Site items in: Articles

Content Types

To take a deep dive into our archives, please select filters and click Search. Search Results (Found )

Display Options

No Results Found.

Please try modifying your filters and filtering again.

Please add a keyword and/or a dropdown filter to generate a precise search, or use the sitewide search at the top of the page for a more general search.

Searching... Please wait[cancel Search]

Article

Maritime fuel mix could be 25% ammonia by 2050

Trevor Brown September 20, 2019

DNV GL published its annual Energy Transition Outlook last week, which includes a dedicated analysis of the shipping industry in its Maritime Forecast to 2050. According to DNV GL, the IMO's 2050 emission reduction targets can be met through innovative ship design, using ammonia as an alternative fuel. Widespread commercial adoption of ammonia fuel would begin in 2037; ammonia would the dominant fuel choice for new builds by 2042; and ammonia would represent 25% of the maritime fuel mix by 2050. This represents new demand for roughly 120 million tons per year of green ammonia by 2050. This outcome greatly depends on how maritime regulations are developed in the coming years, but it would see ammonia-fueled ships represent almost 100% of new vessels (by fuel consumption) from 2044 onwards.

Article

Hydrogen Prioritized in New ARENA Investment Plan

Stephen H. Crolius September 19, 2019

On September 11, the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) issued its 2019 Investment Plan. The theme of the accompanying press release is “sharpening our focus,” and indeed the agency articulates just three investment priorities: “integrating renewables into the electricity system;” “accelerating the growth of a hydrogen industry;” and “supporting industry to reduce emissions.” The prioritization of hydrogen – and with it, ammonia as a possible hydrogen carrier – is a new development for ARENA.

Article

Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0 Conference: panel discussion recap

John Mott September 12, 2019

The Ammonia Energy Association Australia’s Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0 Conference took place on 22-23 August 2019 in Melbourne, Australia. It attracted 115 attendees from industry, government, and research institutions. This is the first of two articles about the event; this article recaps the interactive panel sessions and the second article will highlight selected presentations. The panel discussions were placed at the end of the program so that important themes from the presentations could be highlighted and integrated. These themes included: 1) Building an energy export industry using green ammonia; 2) Green ammonia as a maritime bunker fuel; and 3) Green ammonia as grid scale energy storage – a battery to the nation.

Article

Engie, Siemens, STFC, and Ecuity awarded funding for green ammonia-to-hydrogen in UK

Trevor Brown September 06, 2019

Last week, the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) announced a "£390 million government investment to reduce emissions from industry," with a focus on low-carbon hydrogen supply and clean steel production. As part of this investment, a consortium led by Ecuity Consulting that includes Siemens, Engie, and the Science & Technology Facilities Council (STFC), has been awarded £249,000 to perform "valuable research on the role of ammonia in the delivery of low cost bulk hydrogen for use in the UK energy system."

Article

IHI Breaks Ground on Hydrogen Research Facility

Stephen H. Crolius September 05, 2019

Japanese capital goods manufacturer IHI Corporation announced last month that it has started construction of a 1,000 square-meter hydrogen research facility in Fukushima Prefecture. The facility will be an addition to IHI’s Green Energy Center in Soma City which was launched in 2018. One of the Center’s original focuses is the production steps of the green hydrogen supply chain using solar electricity to power developmental electrolyzers. The new facility will focus on hydrogen carriers, including ammonia and methane (via “methanation” of carbon dioxide), that can be used in the logistics steps of the supply chain.

Article

Green Bonds for Green Ammonia

Kristoffer Olsen, CFA August 27, 2019

Access to significant and competitively priced long-term financing is a crucial piece of the puzzle to enable the energy transition. Green Finance and Green Bonds can directly contribute to the decarbonisation of ammonia and future production of green ammonia fuel, helping to deliver the Paris Agreement’s preferred target of keeping warming below 1.5 °C.

Article

Yara and Nel collaborate to reduce electrolyzer costs; announce green ammonia pilot in Norway by 2022

Trevor Brown August 23, 2019

This week, two Norwegian companies, fertilizer producer Yara and electrolyzer manufacturer Nel, announced an agreement to test Nel's "next generation" alkaline electrolyzer at an ammonia production site. The parties expect to begin operating a 5 MW prototype in 2022, feeding green hydrogen directly into Yara's 500,000 ton per year ammonia plant at Porsgrunn.

Article

The Case for Giving Direct Ammonia Fuels Cells a Shot

Stephen H. Crolius August 22, 2019

The Center for Catalytic Science and Technology (CCST) at the University of Delaware has made new strides in the development of a direct ammonia fuel cell (DAFC) suitable for use in transportation applications. The progress is reported in “An Efficient Direct Ammonia Fuel Cell for Affordable Carbon-Neutral Transportation,” a paper published last month by Yun Zhao and six coauthors in the journal Joule. The paper gives an impressive account of CCST’s technical advances; and it makes a distinctly compelling case for the relevance of CCST’s work on DAFCs. In the latter regard, the authors find that ammonia has the “lowest source-to-tank energy cost by a significant margin” relative to other fuels that can be derived from renewably generated electricity. It is in society’s interest, they strongly imply, to give DAFC technology a chance to compete with hydrogen-based fuel cells in automotive applications.

Article

Electrified Methane Reforming Could Reduce Ammonia's CO2 Footprint

Kevin Rouwenhorst August 15, 2019

A May 2019 paper published in Science reports on a technological advance that may have significant implications for ammonia production. The paper, Electrified methane reforming: A compact approach to greener industrial hydrogen production, presents a method for providing the heat required for steam methane reforming from renewable electricity instead of natural gas. The carbon intensity of ammonia production could thereby be reduced by about 30%. And, last month, Haldor Topsøe announced that it plans to build a demonstration plant in Denmark that will produce “CO2-neutral methanol from biogas using eSMR technology.” The plant is expected to be “fully operational in the beginning of 2022.”

Article

Bunker Ammonia: Rapid Cross-Sector Progress from Industry, Government, Finance, and Class Societies

Trevor Brown August 09, 2019

The maritime industry has been engaged in a frenzy of research since April 2018, when the International Maritime Organization (IMO) announced its Initial GHG Strategy mandating a 50% reduction in shipping's emissions by 2050. Three recent announcements illustrate the speed and depth of progress across a range of maritime stakeholders. In the government sector, the UK has launched its Clean Maritime Plan, which identifies ammonia as one of its strategic "clean growth opportunities." In finance, a coalition of 11 banks representing a shipping portfolio of around $100 billion has launched the Poseidon Principles to "redefine the role of banks in the maritime shipping sector." And class society ABS launched its Global Sustainability Center in Singapore to analyse, certify, and validate alternative fuels and new technologies; its Director of Global Sustainability will speak at the inaugural conference of the Ammonia Energy Association--Australia, held in Clayton, VIC, on August 22-23. His subject will be "Green ammonia as marine bunker fuel."