The consortium of Air Liquide, Nouryon, Enerkem and the Port of Rotterdam – has announced on Friday that Shell will join as a partner in Europe’s first advanced waste to chemicals facility in Rotterdam, Netherlands.
In the proposed commercial – scale waste – to – chemicals (W2C) project, Shell will become an equity partner.
“We are thrilled to have Shell join our group of partners,” says Marco Waas, Chairman of the waste-to-chemicals project in Rotterdam and Director RD&I at Nouryon. “The EU Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) coming into effect in 2021, as well as other environmental initiatives such as the Circular Economy Package are creating an ideal environment for leading companies to drive sustainable growth through innovation. The project will be further strengthened with the addition of another leading global partner.”
Andrew Murfin, General Manager, Advanced Biofuels, Shell, said: “Industry partnerships, just like this one, are critical to delivering some of the many solutions society will need to meet energy demand while reducing emissions to tackle climate change and air pollution. Advanced biofuels, including those produced using bio-methanol, have the potential to decarbonise the transportation sector, in particular. This is an exciting prospect given transportation accounts for one fifth of global energy-related CO2 emissions, and will continue to rely on liquid fuels, especially for long journeys and heavy-duty vehicles, for years to come.”
The planned facility will convert up to 360,000 tons of waste into 220,000 tons of bio-methanol –a chemical building block and a renewable fuel. This represents over 700,000 households ‘ total annual waste and represents an estimated CO2 emission savings of around 300,000 tons compared to methanol production from fossil fuels.
The facility will be built using Enerkem’s proprietary technology within the Port of Rotterdam’s Botlek area and will convert non-recyclable mixed waste, including plastics, into syngas and then into clean methanol for use in the chemical industry and the transport sector. This is an unconventional way of producing methanol which is generally produced from natural gas or coal.
The plant will have two production lines or twice Enerkem’s commercial plant capacity in Edmonton, Canada. It will benefit from the state-of-the-art infrastructure available within the Port of Rotterdam, as well as synergies with Air Liquide for supplying the required oxygen and with Nouryon, for the hydrogen raw material. Nouryon and Shell will purchase the sustainable methanol output of the facility, initially.