Debt bondage

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage 

Slavery

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Historical

By country or region

Religion

Opposition and resistance

Debt bondage, also known as debt slavery, bonded labour, or peonage, is the pledge of a person's services as security for the repayment for a debt or other obligation, where the terms of the repayment are not clearly or reasonably stated, and the person who is holding the debt thus has some control over the laborer. Freedom is assumed on debt repayment. The services required to repay the debt may be undefined, and the services' duration may be undefined, thus allowing the person supposedly owed the debt to demand services indefinitely. Debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation.

Currently, debt bondage is the most common method of enslavement with an estimated 8.1 million people bonded to labour illegally as cited by the International Labour Organization in 2005. Debt bondage has been described by the United Nations as a form of "modern day slavery" and the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery seeks to abolish the practice.

The practice is still prevalent primarily in South Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, although most countries in these regions are parties to the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. It is estimated that 84 to 88% of the bonded labourers in the world are in South Asia. Lack of prosecution or insufficient punishment of this crime are the leading causes of the practice as it exists at this scale today.

Overview

Definition

Though the Forced Labour Convention of 1930 by the International Labour Organization, which included 187 parties, sought to bring organised attention to eradicating slavery through forms of forced labor, formal opposition to debt bondage in particular came at the Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery in 1956. The convention in 1956 defined debt bondage under Article 1, section (a):

"Debt bondage, that is to say, the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined;"

When a pledge to provide services to pay off debt is made by an individual, the employer often illegally inflates interest rates at an unreasonable amount, making it impossible for the individual to leave bonded labour. When the bonded labourer dies, debts are often passed on to children.

Usage of term

See also: Human trafficking

Although debt bondage, forced labour, and human trafficking are all defined as forms or variations of slavery, each term is distinct. Debt bondage differs from forced labour and human trafficking in that a person consciously pledges to work as a means of repayment of debt without being placed into labor against will.

Debt bondage only applies to individuals who have no hopes of leaving the labor due to inability to ever pay debt back. Those who offer their services to repay a debt and the employer reduces the debt accordingly at a rate commensurate with the value of labor performed are not in debt bondage.

History

Africa

Important to both East and West Africa, pawnship, defined by Wilks as "the use of people in transferring their rights for settlement of debt," was common during the 17th century. The system of pawnship occurred simultaneously with the slave trade in Africa. Though the export of slaves from Africa to the Americas is often analyzed, slavery was rampant internally as well. Development of plantations like those in Zanzibar in East Africa reflected the need for internal slaves. Furthermore, many of the slaves that were exported were male as brutal and labor-intensive conditions favored the male body build. This created gender implications for individuals in the pawnship system as more women were pawned than men and often sexually exploited within the country.

After the abolition of slavery in many countries in the 19th century, Europeans still needed laborers. Moreover, conditions for emancipated slaves were harsh. Discrimination was rampant within the labor market, making attainment of a sustainable income for former slaves tough. Because of these conditions, many freed slaves preferred to live through slavery-like contracts with their masters in a manner parallel to debt bondage.

Americas

Further information on indentured servitude in the American colonies: Indentured servant

• During the colonial history of the United States, persons bonded themselves to an owner who paid their passage to the New World. They worked until the debt of passage was paid off, often for years. Debt peonage was practiced as "an illegal form of contemporary slavery... well into the 1950s" in "Florida, Georgia, Alabama, and other parts of the Deep South." Civil authorities would arrest "colored men off the street and in their homes if they were caught not working," charge them with vagrancy, assess fines equal to several weeks of pickers' pay, and compel them "to pick fruit or cut sugarcane to work off the debt.... Those captured were hauled to remote plantations ..., held by force, and beaten or shot if they tried to escape."

• In Peru, a peonage system existed from the 16th century until land reform in the 1950s. One estate in Peru that existed from the late 16th century until it ended had up to 1,700 people employed and had a prison. They were expected to work for their landlord a minimum of three days a week and more if necessary to complete assigned work. Workers were paid a symbolic two cents per year. Workers were unable to travel outside their assigned lands without permission and were not allowed to organise any independent community activity. In the Peruvian Amazon, debt peonage is an important aspect of contemporary Urarina society.

Asia

The ancient Near East

Severe personal debt was widespread in the ancient Near East. Debtors who did not pay up could become their creditors' chattel, as could other members of their families. The problem of debt bondage, in conjunction with the state's ability to levy serfs for labour, led many to flee their homes. Some of these fugitives formed bands of roving warriors called 'habiru-men', especially in the Levant of the late second millennium. (Although not himself a fugitive from debt bondage, the story of Idrimi suggests that these groups could be a considerable threat.) As a result, many new kings annulled debts on ascending to the throne.

From the 19th century

In the 19th century, people in Asia were bonded to labor due to a variety of reasons ranging from farmers mortgaging harvests to drug addicts in need for opium in China. When a natural disaster occurred or food was scarce, people willingly chose debt bondage as a means to a secure life. In the early 20th century in Asia, most laborers tied to debt bondage had been born into it. In certain regions, such as in Burma, debt bondage was far more common than slavery. Many went into bondage to pay off interest on a loan or to pay taxes, and as they worked, often on farms, lodging, meals, and clothing fees were added to the existing debt causing overall debt and interest to increase. These continued added loan values made leaving servitude unattainable.

Moreover, after the development of the international economy, more workers were needed for the pre-industrial economies of Asia during the 19th century. A greater demand for labor was needed in Asia to power exports to growing industrial countries like the United States and Germany. Cultivation of cash crops like coffee, cocoa, and sugar and exploitation of minerals like gold and tin led farm owners to search for individuals in need of loans for the sake of keeping laborers permanently. In particular, the Indian indenture system was based on debt bondage by which an estimated two million Indians were transported to various colonies of European powers to provide labor for plantations. It started from the end of slavery in 1833 and continued until 1920.

Europe

Classical antiquity

Debt bondage was "quite normal" in classical antiquity. The poor or those who had fallen irredeemably in debt might place themselves into bondage "voluntarily"—or more precisely, might be compelled by circumstances to choose debt bondage as a way to anticipate and avoid worse terms that their creditors might impose on them. In the Greco-Roman world, debt bondage was a distinct legal category into which a free person might fall, in theory temporarily, distinguished from the pervasive practice of slavery, which included enslavement as a result of defaulting on debt. Many forms of debt bondage existed in both ancient Greece and ancient Rome.

