
Making industrial chemicals “green” requires a lot of renewable electricity - howard941
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/05/does-it-help-to-make-industrial-chemicals-with-captured-co2-sometimes/
======
muthas
This is fascinating to me, because if the primary use of fossil energy at
these plants is in process heating... why use electricity here at all? Seems
to me like there are a variety of renewable options that could generate
process heat at scale without involving the electrical grid at all.

Small-scale nuclear comes to mind first - after all, for every MW of electric
a typical plant generates 2-3x that in thermal power, and removing the
turbines+generators seems like a good way to lower complexity of an
installation.

Solar-thermal might also be a viable option to explore in low latitudes with
abundant sunshine colocated with existing oil reserves and processing plants.
Even wind-powered heatpumps exist, though I doubt there is sufficient energy
density for the levels of process heat needed for many refinery operations.

