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Assessing the prospect of deploying green methanol vehicles in China from energy, environmental and economic perspectives

journal contribution
posted on 2023-05-21, 14:56 authored by Li, C, Jia, T, Wang, H, Xiaolin WangXiaolin Wang, Michael NegnevitskyMichael Negnevitsky, Hu, Y, Gang Zhao, Wang, L
Since the early 2010s, China has been accelerating methanol vehicle development to secure energy supply and reduce environmental pollution. Although completed pilot projects have demonstrated the economic and technological maturity of methanol vehicles, their overall emissions are still high, as methanol is predominantly produced from coal in China. To combat this, two green methanol routes (CO2-to-methanol and biomass-to-methanol) have been proposed as vehicle fuels. Before further deployment, comprehensively comparing green methanol vehicles with other vehicles is crucial; therefore, based on life-cycle assessments and cost analyses, this study compared green methanol vehicles with coal-to-methanol, conventional gasoline, and electric vehicles considering energy-focused, environmental, and economic perspectives. Combined with these results, we developed a comprehensive evaluation model to prioritize green methanol vehicles among the different vehicles in China. The evaluation results show that biomethanol vehicle ranks first; the potential of CO2-to-methanol vehicle is limited because of its high fuel cost and high energy consumption: 2.6 and 13.9 times of biomethanol, respectively. Based on the designed scenarios, the government should develop a dynamic policy scheme consisting of scaling up the deployment of biomethanol vehicles according to local conditions and developing CO2-to-methanol vehicles if fuel technology advances considerably after carbon neutrality.

History

Publication title

Energy

Volume

263

Issue

Part E

Article number

125967

Number

125967

Pagination

1-14

ISSN

0360-5442

Department/School

School of Engineering

Publisher

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd

Place of publication

The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford, England, Ox5 1Gb

Rights statement

© 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Repository Status

  • Restricted

Socio-economic Objectives

Energy systems and analysis

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