Ancient Greece

Debt bondage was widespread in ancient Greece. The only city-state known to have abolished it is Athens, as early as the Archaic period under the debt reform legislation of Solon. Both enslavement for debt and debt bondage were practiced in Ptolemaic Egypt. By the Hellenistic period, the limited evidence indicates that debt bondage had replaced outright enslavement for debt.

The most onerous debt bondage was various forms of paramonē, "indentured labor." As a matter of law, a person subjected to paramonē was categorically free, and not a slave, but in practice his freedom was severely constrained by his servitude. Solon's reforms occurred in the context of democratic politics at Athens that required clearer distinctions between "free" and "slave"; as a perverse consequence, chattel slavery increased.

The selling of one's own child into slavery is likely in most cases to have resulted from extreme poverty or debt, but strictly speaking is a form of chattel slavery, not debt bondage. The exact legal circumstances in Greece, however, are far more poorly documented than in ancient Rome.

Ancient Rome

Main article: Nexum

Nexum was a debt bondage contract in the early Roman Republic. Within the Roman legal system, it was a form of mancipatio. Though the terms of the contract would vary, essentially a free man pledged himself as a bond slave (nexus) as surety for a loan. He might also hand over his son as collateral. Although the bondsman might be subjected to humiliation and abuse, as a legal citizen he was supposed to be exempt from corporal punishment. Nexum was abolished by the Lex Poetelia Papiria in 326 BC, in part to prevent abuses to the physical integrity of citizens who had fallen into debt bondage.

Roman historians illuminated the abolition of nexum with a traditional story that varied in its particulars; basically, a nexus who was a handsome but upstanding youth suffered sexual harassment by the holder of the debt. In one version, the youth had gone into debt to pay for his father's funeral; in others, he had been handed over by his father. In all versions, he is presented as a model of virtue. Historical or not, the cautionary tale highlighted the incongruities of subjecting one free citizen to another's use, and the legal response was aimed at establishing the citizen's right to liberty (libertas), as distinguished from the slave or social outcast.

Cicero considered the abolition of nexum primarily a political maneuver to appease the common people (plebs): the law was passed during the Conflict of the Orders, when plebeians were struggling to establish their rights in relation to the hereditary privileges of the patricians. Although nexum was abolished as a way to secure a loan, debt bondage might still result after a debtor defaulted.

European Middle Ages

While serfdom under feudalism was the predominant political and economic system in Europe in the High Middle Ages, persisting in the Austrian Empire till 1848 and the Russian Empire until 1861 (details), debt bondage (and slavery) provided other forms of unfree labour.

Modern practice

Though the figures differ from those of the International Labour Organization, researcher Siddharth Kara has calculated the number of slaves in the world by type, and determined that at the end of 2011 there were 18 to 20.5 million bonded laborers. Bonded laborers work in industries today that produce goods including but not limited to frozen shrimp, bricks, tea, coffee, diamonds, marble, and apparel.

South Asia

Although India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh all have laws prohibiting debt bondage, it is estimated by Kara that 84 to 88% of the bonded laborers in the world are in South Asia. Figures by the Human Rights Watch in 1999 are drastically higher estimating 40 million workers, composed mainly of children, are tied to labor through debt bondage in India alone.

Brick kilns

Child labor in brick kilns in South Asia

Research by Kara estimates there to be between 55,000 and 65,000 brick kiln workers in South Asia with 70% of them in India. Other research estimates 6,000 kilns in Pakistan alone. Total revenue from brick kilns in South Asia is estimated by Kara to be $13.3 to $15.2 billion. Many of the brick kiln workers are migrants and travel between brick kiln locations every few months. Kiln workers often live in extreme poverty and many began work at kilns through repayment of a starting loan averaging $150 to $200. Kiln owners offer laborers "friendly loans" to avoid being criminalized in breaking bonded labor laws. Bonded brick kiln laborers, including children, work in harsh and unsafe conditions as the heat from the kiln may cause heat stroke and a number of other medical conditions. Laborers are discouraged from defaulting on loans through fear of violence and death from brick kiln owners.

Rice harvesting

Workers storing rice in India in 1952

An essential grain to the South Asian diet, rice is harvested throughout India and Nepal in particular. In India, more than 20% of agricultural land is used to grow rice. Rice mill owners often employ workers who live in harsh conditions on farms. Workers receive such low wages that they must borrow money from their employers causing them to be tied to the rice mill through debt. For example, in India, the average pay rate per day was $0.55 American dollars as recorded in 2006. Though some workers may be able to survive minimally from their compensation, uncontrollable life events such as an illness require loans. Families, including children, work day and night to prepare the rice for export by boiling it, drying it in the sun, and sifting through it for purification. Furthermore, families who live on rice mill production sites are often excluded from access to hospitals and schools.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Though there are not reliable estimates of bonded laborers in Sub-Saharan Africa to date from credible sources, the Global Slavery Index estimates the total number of those enslaved in this region is 6.25 million. In countries like Ghana, it is estimated that 85% of people enslaved are tied to labor. Additionally, this region includes Mauritania, the country with the highest proportion of slavery in the world as an estimated 20% of its population is enslaved through methods like debt bondage.

A worker preparing fish caught off the coast of South Africa

Fisheries

The Environmental Justice Foundation found human rights violations in the fisheries on the coasts of South and West Africa including labor exploitation. Exporter fish companies drive smaller businesses and individuals to lower profits, causing bankruptcy. In many cases, recruitment to these companies occurs by luring small business owners and migrant workers through debt bondage. In recruiting individual fishers, fees are sometimes charged by a broker to use ports which opens the debt cycle.

Domestic labor

After countries began to formally abolish slavery, unemployment was rampant for blacks in South Africa and Nigeria pushing black women to work as domestic workers. Currently, estimates from the International Labour Organization state that between 800,000 and 1.1 million domestic workers are in South Africa. Many of these domestic servants become bonded to labor in a process similar to other industries in Asia. The wages given to servants are often so poor that loans are taken when servants are in need of more money, making it impossible to escape. The hours of working for domestic servants are unpredictable, and because many servants are women, their young children are often left under the care of older children or other family members. Moreover, these women can work up to the age of 75 and their daughters are likely to be servants in the same households.

Prostitution

A 1994 report of Burmese prostitutes in Thailand reports compulsory indebtedness is common for girls in forced prostitution, especially those transported across the border. They are forced to work off their debt, often with 100 percent interest, and to pay for their room, food and other items. In addition to debt bondage, the women and girls face a wide range of abuses, including illegal confinement; forced labor; rape; physical abuse; and more.

