Innovation - Methanol Goes Green

An Icelandic company’s head start producing the sustainable fuel is poised to pay off

- Danielle Bochove

Along a narrow winding road on a windswept stretch of Iceland's southern Reykjanes Peninsula, a collection of electrolyzers, compressors and pipes offers a turnkey solution to help decarbonize the shipping industry.

In 2006 the founders of Carbon Recycling International Ltd. saw an opportunity to use Iceland's abundant geothermal power, fed by the underground rivers of magma that heat the Arctic nation's groundwater, to create "electrified" methanol, a green alternative to fossil fuel. They located the George Olah Renewable Methanol plant-named for the late Nobel laureate-half a kilometer (0.31 miles) from the Svartsengi geothermal power station, whose warm runoff waters feed the famed Blue Lagoon tourist attraction.

The facility, opened in 2012, was the first in the world to produce e-methanol; CRI used renewable geothermal power from Svartsengi to separate hydrogen from water and combined it with recycled carbon dioxide captured from the geothermal plant to make the fuel. By 2015, annual e-methanol production reached 4,000 metric tons (1.1 million gallons). The operation helped prove the technology but not at a big enough scale to be profitable in what was still a nascent market. In 2019, CRI shuttered the plant to focus on pilot projects elsewhere. Now the Icelandic company's head start could be ready to pay off.

The accelerating climate crisis and heightened concerns about energy security have created a surge in interest in green methanol, which is made by synthesizing green hydrogen-hydrogen created using renewable electricity with renewable or recycled carbon dioxide. If the CO2 comes from biogenic sources, like agriculture or forestry waste, the resulting product is called biomethanol. If it's captured from other industrial processes or even directly from the air, e-methanol is produced. Both are considered green.