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Trading Renewable Energy by using CO 2 : An Effective Option to Mitigate Climate Change and Increase the use of Renewable Energy Sources
Author(s) -
Barbato Lucia,
Centi Gabriele,
Iaquaniello Gaetano,
Mangiapane Alessia,
Perathoner Siglinda
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
energy technology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.91
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 2194-4296
pISSN - 2194-4288
DOI - 10.1002/ente.201300182
Subject(s) - renewable energy , climate change mitigation , fossil fuel , energy security , environmental science , environmental economics , climate change , natural resource economics , energy engineering , production (economics) , energy development , biomass (ecology) , waste management , engineering , economics , ecology , macroeconomics , electrical engineering , biology
The utilization of carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) to produce methanol (to be used as energy vector and raw material for chemical production) in remote areas, where cheap renewable H 2 could be produced from renewable sources, is a technology with a potential impact estimated to be more than 7 Gt CO 2 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 CO 2 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 CO 2 conversion path using renewable energy a potentially valuable approach to mitigate climate change and increase the use of renewable energy.