Transport and storage costs for hydrogen can be very high but when stored and transported as methanol these costs are significantly reduced enabling economic long distance and international movement and storage of hydrogen by this means.

This alternative route for hydrogen supply is aided by key methanol synthesis gas production costs being lower than equivalent costs in direct hydrogen production routes.

A case is put for Australian coal to fit into a global hydrogen economy via initial production and export of coal-based methanol and its subsequent reforming to hydrogen, as required.

Solar water splitting for large scale hydrogen production is a logical development goal for Australia and its reaction with coal-sourced CO2 to produce methanol deals with coal’s high CO2 emission problem and enables the transport, storage and export of solar energy.

Methanol can be used initially to displace gasoline or diesel in existing engines, at equivalent fuel to power efficiencies and if dissociated into hydrogen and carbon oxides and used in “next generation” fuel cell-based systems, can displace crude oil-based transport fuels and also enable major CO2 emission reductions in stationary and transport power systems.

The outlined methanol infrastructure can be a key component in any future hydrogen energy-based economy with the added advantage, particularly in Australia of not requiring fresh water for process cooling and being able to convert waste waters to a distillate quality water by-product.