Consequences

Revenue

The International Labour Organization (ILO) estimates that $51.2 billion is made annually in the exploitation of workers through debt bondage. Though the employers actively take part in accruing the debt of laborers, buyers of products and services in the country of manufacturing and abroad also contribute to the profitability of this practice. Global supply chains that deliver goods throughout the world are most likely tainted with slave labor. The reason for this includes convoluted supply chain management that crosses many international borders, ineffective labor laws, corporates claiming plausible deniability, global political-economic restructuring and well-intended consumers. This effort to eradicate modern day slavery resonates with well meaning individuals who purchase fair-trade items, hoping they are making a difference. The fair trade industry is estimated to exceed $1.2 billion annually (Davenport & Low 2012). Unfortunately, this is barely a dent into the global economy. International labor laws need to be created by various authorities such as the International Labor Organization, World Trade Organization, Interpol and the United Nations that have teeth to adequately punish the wrongdoers.

On-going cycle

In many of the industries in which debt bondage is common like brick kilns or fisheries, entire families are often involved in paying of the debt of one individual, including children. These children generally do not have access to education thus making it impossible to get out of poverty. Moreover, if a relative who still is in debt dies, the bondage is passed on to another family member, usually the children. At the International Labour Organization Convention, this cycle was labeled as the "Worst Forms of Child Labor." Researchers like Basu and Chau link the occurrence of child labor through debt bondage with factors like labor rights and the stage of development of an economy. Although minimum age labor laws are present in many regions with child debt bondage, the laws are not enforced especially with regard to the agrarian economy.

Policy initiatives

The United Nations

Debt bondage has been described by the United Nations as a form of "modern day slavery" and is prohibited by international law. It is specifically dealt with by article 1(a) of the United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery. It persists nonetheless especially in developing countries, which have few mechanisms for credit security or bankruptcy, and where fewer people hold formal title to land or possessions. According to some economists, like Hernando de Soto, this is a major barrier to development in these countries. For example, entrepreneurs do not dare to take risks and cannot get credit because they hold no collateral and may burden families for generations to come.

South Asia

See also: Debt bondage in India

India was the first country to pass legislation directly prohibiting debt bondage through the Bonded Labor System (Abolition) Act, 1976. Less than two decades later, Pakistan also passed a similar act in 1992 and Nepal passed the Kamaiya Labour (Prohibition) Act in 2002. Despite the fact that these laws are in place, debt bondage in South Asia is still widespread. According to the Ministry of Labor and Employment of the Government of India, there are over 300,000 bonded laborers in India, with a majority of them in the states of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, and Odisha.

In India, the rise of Dalit activism, government legislation starting as early as 1949, as well as ongoing work by NGOs and government offices to enforce labour laws and rehabilitate those in debt, appears to have contributed to the reduction of bonded labour there. However, according to research papers presented by the International Labour Organization, there are still many obstacles to the eradication of bonded labour in India.

Sub-Saharan Africa

In many of the countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Ghana in which debt bondage is prevalent, there are not laws that either state direct prohibition or appropriate punishment. For example, South Africa passed the Basic Conditions of Employment Act of 1997 which prohibits forced labor but the punishment is up to 3 years of jail. In addition, though many of the countries in Sub-Saharan Africa have laws that vaguely prohibit debt bondage, prosecution of such crimes rarely occurs.

Domino theory

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domino_theory 

An illustration of the domino theory as it had been predicted

The domino theory is a geopolitical theory that was prominent in the United States from the 1950s to the 1980s which posited that if one country in a region came under the influence of communism, then the surrounding countries would follow in a domino effect. The domino theory was used by successive United States administrations during the Cold War to justify the need for American intervention around the world.

Former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower described the theory during a news conference on 7 April 1954, when referring to communism in Indochina as follows:

Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the "falling domino" principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences.

Moreover, Eisenhower’s deep belief in the domino theory in Asia heightened the "perceived costs for the United States of pursuing multilateralism" because of multifaceted events including the "1949 victory of the Chinese Communist Party, the June 1950 North Korean invasion, the 1954 Quemoy offshore island crisis, and the conflict in Indochina constituted a broad-based challenge not only for one or two countries, but for the entire Asian continent and Pacific." This connotes a strong magnetic force to give in to communist control, and aligns with the comment by General Douglas MacArthur that "victory is a strong magnet in the East."

History

During 1945, the Soviet Union brought most of the countries of eastern Europe and Central Europe into its influence as part of the post-World War II new settlement, prompting Winston Churchill to declare in a speech in 1946 at Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri that:

From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic an "Iron Curtain" has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.

Following the Iran crisis of 1946, Harry S. Truman declared what became known as the Truman Doctrine in 1947, promising to contribute financial aid to the Greek government during its Civil War and to Turkey following World War II, in the hope that this would impede the advancement of Communism into Western Europe. Later that year, diplomat George Kennan wrote an article in Foreign Affairs magazine that became known as the "X Article", which first articulated the policy of containment, arguing that the further spread of Communism to countries outside a "buffer zone" around the USSR, even if it happened via democratic elections, was unacceptable and a threat to U.S. national security. Kennan was also involved, along with others in the Truman administration, in creating the Marshall Plan, which also began in 1947, to give aid to the countries of Western Europe (along with Greece and Turkey), in large part with the hope of keeping them from falling under Soviet domination.

In 1949, a Communist-backed government, led by Mao Zedong, was instated in China (officially becoming the People's Republic of China). The installation of the new government was established after the People's Liberation Army defeated the Nationalist Republican Government of China in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War (1927-1949). Two Chinas were formed - mainland 'Communist China' (People's Republic of China) and 'Nationalist China' Taiwan (Republic of China). The takeover by Communists of the world's most populous nation was seen in the West as a great strategic loss, prompting the popular question at the time, "Who lost China?" The United States subsequently ended diplomatic relations with the newly-founded People's Republic of China in response to the communist takeover in 1949.

Korea had also partially fallen under Soviet domination at the end of World War II, split from the south of the 38th parallel where U.S. forces subsequently moved into. By 1948, as a result of the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the U.S., Korea was split into two regions, with separate governments, each claiming to be the legitimate government of Korea, and neither side accepting the border as permanent. In 1950 fighting broke out between Communists and Republicans that soon involved troops from China (on the Communists' side), and the United States and 15 allied countries (on the Republicans' side). Though the Korean conflict has not officially ended, the Korean War ended in 1953 with an armistice that left Korea divided into two nations, North Korea and South Korea. Mao Zedong's decision to take on the U.S. in the Korean War was a direct attempt to confront what the Communist bloc viewed as the strongest anti-Communist power in the world, undertaken at a time when the Chinese Communist regime was still consolidating its own power after winning the Chinese Civil War.

