMT is easily obtained by distillation and in the early years of PET production, all processes were based on this feedstock. During the late 1960s, highly purified TPA was produced for the first time on an industrial scale by re-crystallization. Since then, more and more processes have shifted to TPA as the feedstock and today more than 70 % of global PET production is based on TPA. The TPA-based PET production saves approximately 8 % of total capital investment and 15% of feedstock cost (Figure 2.1). 

As the required investment is between US 140 and 180 million the cost of methanol from wood is between US 150 and 165/t using advanced technology, and between US 174 and 190/t using traditional gasification systems. 

For any dramatic increase in U.S. methanol consumption, most of the supply would have to be imported. While biomass-generated methanol might be economical in the long term, there is a considerable amount of so-called stranded natural gas in distant locations around the globe that could be converted to methanol and shipped by tanker at relatively low cost, should increased demand warrant such investment.24 Methanol from natural gas would have little or no net greenhouse gas benefits in a future fuel cell vehicle, as compared with future hybrid electric vehicles (see Chapter 8). 

The novel synthesis required fewer process steps, and this resulted in lower costs and investment. In 1969, another advance was announced—the synthesis of acetic acid from methanol and carbon monoxide with essentially no by-products or co-products.15 16... 

Table 1 Comparison of investment and maintainance costs of a plunger and a diaphragm pump for methanol optimistic usual non-lubrication fluids 2 or 3 sealings per year...

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