Methanol vehicles are included in the "14th Five-Year Plan" industrial green development plan to give "new ideas" for the development of new energy vehicles

Methanol vehicles are moving from pilot to large-scale.

On December 3, 2021, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology released the "14th Five-Year Plan for Industrial Green Development" (hereinafter referred to as the "Plan"), which has a detail that has aroused the continuous attention of the automotive industry. The "Planning" mentions that "promoting the promotion of alternative fuel vehicles such as methanol vehicles" will be included in the "green products and energy-saving and environmental protection equipment supply project", and the "carbon dioxide coupling methanol" will be included in the "green and low-carbon technology promotion and application project".

This means that the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology clearly regards methanol vehicles as a "green product", which also means that in the next few years, methanol fuel and methanol vehicles will be from pilot to market or even large-scale, and more applications will be obtained in the automotive industry. As a leading car company in domestic vehicles, Geely Automobile began to promote the development of green methanol very early, and has been deeply cultivating methanol vehicles for 16 years, which is the automobile enterprise with the largest number of methanol vehicles in the methanol vehicle pilot operation projects of five provinces and cities of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, providing a "new solution to the problem" for the development of new energy vehicles.

Contribute to the goal of carbon neutrality

Green methanol will be promising

The original intention of promoting new energy vehicles is to reduce carbon. "The key to reducing carbon is to change the energy mix, and wind and solar energy, green methanol stored in liquid form, will become one of the most reasonable energy solutions." With green methanol, the car's internal combustion engine has the opportunity to become a green energy power and achieve low carbon emissions. More importantly, if the energy system with green methanol as a raw material is used on a large scale, less than 1/5 of the carbon emissions of today's coal can be achieved. Liu Ke, dean of the School of Innovation and Entrepreneurship of southern university of science and technology and foreign academician of the Australian Academy of Engineering, said.

Methanol is a clean oxygenated liquid fuel, with convenient storage and application, rich resources, wide range of uses, is a very good liquid hydrogen storage, hydrogen transport carrier. "The widespread use of green methanol liquid fuels can not only solve the problem of insufficient oil, make full use of its high energy density, safe and convenient storage and transportation, but also be an important strategy to break the petrodollar and achieve carbon neutrality." Academician Liu Ke said.

"Similar to the methanol internal combustion engine produced by Geely, it has become a green energy source. The methanol internal combustion locomotive technology produced by Geely and others has been quite mature, and today buses and operating vehicles in more than a dozen cities such as Xi'an and Guiyang use methanol as fuel, and have been driving for several years without any problems. Academician Liu Ke said.

According to the data, Geely has been deeply cultivating methanol fuel vehicles for 16 years, is the earliest automobile enterprise in China to start the research and development of methanol vehicles and realize industrialization, is the first automobile enterprise in China to obtain the announcement of methanol automobile products, and is also the automobile enterprise with the largest number of methanol vehicles in the pilot operation project of methanol vehicles in five provinces and cities of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.

After 16 years of technical research, Geely has solved the world-class technical problems in the application of methanol in the internal combustion engine, forming nearly 200 core technology patents, making Geely the only enterprise in the world with mass-produced methanol vehicle technology. And carrying Thor's Mind Engine Hi · The methanol hybrid model of the X hybrid system will also be available next year.

In fact, Geely has made a lot of efforts to promote the development of green methanol. In addition to increasing investment in methanol in the industrial layout, Li Shufu, a deputy to the National People's Congress and chairman of Geely Holding Group, has repeatedly put forward proposals and suggestions on methanol vehicles during the two sessions, and made suggestions and suggestions for the development of methanol in China.

At the two sessions in 2009, Li Shufu, who was still a member of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, submitted a proposal entitled "Proposal on Introducing National Standards for Methanol Vehicles as Soon as Possible", calling for the completion of the formulation of national standards for methanol vehicles as soon as possible. In 2017 and 2019, Li Shufu twice spoke for methanol fuel and methanol vehicles.

Market-oriented practices are abundant

China's green methanol is moving towards scale

As Li Shufu said, promoting the popularization of methanol fuel and methanol vehicles is not only ripe for conditions, but also in line with China's energy conditions.