The first figure to propose the domino theory was President Harry S. Truman in the 1940s, where he introduced the theory in order to “justify sending military aid to Greece and Turkey.” However, the domino theory was popularized by President Dwight D. Eisenhower when he applied it to Southeast Asia, especially South Vietnam. Moreover, the domino theory was utilized as one of the key arguments in the “Kennedy and Johnson administrations during the 1960s to justify increasing American military involvement in the Vietnam War.”

In May 1954, the Viet Minh, a Communist and nationalist army, defeated French troops in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu and took control of what became North Vietnam. This caused the French to fully withdraw from the region then known as French Indochina, a process they had begun earlier. The regions were then divided into four independent countries (North Vietnam, South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos) after a deal was brokered at the 1954 Geneva Conference to end the First Indochina War.

This would give them a geographical and economic strategic advantage, and it would make Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines, Australia and New Zealand the front-line defensive states. The loss of regions traditionally within the vital regional trading area of countries like Japan would encourage the front-line countries to compromise politically with communism.

Eisenhower's domino theory of 1954 was a specific description of the situation and conditions within Southeast Asia at the time, and he did not suggest a generalized domino theory as others did afterward.

During the summer of 1963, Buddhists protested about the harsh treatment they were receiving under the Diem government of South Vietnam. Such actions of the South Vietnamese government made it difficult for the Kennedy administration's strong support for President Diem. President Kennedy was in a tenuous position, trying to contain Communism in Southeast Asia, but on the other hand, supporting an anti-Communist government that was not popular with its domestic citizens and was guilty of acts objectionable to the American public. The Kennedy administration intervened in Vietnam in the early 1960s to, among other reasons, keep the South Vietnamese "domino" from falling. When Kennedy came to power there was concern that the communist-led Pathet Lao in Laos would provide the Viet Cong with bases, and that eventually they could take over Laos.

Arguments in favor of the domino theory

The primary evidence for the domino theory is the spread of communist rule in three Southeast Asian countries in 1975, following the communist takeover of Vietnam: South Vietnam (by the Viet Cong), Laos (by the Pathet Lao), and Cambodia (by the Khmer Rouge). It can further be argued that before they finished taking Vietnam prior to the 1950s, the communist campaigns did not succeed in Southeast Asia. Note the Malayan Emergency, the Hukbalahap Rebellion in the Philippines, and the increasing involvement with Communists by Sukarno of Indonesia from the late 1950s until he was deposed in 1967. All of these were unsuccessful Communist attempts to take over Southeast Asian countries which stalled when communist forces were still focused in Vietnam.

Walt Whitman Rostow and the then Prime Minister of Singapore Lee Kuan Yew have argued that the U.S. intervention in Indochina, by giving the nations of ASEAN time to consolidate and engage in economic growth, prevented a wider domino effect. Meeting with President Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger in 1975, Lee Kuan Yew argued that "there is a tendency in the U.S. Congress not to want to export jobs. But we have to have the jobs if we are to stop Communism. We have done that, moving from simple to more complex skilled labor. If we stop this process, it will do more harm than you can every [sic] repair with aid. Don't cut off imports from Southeast Asia."

McGeorge Bundy argued that the prospects for a domino effect, though high in the 1950s and early 1960s, were weakened in 1965 when the Indonesian Communist Party was destroyed via death squads in the Indonesian genocide. However, proponents believe that the efforts during the containment (i.e., Domino Theory) period ultimately led to the demise of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War.

Some supporters of the domino theory note the history of communist governments supplying aid to communist revolutionaries in neighboring countries. For instance, China supplied the Viet Minh and later the North Vietnamese army, with troops and supplies, and the Soviet Union supplied them with tanks and heavy weapons. The fact that the Pathet Lao and Khmer Rouge were both originally part of the Vietminh, not to mention Hanoi's support for both in conjunction with the Viet Cong, also give credence to the theory. The Soviet Union also heavily supplied Sukarno with military supplies and advisors from the time of the Guided Democracy in Indonesia, especially during and after the 1958 civil war in Sumatra.

Arguments that criticize the domino theory

• Elements of the cold war ideology such as the domino theory became propaganda tools for the US government to create fear among the American people, in order to gain public support for the US's participation in the Vietnam War.
• In the spring of 1995, former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara said he believed the domino theory was a mistake. Professor Tran Chung Ngoc, an overseas Vietnamese living in the US, said: "The US does not have any plausible reason to intervene in Vietnam, a small, poor, undeveloped country that does not have any ability to do anything that could harm America. Therefore, the US intervention in Vietnam regardless of public opinion and international law is "using power over justice", giving itself the right to intervene anywhere that America wants."
• The domino theory caused major deep divisions in the heart of the United States. Because of this theory, the US government has introduced extreme policies, causing dissatisfaction to the people. Radical anti-communist politicians and US intelligence agencies regularly carry out anti-communist campaigns that include stalking, discriminating, firing, prosecuting and detaining many people on the pretext of "suspected communist" or support communism. The vast majority of the victims were actually very unlikely to harm the US government and their involvement with the communists was very weak.

Significance of the domino theory

The domino theory is significant because it underlines the importance of alliances, which may vary from rogue alliances to bilateral alliances. This implies that the domino theory is useful in evaluating a country’s intent and purpose of forging an alliance with others, including a cluster of other countries within a particular region. While the intent and purpose may differ for every country, Victor Cha portrays the asymmetrical bilateral alliance between the United States and countries in East Asia as a strategic approach, where the United States is in control and power to either mobilize or stabilize its allies. This is supported by how the United States created asymmetrical bilateral alliances with the Republic of Korea, Republic of China and Japan “not just to contain but also constrain potential ‘rogue alliances’ from engaging in adventurist behavior that might it into larger military contingencies in the region or that could trigger a domino effect, with Asian countries falling to communism.” Since the United States struggled with the challenge of “rogue alliances and the threat of falling dominoes combined to produce a dreaded entrapment scenario for the United States,” the domino theory further underscores the importance of bilateral alliances in international relations. This is evident in how the domino theory provided the United States with a coalition approach, where it “fashioned a series of deep, tight bilateral alliances” with Asian countries including Taiwan, South Korea, and Japan to “control their ability to use force and to foster material and political dependency on the United States.” Hence, this indicates that the domino theory assists in observing the effect of forged alliances as a stepping stone or stumbling block within international relations. This underscores the correlation between domino theory and path dependency, where a retrospective collapse of one country falling to communism may not only have adverse effects to other countries but more importantly, on one’s decision-making scope and competence in overcoming present and future challenges. Therefore, the domino theory is indubitably a significant theory which deals with the close relationship between micro-cause and macro-consequence, where it suggests such macro-consequences may result in long-term repercussions.

