Abby L. Harvey
GHG Monitor
10/31/2014
China is leading the world in the development of coal-to-chemical conversion technologies, and the United States should follow suit, Ren Xiangkun, Chairman of the Board of Beijing Baoju Energy Sci-Tech Co., said during a presentation hosted by the United State Energy Association this week. ”In China the units are large,” Ren said. “There are more than 1,000 plants in China. The units already in operation include one direct coal liquefaction, three indirect liquefaction, three coal to methanol to gasoline, two [synthetic natural gas], 230 coal to methanol, more than 400 coal to fertilizer and five coal to methanol to olefin. All these have been completed within 10 years,” he said, noting that the U.S. has very few such plants. “I think our American technology, we learned from you, but America will learn from our country, coal to chemical with CCUS.”
Ren noted that due to the abundance of coal in the U.S., the country is well positioned to address climate change issues by employing carbon utilization and conversion technologies. “Facing the huge pressure for CO2 reduction currently, China and the U.S. must work hard to develop clean and low carbon coal conversion technologies. My main point is coal is the most abundant fossil energy in the world. Coal and natural gas are in the USA. The important position [of coal] in China, the U.S. and the world, should not and cannot be neglected. Converting coal and natural gas into special fuels and using coal and natural gas as raw materials for carbon based products is an important developing direction for the future. Coal conversion has already developed dramatically in China,” Ren said.
Further, developing coal conversion technologies can increase energy security for the U.S., Ren said. “Recently, thanks to the shale gas revolution, and energy independence, dependence on imported oil and natural gas has decreased at a different rate in the U.S. But, I think oil import dependence is still as high as 45 percent currently. Making use of the abundant coal and natural gas to produce oil substitutes and reduce the oil import dependence is a real possibility for the U.S. for energy,” Ren said. Further, Ren noted, investing in coal to chemical conversion and carbon based materials will help to solidify a future for the use of coal. While the use of fossil fuels in the energy sector may be affected by renewable energy and nuclear, fossil fuels will still be needed to produce carbon based products. “Coal, oil and natural gas consumption will be increased dramatically in the future. Nuclear and renewable energy will replace part of power generation, but only part of power generation. Carbon based chemical products and carbon based material will still rely on, depend on, coal and natural gas.”
