The Financial Times has published an interesting piece looking at the emerging support for and development of the synthetic methane industry, as well as the criticisms it faces.

A number of companies, including Belgium’s Tree Energy Solutions (with which TotalEnergies, Engie, Sempra Infrastructure, Mitsubishi and others are associated), Germany’s Turn2X, and California’s Terraform Industries (backed by money from the information technology industry), are pioneering the production of e-methane, typically produced from hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The advantages are that the gas can easily ‘drop in’ to existing natural gas infrastructure and be used by industry, while being close to zero-greenhouse gas emitting and consuming captured carbon dioxide. Transport and storage are easier than for hydrogen.

The disadvantages are that, if leaked, e-methane is a potent greenhouse gas, and is (currently) expensive and energy inefficient to produce. In addition, there is a concern that promotion of synthetic methane could divert investment away from more capable electricity grids that would better support a more electrified and renewables-based economy. Producers of e-methane argue that prices in Europe will eventually be lower than those of imported LNG, and that, as an industrially created molecule, there will be greater control of leaks than in the extraction of natural gas.

How the e-methane industry will evolve will depend partly on what policies are set across the world, how technology evolves, and also on how cheaply hydrogen itself can be produced – perhaps especially if ‘white’ or ‘gold’ hydrogen turns out to be abundant and cheap to extract. Policy makers are, according to the FT, favourable to e-methane at present because of the potential for it to boost energy security while decarbonising.