"China Accelerates towards Carbon Neutrality" Coal Chemical Industry: Carbon emission reduction path for coal chemical industry

In the coal chemical industry, we focused on the two products that consume the most coal - synthetic ammonia and methanol, which accounted for more than half of the coal consumption in the coal chemical industry in 2019. The carbon emission of synthetic ammonia and methanol comes from the by-product carbon dioxide in the process of hydrogen production from gas and coal combustion. According to our calculation, 1 ton of synthetic ammonia emits about 4.9 tons of carbon dioxide in the whole life cycle (see Figure 2), and 1 ton of methanol produces about 4.4 tons of carbon dioxide.

For the carbon reduction of synthetic ammonia, the decline in terminal demand is the biggest starting point, and it is expected to contribute up to 40% of the carbon dioxide reduction; On the supply side, energy efficiency improvements in production (including carbon reduction through process and operational optimization) contribute about 15%, coal-fired electrification contributes about 30%, and the remaining 5% to 10% of the carbon reduction gap needs to be addressed through emerging technologies such as carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) and green hydrogen.

Methanol has a similar carbon reduction starting point to synthetic ammonia, with energy efficiency improvements and coal-fired electrification reducing carbon emissions by 15% and 20%, respectively. However, due to the extensive use of methanol in construction and chemical industry, the final demand for methanol is expected to continue to grow in the next 30 years, so the larger carbon reduction gap still needs to be solved by emerging technologies. We estimate that in 2050, more than 80% of methanol production will need to use CCUS or green hydrogen to achieve the full carbon reduction requirements of the methanol industry under the 1.5 ° C temperature control path.