In a massive win for people who don't like leftovers, Chinese natural gas giant Shenergy is opening a facility to make clean energy out of kitchen food waste.
Interesting Engineering reported that the company is opening a facility that will be able to convert excess food into 70,000 to 100,000 tons of green methanol, an alternative fuel source that can be used in shipping.
The World Economic Forum anticipates green methanol production to hit 500 million tons in 2050 — a sharp increase from just 200,000 tons being produced every year until 2023. The International Renewable Energy Agency estimates that this jump in green methanol could prevent over 1.6 billion tons of carbon dioxide pollution from entering the atmosphere every year.
Interesting Engineering also reported that methanol can be used as fuel for engines and that green iterations of it could hypothetically cut carbon dioxide pollution by between 60% and 95% overall. And if there isn't enough green methanol on hand, it can easily be mixed with diesel or gasoline without necessitating technological upgrades to vehicles.
Green methanol is also capable of helping create other chemicals, which means the chemical industry could use it as an alternative to dirty energy sources.
Green methanol could very well be a key alternative fuel source that helps drastically reduce our dependence on planet-harming fuels. If green methanol could be used in passenger vehicles alone, it could prevent over 3.6 billion tons from hitting the atmosphere every year, as the average car releases more than 10,000 pounds of carbon pollution annually, per the Environmental Protection Agency.
Scientists around the world are also making breakthroughs in alternative fuel by creating it using seawater, corn, and plastic in various capacities. Alternative fuel sources are already powering planes, trains, and giant trucks that would ordinarily spew tons of harmful pollution as they burn planet-warming fuels.
And when Shenergy's green methanol facility comes online at the end of 2025, as Shi Pingyang, vice president of the company, announced to the South China Morning Post, it will be one more tool in our arsenal to fight the overheating of our planet.
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