"Cars, cosmetics, textiles: Without "steam crackers" many products would not exist. Now the chemical company BASF has started up the first electrically heated splitting plant.
But it needs huge amounts of electricity.
Steam crackers are the heart of the chemical industry. In these huge plants, which cost billions, either crude petrol, so-called naphtha, or gas is split using steam and high temperatures of up to 850 degrees Celsius. In addition to a number of by-products, the main products are ethylene and propylene: two essential raw materials without which the modern world would not function.
Plastics, paints, insulation materials, textile fibers, adhesives, pesticides, cosmetics, even vitamins - the list of products at the end of these value chains is almost inexhaustible. Without steam crackers there would be no packaging, no cars, no cosmetics, no sportswear, no window profiles, not even cell phone cases.
So it's no wonder that there is great excitement on the day the world's first electrically heated steam cracker is due to go into operation. In Ludwigshafen, at BASF's headquarters. Even if it is "only" a pilot plant. Comparatively small and still industrially irrelevant. No comparison with the neighboring giant tube network that spans 13 football fields - one of two crackers on the BASF site.
If everything goes well, it's not just BASF that benefits
The importance of the new building, which was started two years ago, is already evident in its presence. Not only the outgoing BASF boss Martin Brudermüller found euphoric words at the inauguration in Ludwigshafen, Abdulrahman Al-Fageeh, the CEO of the Saudi Arabian chemical giant Sabic, also came, as did Jürgen Nowicki, CEO of Linde Engineering. BASF and Sabic contribute the chemical knowledge, Linde the plant construction.
If everything goes well, all three benefit. The two chemical companies can electrify their plants and Linde can market a technology that is unique to date. The entire chemical industry is watching this, because without electrifying these large plants, decarbonization will not succeed.
Brudermüller said the new technology has the potential to reduce CO2 emissions in one of the most energy-intensive chemical processes by 90 percent. The construction shows that BASF believes in the future of a sustainable chemical industry in Europe. This requires fearlessness, boldness and courage. "You have to cut through the tough stuff if the transformation is to succeed." Projects like this provide the necessary confidence.
According to Sabic boss Al-Fageeh, the technology has "enormous potential for the sustainability of the global petrochemical industry." In Ludwigshafen, he particularly praised the collaboration with BASF and Linde. The cooperation is exemplary. For a successful transformation, more partnerships like this are needed.
Not a sure-fire success
However, the electric furnace, known as the E-Furnace, is not a sure-fire success. There is only one pilot plant so far, and BASF wants to test by the end of 2026 how the technology holds up and how the new furnaces can be integrated into the existing plants. Even those responsible at BASF do not believe that the old crackers can one day be replaced by electric systems in one fell swoop. The company is rather assuming that the furnaces will be replaced gradually.
In addition, other technologies are needed, such as firing with hydrogen or compressing the carbon dioxide produced, in order to become climate-neutral by 2050 as promised. One unsolved problem is above all electricity consumption. If a new "world-scale" cracker on an electric basis were to be built today, i.e. a plant that produces 1 million tons of ethylene per year, according to BASF project manager Michael Reitz, between 480 and 850 megawatts of electricity per year would be needed, depending on the raw materials used, naphtha or gas.
The range corresponds roughly to the output of a small nuclear power plant or a medium-sized wind farm at sea. BASF alone currently operates five crackers, and a new one is about to be added at the newly built Verbund site in southern China. According to figures from the SVP market research company, ten steam crackers are in use in Germany, and 50 in the EU.
According to the Chemical Industry Association, in order to make production in the chemical industry completely climate-neutral by 2050, electricity consumption will increase more than tenfold to 685 terawatt hours. The chemical industry would then need significantly more electricity than the entire country does today.
BASF expects electricity consumption to double or triple by 2030 alone and has therefore already invested heavily in wind farms. The company has been operating wind farms with Vattenfall and Allianz for some time now. BASF is building the largest park in the world to date off the Dutch coast. Together with RWE, it is building another park in the German North Sea, which will also supply the plant in Ludwigshafen from 2030. Although many questions about regulation, networks and network fees have not yet been clarified, BASF wants to invest between three and four billion euros in the generation of renewable energy and the conversion of production by then.
Compared to that, the pilot project is small. The federal government has contributed 15 million euros in funding, and according to BASF, a total of 70 million euros have been invested in the construction. Linde wants to market the technology by the end of the year. Linde representative Jürgen Nowicki said the aim was to develop a new standard for the industry. The turning point is only just beginning and is anything but easy to manage: "Nobody can do it alone." [1]
1. BASF startet die Revolution der Produktion. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (online) Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung GmbH. Apr 18, 2024. Von Bernd Freytag, Ludwigshafen
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