Shell Joins Air Liquide, Nouryon in Enerkem Waste-to-Chemicals Project in Rotterdam: The Complete Story

by Jim Lane (Biofuels Digest) ... Shell will become an equal equity partner in the proposed commercial-scale waste-to-chemicals project, which will be the first of its kind in Europe to make valuable chemicals and biofuels out of non-recyclable waste materials.

The consortium, which has set up a dedicated joint venture company, has already undertaken extensive preparatory work, covering detailed engineering and the permitting process. It aims to take the final investment decision later in 2019 as it pursues the development work and finalizes the selection of an engineering and procurement contractor (EPC).

The project at a glance

The waste-to-chemicals project in Rotterdam is an important step towards a more sustainable chemical industry and circular economy. Leveraging Canadian cleantech Enerkem disruptive proprietary technology, the commercial-scale facility will be the first of its kind in Europe to provide a sustainable solution for non-recyclable wastes, converting unrecoverable plastics and other mixed waste streams into new raw materials. The waste-to-chemicals project in Rotterdam is a prime example of how a true circular economy can be achieved by preventing the use of fossil sources for new materials, diversifying the energy mix and by making everyday products lower carbon while offering a smart, sustainable alternative to landfilling and incineration.

The project can help the Netherlands realize its ambition to become virtually carbon-neutral by 2050.

The planned facility will convert up to 360,000 tons of waste into 220,000 tons (270 million litres) of bio-methanol – a chemical building block that is used to manufacture a broad range of everyday products, as well as being a renewable fuel. This represents the total annual waste of more than 700,000 households and represents a CO2 emission savings estimated at about 300,000 tons when compared to the production of methanol from fossil fuels.

The project is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs & Climate Policy, which has agreed to develop mechanisms and regulation that will help bring this new technology to full scale to support the low-carbon transition of the Dutch economy. The waste-to-chemicals project is also supported by the City of Rotterdam, the Province of Zuid-Holland and InnovationQuarter, the regional development agency.

Though Enerkem’s showcase facility continues to be its first commercial plant in Edmonton, this waste-to-fuels pioneer has been hard at work on expansion with a dizzying slate of projects, and given that it can even more easily produce methanol than ethanol, chemicals make tremendous sense where there are not supportive policies to encourage fuel production.

We reported last month that Enerkem is looking at Massachusetts to possibly site new WTE plant, here, and in December we reported that Enerkem brokered a deal with the Twin Cities allowing it to move forward with planning an MSW-to-ethanol project, here. Last September we reported here that Enerkem was now producing bio-DME from MSW, as a replacement fuel for the diesel sector,. And, last May, we reported here that Enerkem plans to build EUR250 million facility in Spain.

Much of the activity flows from a highly successful $223 million capital raise the company completed last February as we reported here, which included a signature $125 million investment from China’s Sinobioway.

Shell has been much more visible in the past 12 months in the advanced bioeconomy than in the previous three years — a result of re-tooling its strategy and advancing meanwhile on key partnerships and technologies.

The plant will have two production lines, or twice the input capacity of Enerkem’s commercial plant 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 (large industries) for supplying the required oxygen and with Nouryon, for the hydrogen raw material. The current aim is that the facility’s sustainable methanol output will be purchased by Nouryon and Shell. READ MORE

Excerpt from Bio-Based World News: In its document, BP highlights various energy scenarios. One of these scenarios assumes that the "regulation of plastics tightens more quickly than in the past" due to growing environmental concerns. As a result of this, BP speculates that there could be a worldwide ban on single-use plastics by 2040.

In a statement, BP (@BP_plc) suggested that demand for oil will be limited in the coming decades if the world shifts from using plastics to alternatives to plastics.

However, BP said that swapping plastic for other materials like glass or paper could have a bigger cost in terms of energy and carbon emissions. It also said it could lead to more food waste if alternative packaging were not as effective.. This is because there may not be “further advances in these alternative materials and widespread deployment of efficient collection and reuse systems”.

BP chief economist Spencer Dale told the BBC: “If you swap a plastic bottle for a glass bottle, that takes about 80% more energy. That will be more energy, more carbon emissions. That bottle is a lot heavier so it takes an awful lot more energy to transport it around.”

BP are not the first organisation to claim that a plastic ban could have unintended consequences.

Last November, researchers at UK-based Heriot-Watt University published a study showing that an outright ban on plastics could cause significant damage to the environment. READ MORE