Comprehensive competitiveness assessment of four coal-to-liquid routes and conventional oil refining route in China

Abstract Four coal-to-liquid (CTL) routes, called direct coal liquefaction (DCL), indirect coal liquefaction (ICL), coal-based methanol to gasoline (CBMTG), and coal tar hydrogenation (CTH), has been fully industrialized in China to relieve the excessive dependence on external oil. However, the knowledge and understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of the four CTL routes and the conventional oil refining (OR) route are insufficient. This study conducted a comprehensive competitiveness assessment regarding technology, environment, and economy to compare the four CTL routes and the OR route based on a life-cycle perspective. The results that the CTH route has the best comprehensive competitiveness and is the only CTL route that performs better than the OR route, thanks to its excellent technical and environmental competitiveness and considerable economic performance. However, the other three CTL routes face several challenges such as high energy and water consumption and intensive carbon emissions. Additionally, a sensitivity analysis was carried out to analyze the impact of variations in coal and oil prices, which shows that the CTH route has a strong ability to maintain a relative economic advantage over the OR route when coal and oil price fluctuations and hence is promising to be an effective alternative.