Applications to communism outside Southeast Asia

Michael Lind has argued that though the domino theory failed regionally, there was a global wave, as communist or Marxist–Leninist regimes came to power in Benin, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Madagascar, Cape Verde, Mozambique, Angola, Afghanistan, Grenada, and Nicaragua during the 1970s. The global interpretation of the domino effect relies heavily upon the "prestige" interpretation of the theory, meaning that the success of Communist revolutions in some countries, though it did not provide material support to revolutionary forces in other countries, did contribute morale and rhetorical support.

In this vein, Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara wrote an essay, the "Message to the Tricontinental", in 1967, calling for "two, three ... many Vietnams" across the world. Historian Max Boot wrote, "In the late 1970s, America's enemies seized power in countries from Mozambique to Iran to Nicaragua. American hostages were seized aboard the SS Mayaguez (off Cambodia) and in Tehran. The Soviet Army invaded Afghanistan. There is no obvious connection with the Vietnam War, but there is little doubt that the defeat of a superpower encouraged our enemies to undertake acts of aggression that they might otherwise have shied away from."

In addition, this theory can be further bolstered by the rise in terrorist incidents by left-wing terrorist groups in Western Europe, funded in part by Communist governments, between the 1960s and 1980s. In Italy, this includes the kidnapping and assassination of former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro, and the kidnapping of former US Brigadier General James L. Dozier, by the Red Brigades.

In West Germany, this includes the terrorist actions of the Red Army Faction. In the far east the Japanese Red Army carried out similar acts. All four, as well as others, worked with various Arab and Palestinian terrorists, which like the red brigades were backed by the Soviet Bloc.

In the 1977 Frost/Nixon interviews, Richard Nixon defended the United States' destabilization of the Salvador Allende regime in Chile on domino theory grounds. Borrowing a metaphor he had heard, he stated that a Communist Chile and Cuba would create a "red sandwich" that could entrap Latin America between them. In the 1980s, the domino theory was used again to justify the Reagan administration's interventions in Central America and the Caribbean region.

In his memoirs, former Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith described the successive rise of authoritarian left-wing governments in Sub-Saharan Africa during decolonization as "the communists' domino tactic". The establishment of pro-communist governments in Tanzania (1961–64) and Zambia (1964) and explicitly Marxist–Leninist governments in Angola (1975), Mozambique (1975), and eventually Rhodesia itself (in 1980) are cited by Smith as evidence of "the insidious encroachment of Soviet imperialism down the continent".

Other applications

Political cartoon by Carlos Latuff applying the domino theory to the Arab Spring.

Some foreign policy analysts in the United States have referred to the potential spread of both Islamic theocracy and liberal democracy in the Middle East as two different possibilities for a domino theory. During the Iran–Iraq War the United States and other western nations supported Ba'athist Iraq, fearing the spread of Iran's radical theocracy throughout the region. In the 2003 invasion of Iraq, some neoconservatives argued that when a democratic government is implemented, it would then help spread democracy and liberalism across the Middle East. This has been referred to as a "reverse domino theory," or a "democratic domino theory," so called because its effects are considered positive, not negative, by Western democratic states.

Methanol economy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The methanol economy is a suggested future economy in which methanol and dimethyl ether replace fossil fuels as a means of energy storage, ground transportation fuel, and raw material for synthetic hydrocarbons and their products. It offers an alternative to the proposed hydrogen economy or ethanol economy, though these concepts are not exclusive.

In the 1990s, Nobel prize laureate George A. Olah advocated a methanol economy; in 2006, he and two co-authors, G. K. Surya Prakash and Alain Goeppert, published a summary of the state of fossil fuel and alternative energy sources, including their availability and limitations, before suggesting a methanol economy.

IBC container with 1000 L renewable methanol (the energy content is the same as that of 160 pieces of 50 L gas cylinders filled with hydrogen at 200 bar)

Methanol can be produced from a wide variety of sources including fossil fuels (natural gas, coal, oil shale, tar sands, etc.) as well as agricultural products and municipal waste, wood and varied biomass. It can also be made from chemical recycling of carbon dioxide.

Uses

Ferry with methanol engine (Stena Germanica Kiel)

 

Racing car with methanol combustion engine

 

Sports car with reformed methanol fuel cell (Nathalie)

 

Passenger car with reformed methanol fuel cell (Necar 5)

Fuel

Main article: Methanol fuel

Methanol is a fuel for heat engines and fuel cells. Due to its high octane rating it can be used directly as a fuel in flex-fuel cars (including hybrid and plug-in hybrid vehicles) using existing internal combustion engines (ICE). Methanol can also be burned in some other kinds of engine or to provide heat as other liquid fuels are used. Fuel cells, can use methanol either directly in Direct Methanol Fuel Cells (DMFC) or indirectly (after conversion into hydrogen by reforming) in a Reformed Methanol Fuel Cell (RMFC).

Feedstock

Methanol is already used today on a large scale to produce a variety of chemicals and products. Global methanol demand as a chemical feedstock reached around 42 million metric tonnes per year as of 2015. Through the methanol-to-gasoline (MTG) process, it can be transformed into gasoline. Using the methanol-to-olefin (MTO) process, methanol can also be converted to ethylene and propylene, the two chemicals produced in largest amounts by the petrochemical industry. These are important building blocks for the production of essential polymers (LDPE, HDPE, PP) and like other chemical intermediates are currently produced mainly from petroleum feedstock. Their production from methanol could therefore reduce our dependency on petroleum. It would also make it possible to continue producing these chemicals when fossil fuels reserves are depleted.

Production

Today most methanol is produced from methane through syngas. Trinidad and Tobago is currently the world's largest methanol exporter, with exports mainly to the United States. The natural gas that serves as feedstock for the production of methanol comes from the same sources as other uses. Unconventional gas resources such as coalbed methane, tight sand gas and eventually the very large methane hydrate resources present under the continental shelves of the seas and Siberian and Canadian tundra could also be used to provide the necessary gas.