It is reported that China is the world's largest producer and user of methanol, rich in methanol resources, mature production technology, low cost, with large-scale production and supply capabilities. The world's first set of 1,000-ton solar fuel synthesis demonstration project has been successfully demonstrated in Lanzhou; Shanxi Province Saiding Design and Research Institute is building a waste, straw gasification biomass methanol plant, the production cost is expected to be comparable to coal-to-methanol, using China's annual biomass volume of about 750 million tons, can produce more than 300 million tons of green methanol. Icelandic Carbon Cycle International, an investment in 2015, uses geothermal power generation to produce hydrogen and capture carbon dioxide to synthesize renewable methanol, with an annual output of 4,000 tons.

As a region with a long global methanol vehicle operating cycle, wide coverage area and large-scale vehicles, Guizhou Province has established a sound methanol vehicle production, sales, service system and methanol fuel transmission and distribution supply guarantee system, and promoted 16,400 methanol vehicles through market-oriented methods, with a total operating mileage of more than 6.5 billion kilometers. According to statistics, guiyang methanol taxis can replace about 150,000 tons of gasoline every year.

Mature technology and good infrastructure provide a favorable market environment for the development of methanol vehicles. Up to now, Geely has developed nearly 20 methanol fuel models, including passenger cars and commercial vehicles. In the methanol vehicle pilot project of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, the investment in methanol vehicles accounted for nearly 90% of the total number of pilots. Geely methanol passenger cars have been operated on a large scale of 27,000 vehicles, with a total operating mileage of 8 billion kilometers and a maximum single mileage of 1.2 million kilometers.

For China, the application of methanol fuel in the transportation sector can not only reduce carbon emissions, but also ensure national energy security. According to the data, China's energy structure is short of oil, gas and coal, and our oil dependence on foreign countries has reached about 70%, and natural gas has exceeded 50%. This also means that once there are unstable factors, China's economy will have shortcomings in the energy problem.

According to China's liquid energy demand forecast, if the application scale of methanol fuel reaches more than 350 million tons, the foreign dependence of China's crude oil can be reduced to less than 30%, which is of great practical significance for ensuring China's energy security.

Go abroad

Demonstrate the wisdom and power of carbon-neutral China

Carbon neutrality is not only a goal to be achieved by China, but also a common goal of all countries in the world, in order to achieve the goal of carbon neutrality, some new projects in Europe, North America and Australia have adopted methanol to meet the development requirements of the local market for a low-carbon society.

However, according to Gregory Dolan, chief operating officer of the Global Methanol Industry Association, "the use of methanol as fuel may have originated as early as the United States and Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, but the Western world is now a student, and China has become a veritable teacher in this field." ”

As the earliest automobile enterprise deeply cultivating methanol fuel, and also a representative enterprise in the development of methanol vehicles, Geely started from green and low carbon, "went out" early, and promoted the development of advanced green methanol in Europe. In 2015, Geely announced a total investment of US$45.5 million in Carbon Cycle International, becoming the first automaker to conduct a methanol vehicle test run in the Nordic country of Iceland.

Icelandic methanol, which Geely invests in, owns ETL technology that collects carbon dioxide to synthesize clean methanol fuel, and the hydrogen used in the synthesis of methanol is made from electrolyzed water generated by geothermal power generation. The technology to produce methanol in this way is more environmentally friendly than the technology to produce methanol from fossil fuels.

Geely also donated six methanol vehicles to the company in this investment, and launched a methanol vehicle test run project in Iceland, hoping to promote the use of methanol fuel vehicles in Iceland and other parts of Europe. In 2021, The Icelandic methanol company invested by Geely will promote the use of 100% methanol vehicles in China, Iceland and other parts of the world.

It can be said that in terms of exploring the development of green energy and promoting green and low-carbon development, China has been in the forefront, and Chinese enterprises represented by Geely are also actively promoting the development of methanol fuel and methanol vehicles, and going abroad to contribute to the realization of carbon neutrality in their own way.