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We have conducted a study in collaboration with the Port of Rotterdam in which we explored possibilities for developing a methanol-based industrial cluster in that area. The study had two main goals. The first goal was to develop a realistic design of a methanol-based industrial cluster, supported by technical and economic data. For our cluster, we have considered plants and processes from the entire production chain, i.e., various feedstocks for syngas and methanol production through the end use of methanol as chemical building blocks in formaldehyde, for example, or a methanol-based fuel cell industry. The second goal of the study was to bring together various actors in the field of our proposed methanol cluster because the development of a large-scale cluster would only materialize if the actors were involved from the very beginning, allowing them to pose objectives and constraints to the technical design as well as to the organizational and institutional design of the cluster. To that extent, we organized a workshop with many of the actors, as a vehicle to initiate discussions concerning technical and economic issues and to provide input for our quantitative model, which comprised the technical design options of the cluster. The model shows that a methanol-based industrial cluster is attainable. We have involved and activated many of the necessary actors that are needed to realize the cluster in the future.

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