The methanol age (eBook)

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HOW METHANOL CAN SECURE ENERGY SUPPLY

A spectre haunts Switzerland. It’s the spectre of the blackout. For many years, the security of electricity supply was not an issue in Switzerland, maybe just for a few experts. But since 2021, the possibility of supply gaps from 2025 onwards has been on the cards. This is due to import capacities potentially decrease due to the lack of an agreement with the EU and the entry into force of a new regulatory package. In addition, despite electricity-saving measures, the demand for electrical energy tends to rise, partly because of the substitution of fossil fuels to reduce CO2 pollution and advancing digitalisation. Blackout headlines are the consequence, and these immediately triggered hectic activity in politics.

Security of supply in Switzerland

In principle, Switzerland produces enough electricity overall for its current needs. In 2021, around 60.000 gigawatt hours of electricity were produced: 62 percent came from hydropower plants, 29 percent from nuclear power plants, 4 percent from conventional thermal power plants and 6 percent from various renewable sources such as biogas, photovoltaic or wind power plants. However, electricity is not always available in the required amount. This means that in summer, more electricity is produced than is domestically needed, and in winter, the opposite is true. For a few years now, electricity has been exported in summer and imported in winter. In 2020, more electricity was exported than imported, namely around 10 per cent of the quantity used; in 2021, more was imported than exported, namely around 4 per cent of the quantity used.37

Electricity imports come primarily from the surrounding EU states. But now that the framework agreement with the EU has failed, Switzerland can no longer rely on sufficient electricity being supplied from the EU during the winter period. According to the “Clean Energy Package”, a new regulatory package that will come into force in 2025,38 all European transmission system operators must keep at least 70 per cent of cross-border grid capacities free for electricity trading within the EU from 2025. “How this should take into account cross-border capacities to third countries such as Switzerland is not regulated in EU legislation,” the Federal Council noted in October 2021. “This could significantly restrict Switzerland’s import capacities. In addition, the unplanned electricity flows caused by electricity trade between neighbouring countries could increase further and thus jeopardise grid stability in Switzerland.”39

A study examined the possible effects under three different scenarios. The worst-case scenario predicts a critical situation in the winter season, at the latest in March: For 47 hours, domestic power supply could then no longer be guaranteed. 66 gigawatt hours of energy per year would be lost. If additional production outages were to be added, “the supply could even be interrupted for up to 500 hours and more than 690 gigawatt hours per year could be missing,” the report states. That would amount to more than 20 days in total. The study highlights that the situation will be difficult without an electricity agreement in place with the EU.

The shutdown of nuclear power plants, already decided and due to take place in the foreseeable future, will further exacerbate the situation. “In the long term, Switzerland will face a massive shortage of electricity if we shut down the nuclear power plants and demand simultaneously rises as steeply as our climate targets suggest,” warned Christoph Brand, head of Axpo Holding, Switzerland’s largest electricity group, in an interview with the “NZZ” newspaper in February 2022.40

Proposals for little result-yielding solutions

The worrying forecasts have led to frantic responses in the political arena. Yet, most proposals to solve the dilemma turn out, upon closer examination, to be of little practical value.

At an unusually rapid pace for its normal work rhythm, the Federal Council set up a new hydropower reserve in 2022. A corresponding ordinance, which is limited until mid-2025, was passed on 7 September 2022. “The hydropower reserve is an insurance policy that is available outside the market,” the Federal Council’s media release states. “It may only be used to bridge critical bottlenecks that the market itself cannot cope with, such as towards the end of winter when electricity consumption would be unexpectedly high, electricity imports would be severely restricted and the availability of domestic nuclear power plants would be reduced. Energy from the hydropower reserve is available for such a case.41 And to make everything even safer, reserve gas-fired power plants, which are to be built but only operated in emergencies, are to fill any further gaps. The Federal Council does not say how the self-imposed CO2 targets are to be met with such new fossil-fuelled power plants. And who still wants to be dependent on states like Russia for the procurement of energy sources?

Expansion and new construction of dam walls

The DETEC has wanted to increase the country’s hydropower capacities for some time now through the expansion and construction of new dams. There are a total of 15 projects. The aim is to store water in summer to produce around 2 terawatt hours of winter electricity. The three most significant projects alone are expected to supply half of the additional electricity. The largest project would be a new reservoir on the Gornergrat in the Valais, which would account for a third of the storage capacity of all 15 projects. The second most significant project is the raising of the Grimsel dam, and the third largest is the new Trift dam located in the canton of Bern. DETEC persuaded several environmental associations to renounce their opposition to the projects. However, by no means do all of the 31 environmental associations that are entitled to lodge complaints stand behind them. The Foundation for Landscape Protection, for example, is vehemently opposed to the project on the Gornergrat, the Greina Foundation to the expansion on the Grimsel, which has been the subject of litigation for 18 years, and Aqua Viva and the Grimsel Foundation to the Trift project. In view of this opposition likely to exhaust all legal possibilities against the projects, it is hardly likely that these dam constructions will ever be carried out; if they are, then certainly not within a helpful period.

The call for new nuclear power plants

Nuclear power plants currently supply 33 per cent of the electricity produced in Switzerland. After the Federal Council decided to gradually phase out nuclear energy in 2011 following the reactor disaster in Fukushima in Japan, the existing nuclear power plants in Switzerland may continue to be operated if they are safe. They are to be shut down by 2050 at the latest. And the construction of new nuclear power plants is prohibited.42

Despite this initial situation, the blackout warnings led to calls for new nuclear power plants. Small modular plants are being praised as clean alternatives. In the aforementioned “NZZ” interview, Axpo CEO Christoph Brand considers such proposals “political electioneering”. He recently asked the head of a large reactor construction company: “If I order a small modular reactor today, when will I get it? His answer was: at the earliest, in ten years. But that would be the first series. And I don’t know whether we would want to use this first reactor generation in Switzerland right then.” Apart from that, it is doubtful that new nuclear power plants would be politically feasible.

At first glance, the concept of Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) seems interesting. In fact, they could produce electricity more cheaply than conventional nuclear power plants. But ultimately, the same problems of safety and radioactive waste disposal arise. Moreover, it can be assumed that regions in which such plants are planned will resist them with all their might.

Power to Liquid: Methanol is liquid electricity

One of the essential problems in securing the electricity supply in the future is the storage question: How can electricity be stored in a meaningful way? If you were to store surplus summer electricity instead of exporting it at low prices, you could use it in winter instead of importing expensive electricity. Methanol makes this possible.

Liquid power is the solution. This is the conversion of electric current into liquid fuel.43 This is precisely what happens in methanol synthesis. When it comes to storing electricity using methanol, we speak of power to methanol.

Various investigations and studies have shown how well methanol is suited for this purpose. In principle, electricity could also be stored in rechargeable batteries, but compared to methanol, it would require batteries with a thousand times the volume. This cannot be efficient, not to mention the problems with the raw materials for battery production. In a paper on long-term storage, Wolf von Fabeck takes the large-scale battery storage facility commissioned in Bordesholm in Schleswig-Holstein in 2019: it has a footprint of 450 square metres and a height of over three metres. “When all the batteries are charged, it has a capacity of 12-megawatthours. If instead there were a tank of the same size filled with methanol, it would have a thousand times higher capacity of almost 12,000 megawatt-hours,” writes von Fabeck.44

“Energy can be stored efficiently in the form of methanol”, wrote the Nobel Prize winner for chemistry George A. Olah, who first propagated the methanol economy based on his research.45 Methanol can be stored indefinitely and without loss, and storage is uncomplicated and...