The global push to decarbonize power generation, shipping and other energy-intensive sectors of the economy and the Biden administration’s efforts to heavily incentivize the development of low-carbon energy sources have resulting in a growing list of large clean ammonia projects in the US. almost all of these proposed multibillion-dollar production facilities are located along the Texas-Louisiana coast, a region that offers easy access to natural gas supplies, carbon sequestration sites and export markets. In today’s RBN blog, we continue our look at the growing market for “green” and (especially) “blue” ammonia with a review of the largest production facilities currently under development.
As we said a Part 1the talk around the potential for clean ammonia to become a major energy source is finally being transformed into the reality of announcements of clean ammonia projects, engineering-procurement-construction (EPC) contracts and final investment decisions (FID). There are two main drivers behind the shift from talk to action: (1) the supercharged Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) and (2) the expanding efforts of power generators in Japan and the South. Korea, in particular, to make clean ammonia a significant part of its fuel mix in the future. A third driver is growing interest from global shippers, who see clean ammonia (and the clean hydrogen packed into each molecule) as a low-carbon bunker fuel worth pursuing.
Before we delve into the big clean ammonia projects we’ve been tracking, a reminder that clean ammonia is produced by reacting blue or green hydrogen with nitrogen (supplied from an air separation unit) using the process Haber-Bosch (a catalyst). , high temperature and high pressure). Blue hydrogen is produced by passing natural gas through a steam methane reformer (SMR) or automatic thermal reformer (ATR) and capturing and sequestering most of the carbon dioxide (CO).2) generated by the process, typically about half of the CO2 when using an SMR and 90% more with an ATR. Green hydrogen, in turn, is produced by running water through an electrolyzer powered by renewable energy to produce H2 and oxygen, without CO2 occurs, so there is no need for CCS.
