3rd September 2024, Kathmandu
Taebaek City and PLAGEN announced that they signed an investment agreement for a green methanol production project at Taebaek City Hall.
Taebaek City Transform
The agreement aims to build a 10,000 tons/year green methanol production plant with the Regional Revitalization Investment Fund. Construction is scheduled to begin in the first half of 2025 and produce 10,000 tons/year of green methanol in the second half of 2027.
The organizations involved in the agreement are Taebaek City and PLAGEN, Korea Ease-West Power, Hyundai Corporation, Ssangyong E&C, Optimum Trading, Hanbit Energy, LF Energy, and Infrastructure Frontier Asset Management, and will be responsible for procuring raw materials, manufacturing and EPC of the plant, O&M of the plant, purchasing green methanol produced, and procured carbon credits and project financing.
Under the agreement, the first commercial-scale green methanol plant in Korea will be built in Taebaek City, and the coal mining city will be transformed into a clean energy industrial city and become a carbon-neutral city.
At the end of June, Korea National Coal Corporation’s Jangseong Mine in Taebaek City closed its doors for the last time. Taebaek City, which thrived as a coal mining city, is bound to become a dark city as people leave. According to Statistics Korea, the population of Taebaek was 38,702 as of December 2023, down by one-third from 120,000 people who lived in the city 20 years ago.
“With the decline of the coal mining industry, which was a pillar of the local economy, the risk of urban extinction is rapidly spreading,” said Mayor Lee Sang-ho. “The industrial base for green methanol production, which will be a touchstone for the realization of carbon neutrality and balanced regional development, is an opportunity to open a new decade.”
“As the coal mining industry, which was a pillar of the local economy, is declining, the risk of the city’s disappearance is rapidly spreading,” said Mayor Lee Sang-ho. “The base for green methanol production, which will be a touchstone for the realization of carbon neutrality and balanced regional development, which are big government policies, is an opportunity to open a new decade.”
“We have a responsibility to give a gift to future generations that specializes in developing and producing energy sources,” said Lee, adding that establishing green methanol production facilities can help the city become a future renewable energy city.”
Kim Sang-hyup, co-chairman of the Presidential Commission on Carbon Neutrality and Green Growth, an organization directly under the President, said, “The global renewable energy market is paying great attention to green methanol, and our forest residues are very advantageous.”
Taebaek City is considered an optimal location for green methanol production due to its abundance of forest residues (wood wastes) and renewable energy (wind power) infrastructure. Currently, a preliminary feasibility study by the Ministry of Economy and Finance is underway at the site of Jangseong Mine in Taebaek City to build a 100,000 tons/year green methanol industrial complex and a 22,000 tons/year green methanol production plant.
With the government’s active support, the construction of a 100,000 ton/year green methanol production base. Is expected to proceed smoothly.
Using forest residues as raw material, hydrogen, and carbon monoxide are produced through a catalytic chemical reaction with water vapor in a high-temperature system of over 800 degrees, which is then synthesized to produce green methanol. Compared to gray methanol produced from coal or petroleum, each ton of green methanol reduces 5.5 tons of carbon dioxide and can secure 41 US dollars of carbon credits.
The International Maritime Organization (IMO) adopted the ‘2023 Greenhouse Gas Reduction Strategy’, which aims to reduce carbon emissions from international shipping to 100% (net zero) by 2050, and plans to introduce regulations in earnest from 2027, and global shipping companies have begun ordering methanol-powered ships fueled by green methanol, a carbon neutral fuel.
To proactively respond to these international environmental changes, the Korean government announced cooperation with the United States to build the world’s first trans-Pacific green shipping corridor at the 27th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change in 2022.
The container ship corridor and car carrier corridor between Busan-Ulsan Port and Seattle Tacoma Port in the U.S. are being promoted to pilot in 2027.
The green methanol produced in Taebaek City will be supplied as fuel for ships on the U.S.- Korea Green Shipping Corridor.
As there is currently no domestic green methanol production in Korea, the Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries aims to produce 500,000 tons/year of green methanol by 2030.
We expect to produce 100,000 tons/year of green methanol in Taebaek City by 2030, which is 20 percent of the domestic green methanol production target, contributing significantly to the revitalization of the local economy and national energy security,” said John Kyung, CEO of PLAGEN.