The UK government has launched its vision for a society-wide hydrogen economy, with the first phase to entail 5 GW of low-carbon hydrogen production by 2030. Of huge interest to our readers here at Ammonia Energy are the explicit references in the report to the important future role of ammonia as: i) a maritime fuel, ii) a peaking power fuel for gas turbines, and iii) an export vector.
Details of the Commission's comprehensive climate legislation package are now public. Relevant highlights include the inclusion of shipping into the EU ETS, a new tier system for fuel taxation and a carbon border adjustment mechanism. Also this week, Hydrogen Europe calls for an overhaul of the existing Guarantee of Origin (GO) system to address current shortcomings in clean hydrogen certification.
Welcome to the Ammonia Wrap: a summary of all the latest announcements, news items and publications about ammonia energy. This week: latest report from NoGAPS, Viking Energy project takes another step, more collaborations for Yara, thyssenkrupp to invest in cracking R&D, investment in clean hydrogen technology in the USA, world-first visualisation of ammonia combustion in a spark-ignition engine and our numbers of the week.
This May we presented a new episode in our monthly webinar series: Ammonia Energy Live. Every month we’ll explore the wonderful world of ammonia energy and the role it will play in global decarbonisation - with an Australian twist. For May’s episode we welcomed Sarah Tincknell, Stakeholder and Regulatory Manager of the Future Fuels Division at Origin Energy. Sarah joined us to share some of the experiences and learnings Origin Energy has gone through on its decarbonisation journey to date, and give us some insights into what emissions reduction looks like at an electricity generator and retailer. And, of course, we wanted to find out where ammonia and hydrogen fit into Origin's long term plans for decarbonisation. Sarah was interviewed by Emily Heenan, (Process Engineer, also in the Future Fuels Division at Origin), and Jacinta Bakker (Senior Research Coordinator at Jupiter Ionics).
Last week we presented the second episode in our monthly webinar series: Ammonia Energy Live. Every month we’ll explore the wonderful world of ammonia energy and the role it will play in global decarbonisation - with an Australian twist. This episode we welcomed Sammy Van Den Broeck, VP Project & Portfolio at Yara Clean Ammonia. Sammy was invited to give his thoughts on the key challenges and opportunities in the global ammonia transition, and explain to us why Australia is so important to Yara's future clean ammonia plans. Interviewing Sammy were Jacinta Bakker (Research Fellow in the MacFarlane Laboratory at Monash University) and Allison Gwilt (Senior Project Engineer, Future Fuels at Origin Energy).
Last week we presented the first episode in our monthly webinar series: Ammonia Energy Live. Every month we’ll explore the wonderful world of ammonia energy and the role it will play in global decarbonisation - with an Australian twist. To kick things off we wanted to set the scene for 2021 and give you a sense of where the ammonia transition is at - key projects, key milestones and things to be excited about going forward. And, since this is an Australian-focused series, we wanted to explore what’s important about Australia to the ongoing work of the AEA.
What key challenges lie ahead as ammonia producers embark on the transition to low and zero-carbon ammonia? What are the big producers already doing to smooth and later accelerate this transition? On November 19, 2020, the Ammonia Energy Association (AEA) hosted a panel discussion moderated by Steve Crolius from Carbon Neutral Consulting, as well as panel members Sammy van den Broeck from Yara, Ashraf Malik from CF Industries, and Trevor Williams from Nutrien as part of the recent Ammonia Energy Conference.
The Hydrogen Council has published a valuable report with a rigorous life-cycle assessment (LCA) of greenhouse gas emissions from various hydrogen applications. It illustrates the report with eight specific examples, two of which focus on ammonia. With green hydrogen as an input to ammonia used in fertilizer production, we could deliver a 96% reduction in emissions. With blue hydrogen exported and combusted as ammonia for electric power generation, we could deliver an 84% reduction in emissions. As the report states at the start: “Life-cycle emissions are coming into focus with scaling-up of hydrogen … To deliver on the sustainability promise, it is … not only important to make it economically viable, but also maximize its decarbonization potential.”
What are the key considerations that need to be worked through so we can design and implement a certification scheme for low-carbon ammonia that works for a diverse range of stakeholders? On November 17, 2020, the Ammonia Energy Association (AEA) hosted a panel discussion on the topic as part of the recent Ammonia Energy Conference. Not only was it valuable to find out what important players in the ammonia industry want to see in any future certification scheme, but the panel also kicked off a consultation process among AEA members. An audience of around one hundred and fifty producers, end users and researchers all gave their thoughts on what they would like to see in a future scheme, providing a terrific launching point for the AEA Certification Committee to draft, develop and debut a low-carbon ammonia certification scheme.