The conventional route to methanol from methane passes through syngas generation by steam reforming combined (or not) with partial oxidation. New and more efficient ways to convert methane into methanol are also being developed. These include:

• Methane oxidation with homogeneous catalysts in sulfuric acid media
• Methane bromination followed by hydrolysis of the obtained bromomethane
• Direct oxidation of methane with oxygen
• Microbial or photochemical conversion of methane
• Partial methane oxidation with trapping of the partially oxidized product and subsequent extraction on copper and iron exchanged Zeolite (e.g. Alpha-Oxygen)

All these synthetic routes emit the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide CO₂. To mitigate this, methanol can be made through ways minimizing the emission of CO₂. One solution is to produce it from syngas obtained by biomass gasification. For this purpose any biomass can be used including wood, wood wastes, grass, agricultural crops and their by-products, animal waste, aquatic plants and municipal waste. There is no need to use food crops as in the case of ethanol from corn, sugar cane and wheat.

Biomass → Syngas (CO, CO₂, H₂) → CH₃OH

Methanol can be synthesized from carbon and hydrogen from any source, including fossil fuels and biomass. CO₂ emitted from fossil fuel burning power plants and other industries and eventually even the CO₂ contained in the air, can be a source of carbon. It can also be made from chemical recycling of carbon dioxide, which Carbon Recycling International has demonstrated with its first commercial scale plant. Initially the major source will be the CO₂ rich flue gases of fossil-fuel-burning power plants or exhaust from cement and other factories. In the longer range however, considering diminishing fossil fuel resources and the effect of their utilization on earth's atmosphere, even the low concentration of atmospheric CO₂ itself could be captured and recycled via methanol, thus supplementing nature's own photosynthetic cycle. Efficient new absorbents to capture atmospheric CO₂ are being developed, mimicking plants' ability. Chemical recycling of CO₂ to new fuels and materials could thus become feasible, making them renewable on the human timescale.

Methanol can also be produced from CO₂ by catalytic hydrogenation of CO₂ with H₂ where the hydrogen has been obtained from water electrolysis. This is the process used by Carbon Recycling International of Iceland. Methanol may also be produced through CO₂ electrochemical reduction, if electrical power is available. The energy needed for these reactions in order to be carbon neutral would come from renewable energy sources such as wind, hydroelectricity and solar as well as nuclear power. In effect, all of them allow free energy to be stored in easily transportable methanol, which is made immediately from hydrogen and carbon dioxide, rather than attempting to store energy in free hydrogen.

CO₂ + 3H₂ → CH₃OH + H₂O

or with electric energy

CO₂ +5H₂O + 6 e⁻¹ → CH₃OH + 6 HO⁻¹

6 HO⁻¹ → 3H₂O + 3/2 O₂ + 6 e⁻¹

Total:

CO₂ +2H₂O + electric energy → CH₃OH + 3/2 O₂

The necessary CO₂ would be captured from fossil fuel burning power plants and other industrial flue gases including cement factories. With diminishing fossil fuel resources and therefore CO₂ emissions, the CO₂ content in the air could also be used. Considering the low concentration of CO₂ in air (0.04%) improved and economically viable technologies to absorb CO₂ will have to be developed. For this reason, extraction of CO₂ from water could be more feasible due to its higher concentrations in dissolved form. This would allow the chemical recycling of CO₂, thus mimicking nature's photosynthesis.

In large-scale renewable methanol is mainly produced of fermented biomass as well as municipal solid waste (bio-methanol) and of renewable electricity (e-Methanol). Production costs for renewable methanol currently are about 300 to US$1000/t for bio-methanol, about 800 to US$1600/t for e-Methanol of carbon dioxide of renewable sources and about 1100 to US$2400/t for e-Methanol of carbon dioxide of Direct Air Capture.

Efficiency for production and use of e-Methanol

Methanol which is produced of CO₂ and water by the use of electricity is called e-Methanol. Therefor typically hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water which is then transformed with CO₂ to methanol. Currently the efficiency for hydrogen production by water electrolysis of electricity amounts to 75 to 85% with potential up to 93% until 2030. Efficiency for methanol synthesis of hydrogen and carbon dioxide currently is 79 to 80%. Thus the efficiency for production of methanol from electricity and carbon dioxide is about 59 to 78%. If CO₂ is not directly available but is obtained by Direct Air Capture then the efficiency amounts to 50-60 % for methanol production by use of electricity. When methanol is used in a methanol fuel cell the electrical efficiency of the fuel cell is about 35 to 50% (status of 2021). Thus the electrical overall efficiency for the production of e-Methanol with electricity including the following energy conversion of e-Methanol to electricity amounts to about 21 to 34% for e-Methanol of directly available CO₂ and to about 18 to 30% for e-Methanol produced by CO₂ which is obtained by Direct Air Capture.

If waste heat is used for a high temperature electrolysis or if waste heat of electrolysis, methanol synthesis and/or of the fuel cell is used then the overall efficiency can be significantly increased beyond electrical efficiency. For example, an overall efficiency of 86% can be reached by using waste heat (e.g. for district heating) which is obtained by production of e-Methanol by electrolysis or by the following methanol synthesis. If the waste heat of a fuel cell is used a fuel cell efficiency of 85 to 90% can be reached. The waste heat can for example be used for heating of a vehicle or a household. Also the generation of coldness by using waste heat is possible with a refrigeration machine. With an extensive use of waste heat an overall efficiency of 70 to 80% can be reached for production of e-Methanol including the following use of the e-Methanol in a fuel cell.

The electrical system efficiency including all losses of peripheral devices (e.g. cathode compressor, stack cooling) amounts to about 40 to 50% for a methanol fuel cell of RMFC type and to 40 to 55% for a hydrogen fuel cell of LT-PEMFC type.

Araya et al. compared the hydrogen path with the methanol path (for methanol of directly available CO₂). Here the electrical efficiency from electricity supply to delivery of electricity by a fuel cell was determined with following intermediate steps: power management, conditioning, transmission, hydrogen production by electrolysis, methanol synthesis resp. hydrogen compression, fuel transportation, fuel cell. For the methanol path the efficiency was investigated as 23 to 38% and for the hydrogen path as 24 to 41%. With the hydrogen path a large part of energy is lost by hydrogen compression and hydrogen transport, whereas for the methanol path energy for methanol synthesis is needed.

