Technical assessment of liquefied natural gas, ammonia and methanol for overseas energy transport based on energy and exergy analyses

Abstract

Transporting energy in liquefied forms results in reduction in volume, which enables energy to be transported economically over long overseas distances. In this study, liquefied natural gas, liquid ammonia and methanol are proposed to transport the energy of natural gas in different forms to overseas. Due to temperature difference between the energy storage medium and the ambient, a portion of liquefied energy carriers mass is lost as boil-off gas (BOG). Therefore, a technical assessment based on energy and exergy analyses is conducted in this work to assess the total required energy and losses due to BOG for each energy carrier. To make a fair comparison among the energy carriers, the ship volume capacity is the fixed factor. The results show that the total daily energetic BOGs for LNG, ammonia, and methanol are calculated as 0.610%, 0.098%, 0.034% while the exergetic BOGs are 0.491%, 0.068%, 0.032%, respectively. Ammonia and methanol generate significantly less daily BOG, respectively, compared to LNG during the full supply chain, which make them alternative for efficient energy carrier transport.