Why Cenagen’s methanol is not "green" methanol

Cenagen says its Kandos project will use Processed Engineered Feedstock (PEF) to produce “green methanol”.¹

That claim matters. “Green methanol” sounds clean, renewable and fossil-free.

But based on Cenagen’s own description of the project, the methanol should not be called green.

What does “green methanol” usually mean?

Renewable or green methanol is normally understood as methanol made from renewable feedstocks and renewable energy.

The International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) says renewable methanol can be produced in two main ways:

• bio-methanol, made from biomass or other renewable biological sources; or

• green e-methanol, made from green hydrogen and carbon dioxide captured from renewable sources.

(“Biomass” means recently living organic material — for example plant material, food scraps, agricultural residues, forestry residues or other biological waste that can be renewed or regrown. “Green hydrogen” means hydrogen produced using renewable electricity, rather than fossil fuels.)

IRENA is clear on the basic test: to qualify as renewable, all feedstocks and energy used to produce the methanol need to be of renewable origin.²

What is Cenagen proposing?

Cenagen is proposing to turn processed mixed waste into methanol.

It's not proposing to make methanol from green hydrogen and renewable carbon dioxide.

Cenagen says its Kandos plant would use Processed Engineered Feedstock (PEF), made from residual Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) and Commercial and Industrial (C&I) waste. The PEF would be gasified to produce syngas, and that syngas would then be converted into methanol.³

The plastics problem

Mixed residual waste is not the same thing as renewable biomass.

NSW waste data shows that residual household waste still contains a significant amount of plastic. The NSW EPA’s red-lid bin audit found plastics made up about 13% of residual waste bins by weight.⁴ (The "red-lid bin" used commonly throughout NSW is equivalent to the plain dark green or black bin, i.e. the bin without a different coloured lid, used in the Mid-Western Regional Council area.)

For business waste, the NSW EPA’s 2023 Commercial and Industrial waste audit found that plastics made up 15.3% of C&I waste sent to landfill.⁵

That matters because most primary plastics are fossil-fuel based.⁶

So even after normal recycling systems, residual MSW and C&I waste still contains plastic. And most of that plastic is fossil-derived.

So can Cenagen's methanol be called green?

No - not based on Cenagen’s own description of how it will be produced.

If the PEF contains fossil-derived plastics, and those plastics are gasified into syngas and then converted into methanol, then some of the carbon in the methanol comes from fossil sources.

That is not green methanol in the ordinary sense.

It may be waste-derived methanol.

It may be claimed to be lower-carbon methanol, if Cenagen can prove that through proper independent assessment.

But it should not be described simply as green methanol.

A more accurate description would be:

waste-derived methanol made from residual MSW/C&I-derived PEF

Or, more directly:

mixed-waste-derived methanol likely to contain fossil-derived carbon from plastics

Until Cenagen can show that the methanol is made from renewable feedstocks and renewable energy, the “green methanol” label is not justified.

Sources

¹ Cenagen, FAQs - Cenagen, accessed 9 July 2026. Cenagen states that its proposal involves process stages “to convert Processed Engineered Feedstock (PEF) into green methanol”.

² International Renewable Energy Agency, Innovation Outlook: Renewable Methanol (2021). IRENA explains that renewable methanol can be produced as bio-methanol from biomass or as green e-methanol from renewable hydrogen and carbon dioxide, and says that for methanol to qualify as renewable, all feedstocks and energy used to produce it need to be renewable in origin.

³ Cenagen, Advanced Methanol Production and Greenhouse Facility Fact Sheet. The Fact Sheet describes a 1,500 tonne/day gasification facility processing engineered feedstock manufactured from residual MSW and C&I waste, with syngas then used to manufacture methanol.

⁴ NSW Environment Protection Authority, Domestic kerbside residual waste in NSW: Results of the 2011–2019 audits (March 2020). The EPA’s red-lid bin audit analysis reports plastics as a material component of household residual waste.

⁵ NSW Environment Protection Authority, Commercial and industrial waste audit 2023. The EPA reports that plastics made up 15.3% of C&I waste sent to landfill.

⁶ OECD, Plastics. The OECD states that most primary plastics are fossil-fuel based.