Helmers et al. compared the Well-to-Wheel (WTW) efficiency of vehicles. The WTW efficiency was determined as 10 to 20% for with fossile gasoline operated vehicles with internal combustion engine, as 15 to 29% for with fossile gasoline operated full electric hybrid vehicles with internal combustion engine, as 13 to 25% for with fossile Diesel operated vehicles with internal combustion engine, as 12 to 21% for with fossile CNG operated vehicles with internal combustion engine, as 20 to 29% for fuel cell vehicles (e.g. fossile hydrogen or methanol) and as 59 to 80% for battery electric vehicles.

In German study "Agora Energiewende" different drive technologies by using renewable electricity for fuel production were examined and a WTW efficiency of 13% for vehicles with internal combustion engine (operated with synthetic fuel like OME), 26% for fuel cell vehicles (operated with hydrogen) and 69% for battery electric vehicles was determined.

If renewable hydrogen is used the Well-to-Wheel efficiency for a hydrogen fuel cell car amounts to about 14 to 30%.

If renewable e-Methanol is produced from directly available CO₂ the Well-to-Wheel efficiency amounts to about 11 to 21% for a vehicle with internal combustion engine which is operated with this e-Methanol and to about 18 to 29% for a fuel cell vehicle which is operated with this e-Methanol. If renewable e-Methanol is produced from CO₂ of Direct Air Capture the Well-to-Wheel efficiency amounts to about 9 to 19% for a vehicle with internal combustion engine which is operated with this e-Methanol and to about 15 to 26% for a fuel cell vehicle which is operated with this e-Methanol (status of 2021).

Cost comparison Methanol economy vs. Hydrogen economy

Fuel costs:

Methanol is cheaper than hydrogen. For large amounts (tank) price for fossile methanol is about 0.3 to 0.6 USD/L. One liter of Methanol has the same energy content as 0.13 kg hydrogen. Price for 0.13 kg of fossile hydrogen is currently about 1.2 to 1.3 USD for large amounts (about 9.5 USD/kg at hydrogen refuelling stations). For middle scale amounts (delivery in IBC container with 1000 L methanol) price for fossile methanol is usually about 0.5 to 0.7 USD/L, for biomethanol about 0.7 to 2.0 USD/L and for e-Methanol from CO₂ about 0.8 to 2.0 USD/L plus deposit for IBC container. For middle scale amounts of hydrogen (bundle of gas cylinders) price for 0.13 kg of fossile hydrogen is usually about 5 to 12 USD plus rental fee for the cylinders. The significantly higher price for hydrogen compared to methanol is amongst others caused by the complex logistics and storage of hydrogen. Whereas biomethanol and renewable e-Methanol are available at distributors, green hydrogen is typically not yet available at distributors. Prices for renewable hydrogen as well as for renewable methanol are expected to decrease in future.

Infrastructure:

For future it is expected that for passenger cars a high percentage of vehicles will be full electric battery vehicles. For utility vehicles and trucks percentage of full electric battery vehicles is expected to be significantly lower than for passenger cars. The rest of vehicles is expected to be based on fuel. While methanol infrastructure for 10 000 refuelling stations would cost about 0.5 to 2.0 billion USD, cost for a hydrogen infrastructure for 10 000 refuelling stations would be about 16 to 1400 billion USD with strong dependence on hydrogen throughput of the hydrogen refuelling station.

Energy conversion:

While for vehicles with internal combustion engine that are fuelled with methanol there are no significant additional costs compared to gasoline fuelled vehicles, additional costs for a passenger car with methanol fuel cell would be about -600 to 2400 USD compard with a passenger car with hydrogen fuel cell (primarily additional costs for reformer, balance of plant components and perhaps stack minus costs for hydrogen tank and hydrogen high-pressure instruments).

Advantages

In the process of photosynthesis, green plants use the energy of sunlight to split water into free oxygen (which is released) and free hydrogen. Rather than attempt to store the hydrogen, plants immediately capture carbon dioxide from the air to allow the hydrogen to reduce it to storable fuels such as hydrocarbons (plant oils and terpenes) and polyalcohols (glycerol, sugars and starches). In the methanol economy, any process which similarly produces free hydrogen, proposes to immediately use it "captively" to reduce carbon dioxide into methanol, which, like plant products from photosynthesis, has great advantages in storage and transport over free hydrogen itself.

Methanol is a liquid under normal conditions, allowing it to be stored, transported and dispensed easily, much like gasoline and diesel fuel. It can also be readily transformed by dehydration into dimethyl ether, a diesel fuel substitute with a cetane number of 55.

Methanol is water-soluble: An accidental release of methanol in the environment would cause much less damage than a comparable gasoline or crude oil spill. Unlike these fuels, methanol is biodegradable and totally soluble in water, and would be rapidly diluted to a concentration low enough for microorganism to start biodegradation. This effect is already exploited in water treatment plants, where methanol is already used for denitrification and as a nutrient for bacteria. Accidental release causing groundwater pollution has not been thoroughly studied yet, though it is believed that it might undergo relatively rapid.

Comparison with hydrogen

Methanol economy advantages compared to a hydrogen economy:

• Efficient energy storage by volume, as compared with compressed hydrogen. When hydrogen pressure-confinement vessel is taken into account, an advantage in energy storage by weight can also be realized. The volumetric energy density of methanol is considerably higher than liquid hydrogen, in part because of the low density of liquid hydrogen of 71 grams/litre. Hence there is actually more hydrogen in a litre of methanol (99 grams/litre) than in a litre of liquid hydrogen, and methanol needs no cryogenic container maintained at a temperature of -253 °C .
• A liquid hydrogen infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive. Methanol can use existing gasoline infrastructure with only limited modifications.
• Can be blended with gasoline (for example in M85, a mixture containing 85% methanol and 15% gasoline).
• User friendly. Hydrogen is volatile, and its confinements uses high pressure or cryogenic systems.
• Less losses : Hydrogen leaks more easily than methanol. Heat will evaporate liquid hydrogen, giving expected losses up to 0.3% per day in storage tanks. (see Chart Ferox storage tanks Liquid oxygen).

Comparison with ethanol

• Can be made from any organic material using proven technology going through syngas. There is no need to use food crops and compete with food production. The amount of methanol that can be generated from biomass is much greater than ethanol.
• Can compete with and complement ethanol in a diversified energy marketplace. Methanol obtained from fossil fuels has a lower price than ethanol.
• Can be blended in gasoline like ethanol. In 2007, China blended more than 1 billion US gallons (3,800,000 m³) of methanol into fuel and will introduce methanol fuel standard by mid-2008. M85, a mixture of 85% methanol and 15% gasoline can be used much like E85 sold in some gas stations today.

