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Executive Summary

ethanol and Di Methyl dependence on fossil fuel will and convert the available biogas
Ether (DME) are emerging continue for many years to come, to methanol or DME via steam
Malternative liquid fuels for till viable renewable energy is reforming.
transportation. While methanol available and delivered to users.
could be used directly or blended The large methanol/DME plants, MSW is another good source of
low cost hydrocarbon feedstock for
with gasoline, DME is suitable based on fossil fuels, could easily
for diesel engines. Methanol is a reduce impact to the environment, power generation. India generates
liquid at ambient temperature but by capturing the carbon produced about 50 MT of MSW per year which
could easily produce more than
the boiling point of DME is much during the processing of the
lower and could be handled like hydrocarbon source to methanol/ 1500 MW of power. While disposal
Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG). DME. Therefore, the current trend of the waste and generation of power
is in focus, production of chemicals
DME also has excellent flammability in the world is to have more focus
and is a better replacement for LPG. on capture of carbon dioxide, if was never considered in India so far,
During the last few years the use fossil fuel is used for production of from MSW. It is worth considering
methanol/DME plants in some of
of methanol and DME as fuel has methanol/DME, and smaller plants
increased significantly. Methanol from biomass and MSW which again these cases.
demand is growing at a robust 6 produce carbon neutral fuel. It may There are several emerging
to 8 % annually. The demand for be noted that with the progressive technologies in the area of methanol/
DME has also increased and much developments in technology, these DME production. The most
of the methanol demand is because gasification plants are becoming promising is the use of plasma arc
of its usage in production of DME. cheaper to build and operate. for gasification and carbon dioxide
In India, the use of both methanol In India, all the methanol plants are hydrogenation. These technologies
and DME as fuel component is very have great promise for waste
low at present. Currently, there is based on natural gas or naphtha. disposal and carbon dioxide fixing.
surplus production of methanol in Although there is great demand for Plasma based technology can handle
methanol in India, the availability
the world but the demand in India wide variety of feed materials with
is much more than the indigenous of natural gas and price of naphtha production of, harmless slag. It is
production. along with the low import price of suitable for gasification of assorted
methanol, is preventing new plants
Although the use of methanol and from being set up. biomass or solid waste in small and
medium scale. The economics of
DME as alternative transportation
fuel was initially fuelled by their The utilization of biomass in India conversion of carbon dioxide to
excellent burning characteristics is not very well organized. Much methanol with hydrogen depends on
the availability of low cost renewable
of this is burnt as such in several
and lower GHG emission, however
subsequently, with the price biomass based power plants. Since hydrogen and concentrated carbon
advantage of natural gas, methanol late 90’s several plants are operating dioxide near the production facility.
in India based on gasification
Geothermal energy is one of the
and DME derived from natural
gas penetrated into the liquid technology, developed by Indian cheapest sources of electricity,
which could be used to split water
Research groups. These are small
transportation fuel market. Recently,
coal has also been widely used, units producing as low as 20 KWH for hydrogen.
particularly in China, for production energy. These plants operated This report explores all the avenues
without any technological issues and
of methanol and DME for fuel for production of methanol and DME
application. were economically viable. Therefore, in India. Since methanol production
it is very much possible to build
Unlike gasoline or diesel which are up DME plants also based on small in India is less than the demand,
mostly produced from petroleum scale bio gasifiers with indigenous several large scale methanol plants
can easily be installed.
crude, methanol and DME could design from TERI, IISc. or from other
also be produced from renewable local sources. At present, there is no production
sources, such as biomass via syngas Although India is having many of DME in India and the use of
or via reforming of biogas. With methanol as fuel is also negligible.
the increasing concern about GHG biogas plants through anaerobic Since the present objective is to
emission from energy usage, the digestion, most of them are of small introduce methanol as transportation
capacity, and in most cases cater
fuels produced from renewable fuel component, the only option
sources are being favoured over the local requirements at a very is to produce from methanol
the non-renewable sources. From low investment cost. It may not be by dehydration. A road map for
worth to consider this segment for
biomass virtually carbon-neutral fuel implementation has also been
can be produced. methanol or DME production. Larger presented in the report.
biogas plants could be planned with
To meet the increasing energy the available digestible biomass from
demand in the developing countries, large animal farms or similar sources