Clean ammonia, which is produced by reacting clean hydrogen with nitrogen and capturing and sequestering the resulting carbon dioxide (CO).2), is gaining strength. In recent months, several more new clean ammonia production projects have been proposed along the US Gulf Coast, many made possible by commitments from Japanese and South Korean companies that see the low-carbon fuel as an important part of the Lighthouse. The future energy mix of the East. Taken as a group, the more than a dozen projects now under development have the potential to produce tens of millions of tons of clean ammonia annually and create another massive energy export market for US producers . In today’s RBN blog, we talk about new projects moving forward, and one that’s stalling, and what’s driving the clean ammonia market.
A year and a half ago, a Something to believe in, we looked at Japan and South Korea’s growing interest in co-firing coal plants with clean ammonia as a way to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from plants. We emphasized there—and we do so again here—that there is much skepticism about the prospects for clean hydrogen and clean ammonia as “fuels of the future,” or more specifically about whether these products basics can never be produced efficiently and cheaply enough… and in sufficient volumes, to lead to their widespread use. In addition, there is much concern that co-firing Japanese and South Korean coal plants with clean ammonia would result in only modest reductions in GHG emissions and expand the use of coal, which is widely considered the fuel dirtiest fossil.
Still, both Japan and South Korea see clean coal and ammonia firing as an important element in their energy transition plans. Both countries are on pretty much the same timeline, with plans to demonstrate the effectiveness of co-firing by 2027, commercialization of the technology and coal-fired co-firing plants with 20% clean ammonia by 2030, increasing the ammonia share of the fuel mix through the 2030s and 40s, and completely eliminating the use of coal, and commissioning 100% ammonia plants, by 2050. ( China, the world’s largest coal consumer, has also experimented with clean ammonia firing, but has no plans to switch to that approach.)