Methanol from Supermarket as grill lighter fluid (Spain, 99 % methanol, colored blue)

Disadvantages

• High energy costs currently associated with generating and transporting hydrogen offsite.
• Presently generated from natural gas still dependent on fossil fuels (although any combustible hydrocarbon can be used).
• Energy density (by weight or volume) one half of that of gasoline and 24% less than ethanol
• Handling
  • If no inhibitors are used, methanol is corrosive to some common metals including aluminum, zinc and manganese. Parts of the engine fuel-intake systems are made from aluminum. Similar to ethanol, compatible material for fuel tanks, gasket and engine intake have to be used.
  • As with similarly corrosive and hydrophilic ethanol, existing pipelines designed for petroleum products cannot handle methanol. Thus methanol requires shipment at higher energy cost in trucks and trains, until new pipeline infrastructure can be built, or existing pipelines are retrofitted for methanol transport.
  • Methanol, as an alcohol, increases the permeability of some plastics to fuel vapors (e.g. high-density polyethylene). This property of methanol has the possibility of increasing emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from fuel, which contributes to increased tropospheric ozone and possibly human exposure.
• Low volatility in cold weather: pure methanol-fueled engines can be difficult to start, and they run inefficiently until warmed up. This is why a mixture containing 85% methanol and 15% gasoline called M85 is generally used in ICEs. The gasoline allows the engine to start even at lower temperatures.
• With the exception of low level exposure, methanol is toxic. Methanol is lethal when ingested in larger amounts (30 to 100 mL). But so are most motor fuels, including gasoline (120 to 300 mL) and diesel fuel. Gasoline also contains small amounts of many compounds known to be carcinogenic (e.g. benzene). Methanol is not a carcinogen, nor does it contain carcinogens. However, methanol is metabolized in the body to formaldehyde, which is both toxic and carcinogenic. Methanol occurs naturally in small quantities in the human body and in edible fruits.
• Methanol is a liquid: this creates a greater fire risk compared to hydrogen in open spaces as Methanol leaks do not dissipate. Methanol burns invisibly unlike gasoline. Compared to gasoline, however, methanol is much safer. It is more difficult to ignite and releases less heat when it burns. Methanol fires can be extinguished with plain water, whereas gasoline floats on water and continues to burn. The EPA has estimated that switching fuels from gasoline to methanol would reduce the incidence of fuel related fires by 90%.

Status and Production of renewable methanol

Europe

• In Iceland the company Carbon Recycling International operates a plant for production of e-Methanol of CO₂ from a geothermal plant with a methanol manufacturing capacity of more than 4000 t/a. The plant was named after George Olah.
• BioMCN from Netherlands has a production capacity of more than 60 000 t/a for production of renewable methanol (biomethanol and e-Methanol)
• BASF produces methanol of renewable resources named EU-REDcert methanol using waste based biomass.
• In May 2019 a demonstration plant was started in Germany in Niederaußem with a daily production capacity of one ton as part of the project MefCO₂. The methanol was used for denitrification in a waste water treatment facility.
• In Germany there is a project called Carbon2Chem of Thyssenkrupp to produce methanol from smelter gases.
• Within the scope of the consortium Power to Methanol Antwerp BV consisting of ENGIE, Fluxys, Indaver, INOVYN, Oiltanking, PMV and Port of Antwerp a plant for production of 8000 t/a renewable methanol shall be built. The CO₂ for the production of the e-methanol shall be separated by Carbon Capture and Utilisation (CCU) from emissions.
• Wacker Chemie AG from Germany plans as part of a submitted funding project (RHYME) to build a plant for production of green hydrogen and renewable methanol (as of April 2021). For synthesis of methanol of green hydrogen the CO₂ shall be originated from production processes of the chemical site and perhaps of other industrial processes (e.g. CO₂ from cement plants). 15 000 t/a of renewable methanol shall be produced which shall be used for company internal production processes (e.g. synthesis of silicones) as well as for selling as a fuel.
• At site Örnsköldsvik in Sweden the consortium Liquid Wind together with Worley plan a plant with a production capacity of 50 000 t/a for renewable e-Methanol (as of May 2021). The CO₂ shall be originated from a biomass plant. Until 2050 Liquid Wind wants to build 500 similar plants. Members of the consortium are Alfa Laval, Haldor Topsoe, Carbon Clean und Siemens Energy.
• Total Energies (the largest methanol producer in Europe with production capacity of 700 000 t/a) starts the project e-CO2Met for production of renewable methanol in Leuna, Germany (as of June 2021). Hereby a 1 MW high temperature electrolyzer shall be used. The CO₂ for the methanol production shall be originated from production processes of a raffinery.

North America

• Enerkem from Canada produces renewable Methanol with a capacity of 100 000 t/a. The methanol is produced from municipal solid waste.
• Celanese announced in May 2021 the plan to produce methanol from CO₂ at site Clear Lake, Texas. Herefore 180 000 tons of CO₂ per year shall be used.

South America

• A consortium of Porsche, Siemens Energy, Enel, AME und ENAP plans to build production facilities for manufacturing of renewable methanol with wind power and CO₂ from the air (as of July 2021). With assistance of ExxonMobil the methanol shall be transformed to further synthetic fuels. By 2024 the consortium wants to produce 55 million litres of eFuels and by 2026 around 550 million litres of eFuels.

China

• In the "Liquid Solar Fuel Production demonstration Project" in 2020 the large-scale production of renewable methanol with sun power with a 10 MW electrolyzer was demonstrated.
• More than 20 000 taxis are operated in China with methanol (as of 2020)
• End of 2021 in Henan province the world's largest plant for production of methanol from CO₂ with a capacity of 110 000 t/a shall be commissioned in "Shunli CO₂-To-Methanol Plant" with assistance of Carbon Recycling International.
• Several major Chinese automakers such as FAW Group, Shanghai Huapu, Geely Group, Chang’an, Shanghai Maple and SAIC prepare for mass production of methanol capable vehicles and fleets of taxis and buses.
• In Shanxi province there exist more than 1000 petrol stations that sell M15 and further 40 M85-M100 refueling points. Until 2025 the government of Shanxi wants to convert more than 2000 refueling stations for methanol fuel as well as 200 000 vehicles for operation with methanol.