Trading Renewable Energy by using CO₂ : An Effective Option to Mitigate Climate Change and Increase the use of Renewable Energy Sources

The utilization of carbon dioxide (CO2) to produce methanol (to be used as energy vector and raw material for chemical production) in remote areas, where cheap renewable H2 could be produced from renewable sources, is a technology with a potential impact estimated to be more than 7 Gt CO2 equivalents. By using a techno-economic analysis, it is possible to evidence that methanol can be produced at competitive costs with respect to deriving energy from fossil fuels. This result, together with an analysis of the potential unexploited sources of renewable energy that are too far from users and grids, shows that the impact on the mitigation of climate change by this route is large, up to potentially 7 Gt CO2 equivalents, and at least comparable with that of carbon capture and storage (CCS). There are also advantages in terms of i) lower costs, ii) reduced impact on the environment, and iii) enhanced energy security. Further benefits are in terms of effective integration with the actual energy and chemical production value chains. The technology may be also used to store energy to solve the issue of generation intermittency present in most of the renewable energy sources. These aspects make this CO2 conversion path using renewable energy a potentially valuable approach to mitigate climate change and increase the use of renewable energy.