The largest “green” methanol plant in Europe opened in Denmark on Tuesday, intensifying efforts to reduce continent emissions – with customers ranging from the delivery of giant Maersk to Toymaker Lego and the Novo Nordisk Pharmaceutical Company.
Sitting next to the largest solar panel field in northern Europe and a large transformer station in the Danish province, the site will produce electronic methanol, synthetic fuel made from renewable energy and carbon dioxide.
The site, called the Caso, is only the third electronic methanol plant that operates in the world after places in China and the United States, according to the French Electronic Fuel Bureau.
“Our strategy is to increase. The next factory will be three times larger,” says Haime Casas-Bribian, project manager at the Danish company European Energy, who owns the plant with the Japanese company Mitsui.
The facility will produce up to 42,000 tonnes of electronic methanol per year, which is the equivalent of 50 million liters.
E-metanol will serve as a fuel for Maersk ships, a raw material for the LEGO plastic plastic bricks and a component for Novo Nordisk insulin injection pens.
While the plant is a cornerstone for Europe, it is small on a global scale.
Maersk itself will need two million tonnes of green methanol every year by 2030 if it will reduce its carbon footprint by only 10 percent, according to its own estimates.
Laura Maersk, the company’s first container to sail on electronic methanol, will be filled in the adjacent Aabenraa port every quarter, enough to sail for one month.
“This is an encouraging initiative regarding the potential development of the sector,” said Jan Lezester, author of an international electronic fuel report, to AFP.
However, he said it was too small to make great importance.
“The project reviews will be interesting to check the proper functioning of technology on a commercial scale,” he said.
The project has received a subsidy of € 53 million ($ 59 million) from the Danish Investment Fund for Green.
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According to the Lesstre report, the European Electronic Methanol sector represents 19 percent of the planned capacity worldwide, compared to 60 percent in China.
The Jiangsu sailboat site in China has been operating since 2023 and produces 100,000 tonnes a year.
Denmark – a pioneer in renewable energy, in particular wind energy – has announced its rapid development of the project, opening the plant less than two years after receiving the construction permit.
“This is a very, very important stepped stone in all this transition to the scales of production capacity,” says Camila Holbeh, head of renewable energies, green transition and international cooperation in the Green Energy Association in Denmark.
“Stepping into green fuels is very, very important, because in this way we can decarbonize sectors that cannot be a priori of electricity,” Holbeh said, referring to delivery as an example.
The significant difference in costs between this new industry and the fossil fuel industry explains the number of smaller projects, she said.
The cost of producing electronic methanol could compete with those of fossil fuels by 2040, if there are huge investments, according to a report by Green Power Denmark.
While American and Chinese electronic methanol plants use recycled carbon, the Danish site uses biogenic carbon, which is carbon found in natural materials such as trees, plants and other forms of biomass.
E-metanol is done by combining biogenic CO2 and green hydrogen produced by electrolysis, which involves the separation of water molecules, using electricity from renewable energy, in this case solar energy.
CBW/PO/LTH