DeZwarteRidder schreef op 15 november 2023 09:42:
Now, ammonia from blue hydrogen. You eliminate the electrolysis stage, so your end-to-end efficiency is a little higher at 26%, but you have the extra cost of carbon capture and sequestration, so the resulting power cost is going to be about the same. The real question, however, is why bother? Why not just ship the natural gas to Japan instead of ammonia – LNG has 1.7 times the volumetric energy density of ammonia, so you need fewer cargoes. Then you capture the CO2 at the other end, and either sequester or send it back to the point of origin on the same ships. You have the same climate impact, approximately the same cost of carbon capture and sequestration, but significantly greater efficiency and lower shipping costs.
The bottom line for ammonia as a fuel for power generation, whether co-fired or pure, is that no economy can be internationally competitive based on the resulting power prices. My estimates are in line with the more detailed modelling work undertaken by BloombergNEF: BloombergNEF found that 100% ammonia-fired power in Japan would cost around $260 per megawatt-hour in 2030 and $200 by 2050 – around double the cost of renewable energy.
The fact that Japan could generate large amounts of renewable energy – in particular, offshore wind – at much lower cost points to the role that clean ammonia could in fact play in the country’s power system: providing back-up. Bill Gates likes to quote Vaclav Smil on the three-day cyclones that hit Tokyo almost every year – which would shut down renewable generation and leave it short of 22GW of power. He laughs at the idea that batteries could fill the resulting gap, and he is correct to do so. However, the gap is only 1,600 GWh, which could be generated from a million cubic meters of ammonia – an amount that could be brought in on just four Q-Max-sized carriers.
So, while basing Japan’s economy on electricity generated from imported ammonia is an economic non-starter, storing a few million tonnes of ammonia and using it for long-duration storage looks a lot more realistic.
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