Site items in: Australia

Hydrogen Prioritized in New ARENA Investment Plan
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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.

Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0 Conference: panel discussion recap
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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.

The global quest to decarbonize ammonia production
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NEWS BRIEF: The industrial process for ammonia production is increasingly being recognized as a target for decarbonization - by researchers, investors, regulators, and the producers themselves. Demonstrating this shift in awareness, Chemical and Engineering News (C&EN), one of the flagship publications of the American Chemical Society (ACS), this week published an in-depth review of global research and development efforts and demonstration plants for sustainable ammonia synthesis. Its review is all-encompassing, from near-term feasible renewable Haber-Bosch plants, to long-term research areas of electrochemistry, photocatalysis, and bioengineering.

AEA Australia conference announced for August 2019: Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0
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ANNOUNCEMENT: The Australian chapter of the Ammonia Energy Association (AEA Australia) has announced details of its inaugural conference, which will take place on August 22 and 23, 2019, and will be held at CSIRO in Clayton, Victoria. Entitled "Ammonia = Hydrogen 2.0," the conference will focus on the role of ammonia within the Australian hydrogen economy, specifically "Building an energy export industry using Green Ammonia." In addition to a full program of talks by invited speakers, networking events will include panel discussions, a poster session, and the conference dinner. Registration for the event is now open, with an early booking discount available until July 5.

Advances Reported for MCH and LH2
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Two recent announcements show that the race is still very much on among the energy carriers that until recently were a focus of the Japanese Cabinet Office’s Cross-Ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP).  During its five-year career, the SIP Energy Carriers initiative promoted the development of liquid hydrogen (LH2), liquid organic hydrides (LOH), and ammonia as technologies that could animate a hydrogen supply chain spanning continents and oceans.  The announcements regarding LH2 and methyl cyclohexane (MCH -- the main Energy Carriers focus in the LOH area) show that the conclusion of the Energy Carriers work at the end March does not mean the conclusion of work on these two rivals to ammonia energy.

Ammonia plant revamp to decarbonize: Yara Pilbara
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This week, Yara announced major progress toward producing "green ammonia" at its plant in Pilbara, Australia. Its new partner in this project is ENGIE, the global energy and services group, which last year made a major commitment to developing large-scale renewable hydrogen projects. I first reported Yara's plans for a solar ammonia demonstration at its Pilbara plant in September 2017. This week's announcement means that the Pilbara project has moved to the next feasibility phase. However, major elements of the project have already been designed and built: during last year's scheduled turnaround for plant maintenance, the hydrogen piping tie-in was completed - meaning that the Haber-Bosch unit is ready to receive hydrogen directly, as soon as an electrolyzer has been built to supply it with renewable feedstock.

Ammonia Included in Australian Study of Novel Combustion Technology
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The most recent meeting of the Ammonia Energy Association-Australia was held on December 6, 2018.  Ciaran McDonnell-Worth, the organization’s coordinator, reported that there was “excellent discussion throughout the meeting which was bolstered by the presence of several new participants.”  One of those participants, Bassam Dally, Mechanical Engineering Professor at University of Adelaide, spoke about a novel technology for ammonia combustion that may have application in high-temperature industrial processes and beyond.

Hydrogen and Ammonia Discussed in Australian Energy Storage Report
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The Australian report Comparison of dispatchable renewable electricity options does the very useful service of quantifying the energy storage landscape in dollars and cents.  It reaches many interesting conclusions, not the least of which is that hydrogen, and by explicit extension, ammonia, is the key option for long-cycle storage.  And while the study’s focus is Australia, “with costs in AUD and based on Australian conditions,” its lead author says that “much of the information and many of its findings are expected to hold independent of jurisdiction.”

CSIRO Partner Revealed for NH3-to-H2 Technology
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Last week Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) announced the formation of a partnership that will support commercialization of CSIRO’s high-purity ammonia-to-hydrogen conversion technology.  Michael Dolan, Principal Research Scientist for the ammonia-to-hydrogen project, had signaled such a development on the occasion of the technology’s first public demonstration in August 2018, saying in a contemporaneous Ammonia Energy post that the identity of “a major industrial partner” would be revealed shortly. The partner turns out to be Fortescue Metals Group (FMG).  A November 22 article in Business Insider Australia states that the company will invest “[AUD]$19.1 million [USD$13.8] in technology developed by the CSIRO to make hydrogen vehicles viable in a potential gamechanger for the transport industry.”