• Recently, government has stressed the need to adopt “Methanol’ as an alternate to fossil fuel and bedrock for energy security.
• Country’s 90% of demand of methanol is met by the import due to lack of domestic production unit and availability of cheaper methanol in international market.
• India imports 99% of its methanol from Iran and Saudi Arabia where methanol is produced from easy and cheaply available natural gas.
• China is the leading producer of Methanol in the world.
• India has the 5th largest coal reserves (feedstock of methanol) which can be utilised for methanol and DME (Dimethyl ether) production.

Need of Methanol

• Huge fossil consumption: India is the 6th highest consumer of fossil fuel and would become 3 rd largest consumer by 2030. Adoption of methanol will minimise fossil consumption e.g. Methanol will reduce 20% diesel consumption by next 5-7 years.
• Reducing import Bill of crude oil and other petroleum products to the tune of over 5000 Crores annually in next 3 years.
• Environment: Fossil fuels increase GHG Emissions. Methanol on the other hand produces no particulate matter, no soot, almost nil SOX and NOX emissions.

NITI Aayog Road Map for Methanol Economy

• Methanol Economy Fund- has been created with a corpus of 4,000-5,000 crore to promote production and use of the clean fuel.
• Indigenous Technology- Production of methanol from Indian high ash coal from indigenous Technology, in large quantities and adopting regional production strategies would be promoted.
• Waste-to-Energy: Promoting use of \agricultural stubble, Stranded Gas & Municipal Solid Waste etc. for methanol production can give almost 40% of methanol production. It will also complement Swachh Bharat Mission.
• Increasing the use in Transportation: Methanol economy concept can be capitalised by automobile companies under Make in India initiative. This will result in greater FDI flow and increase in Employment.
• Methanol for Clean Cooking Fuel goal: in order to ease out the import burden of LPG due to programme such as Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), methanol or DME blending with LPG or complete adoption of methanol as cooking fuel is visualised by NITI Aayog.             • Other Uses – such as methanol as fuel in Industrial Boilers, telecom tower Gensets, producing various chemicals like formaldehyde and acetic acid.

Way-forward

• Huge investment in infrastructure– as methanol as a fuel is corrosive to some metals, including aluminium.
• Gradual Adoption of Methanol- First it is imperative to have a sufficient amount of methanol production and its supply to industries. Second, once a threshold level of confidence is reached, there should be simultaneous development of flexi-fuel vehicles which would be able to run on methanol/DME fuel blends.
• Outsource the manufacturing facilities for methanol/DME in Iran or Qatar as both these countries having huge reserves of natural gas can provide the same at very low prices.
• Integrated Energy Production: Government must set up a mega coal based complex for production of power, methanol and fertilizer in an integrated manner which would significantly reduce the cost of various commodities produced.