A CASE STUDY FOR USE OF WASTE PROFITABLY

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s laudable, necessary and pet project Swachh Bharat to achieve clean India has still a long way to go. His efforts to make it a people’s movement has only partly succeeded so far ,even as sustained efforts of Modi government continue.

While there is widespread realisation all over India that waste has to be properly collected and disposed off in an appropriate manner, the schemes to utilise the waste profitably and in an appropriate manner suitable to the ground conditions have not yet been launched adequately well. In the absence of such schemes adequately, there is no economic incentive to collect waste for the people.

There are projects already operating in the country for the use of waste material as biomass for power generation. While a number of projects have been set up, only a handful of them are operating satisfactorily and others have been forced to suspend production due to lack of economics in operation, inadequate logistics in the collection of segregated waste material and environmental issues,

Schemes are also operating for conversion of sewage water into industrial water in some places. However, this scheme is also operated only in a few places though huge potential exist all over India.

A project has been set up successfully in Canada for the production of methanol from municipal waste and another similar project is now being planned in Netherlands. This project is appropriate to India and it deserves national attention.

Importance of methanol project in India :

India is now a net importer of methanol,an important and versatile chemical with rapidly increasing application areas and the import is steadily increasing year after year.

Methanol is largely produced from natural gas in the world and is also produced in good quantity from coal in China.
Methanol is produced from natural gas in India . Price fluctuation of natural gas is a matter of serious concern to the domestic methanol industry.

Several methanol plants in India remain closed due to constraints in the availability of natural gas as well as the inability of the Indian units to compete with the imported methanol due to the comparatively high prevailing price of natural gas in India

As of now, it looks that there is no feasibility of India increasing the production of methanol. Millions of dollars of foreign exchange are being spent for the import of methanol in the country year after year and the figure will steeply increase in the coming years.

Indian import of methanol is around 1.7 million tonne per annum

Average Annual Growth Rate of import from April 2013 to March, 2016 : 14.3%

Methanol project from sewage water :

In such circumstances, the feasibility of producing methanol from waste and sewage water should be actively explored by India, in view of the high demand for methanol and availability of large quantity of sewage and waste water all over India.

Such methanol project will have the twin benefits of utilization of sewage water in India profitably that would aid Swachh Bharat programme and also producing large quantity of methanol in India as an import substitute.

Methanol project in Netherlands

The construction of waste to methanol plant of annual capacity 90000 tonne from synthesis gas generated from residual waste is under advanced planning stage in Netherlands..

A partnership consisting of AkzoNobel, Van Gansewinkel, Air Liquide, AVR, Enerkem and Port of Rotterdam announced that it is looking to build the plant in Rotterdam in collaboration with the Port of Rotterdam, the City of Rotterdam, the province of South Holland and Innovation Quarter.

The new methanol plant will be based on the innovative technology developed by Enerkem that converts residual waste into methanol in Canada.

Enerkem’s technology has been extensively tested and developed over the past 15 years. A commercial facility has begun operation in 2015 in Canada and it was recently certified according to the International Sustainability and Carbon Certification (ISCC) system.

This proposed methanol project in Netherland represent a significant step towards a sustainable and circular approach to waste management in Rotterdam.

This project is aligned with the ambitious programme set by the Dutch Government and recently presented to the Parliament by the State Secretary Dijksma. The consortium sees Enerkem’s technology as a complement to existing recycling technologies.

Consider methanol from waste as thrust project :

Methanol finds application as building bloc and for production of several derivative products, apart from it’s direct applications. In view of the high level of relevance of methanol to Indian industrial and economic growth pattern, methanol has to be necessarily considered as thrust project in India.

Considering the demand potentials for methanol in the coming years , it would be appropriate to implement at least 20 methanol projects in India of capacity one lakh tonne per annum each in different part of the country. While indigenous dedicated technology development efforts are necessary , technology can be acquired from abroad for the immediate need.

Considering the need for adequate economic return in the methanol project from sewage water, , government of India should not hesitate to provide price support for such methanol project in India to make it competitive with international price , considering that this project would serve the need of Swachh Bharat objective, apart from meeting the ever increasing demand for methanol in the country.

N.S.Venkataraman
Director
Nandini Consultancy Centre
www.nandinichemical.com more