Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

cen.acs.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 120 posts

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#101

Post by 7952 »

pfdietz wrote: post #83
7952 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have the expertise to answer that at a technical level. I think it could be a good choice because it would help balance out intermittent sources like wind and solar. And give alternative revenue streams for nuclear power.

If it balances out renewables, it also then pushes new nuclear entirely out of the picture.

I don't see why. Currently you would subsidise a nuclear power station because it provides reliable capacity that you may not need. The customer is created artificially by the market. But if you can link nuclear with hydrogen production the customer is not artificial anymore. You could provide guarantees about future hydrogen prices instead and still get the capacity. You then get a product that helps to decarbonise other parts of the economy.

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#102

Post by Chris2048 »

dragonwriter wrote: post #39
shroompasta wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

obviously not killing people. I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP, when low birth rates are somewhat of a godsend in times like these. Then nations with low birth rates scramble to find ways to up the birth rates despite understanding the C02 cost. It's ironic, really.

> I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP Low birth rates are correlated with higher GDP/capita; concerns are raised about them because they have a (decades delayed) effect of population aging producing a drop in the ratio of workers to those two old and infirm to work.

The real problem is "living behind your means" at a generational level by putting debt in future generations. This is a problem with democracy, which incentivises short term gains over longer term. The solution is democracies that aren't allowed to accumulate long term debt over agreed upon levels.

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#103

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Retric wrote: post #95
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think electrolysis equipment is particularly cheap, there's some excitement about cheaper alternatives coming to market and mass production that use cheaper materials. But overall it's going to be the cheapest way to make hydrogen and then ammonia very soon. And the market has already seen that inevitable future, lots of right-wing Australian mining billionaires have jumped into the market hard for example. T…

The equipment is cheap relative to the cost of electricity to run it. This analysis is 5 years old and it was already the case back then: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-pr...

I'm not sure exactly what you're referencing, as that seems a general topic you've linked to, but one of the articles I see at that link says that basically electrolizers are expensive enough that you need to be utilizing them at a high rate in order for it to make sense, and I think that's still true.

> In case of PtG applications, electrolyzer utilization becomes a key parameter. To illustrate the resulting utilization of electrolyzers when run on “surplus” electricity alone it is helpful to plot the residual load duration curves for different penetration levels of intermittent renewables.21Figure 11.4 depicts two typical residual load duration curves for a 30% and 80% share of generation from intermittent renewables of total electricity demand.

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#104

Post by Retric »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #103
Retric wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The equipment is cheap relative to the cost of electricity to run it. This analysis is 5 years old and it was already the case back then: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/hydrogen-pr...

I'm not sure exactly what you're referencing, as that seems a general topic you've linked to, but one of the articles I see at that link says that basically electrolizers are expensive enough that you need to be utilizing them at a high rate in order for it to make sense, and I think that's still true. > In case of PtG applications, electrolyzer utilization becomes a key parameter. To illustrate the resulting utiliza…

As I said, it’s an outdated analysis the point was theses things are a long way from 24/7 operations and have been for a long time.

“High electrolyzer utilization reduces the specific share of electrolyzer capital costs in hydrogen production costs; on the other hand, a higher utilization increases electricity costs, as hours of expensive electricity will increasingly be included. Hence, in order to minimize hydrogen costs, electrolyzer utilization has to be balanced with the electricity price.”

Of course the specific utilization percentage varies based on how expensive the equipment, it’s overall efficiency, and grid spot prices. We don’t actually know how expensive it is at scale so picking exact percentages is impossible.

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#105

Post by Gravityloss »

cromka wrote: post #86
HPsquared wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know about ammonia, but aluminium (a similarly "energy-intensive" commodity) is produced in Iceland where they have lots of cheap geothermal energy. Similar situation, making use of a local energy source and exporting the embodied energy as a physical product.

That's exactly what I read while traveling there, that this is why there's so many aluminum plants – because aluminium requires a lot of energy that they have for almost free, yet they cannot export (as electricity) due to their distance to potential markets.

Aluminum plants might require a bit more tending than ammonia, which can be made out of thin air and seawater...

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#106

Post by ZeroGravitas »

Retric wrote: post #104
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure exactly what you're referencing, as that seems a general topic you've linked to, but one of the articles I see at that link says that basically electrolizers are expensive enough that you need to be utilizing them at a high rate in order for it to make sense, and I think that's still true. > In case of PtG applications, electrolyzer utilization becomes a key parameter. To illustrate the resulting utiliza…

As I said, it’s an outdated analysis the point was theses things are a long way from 24/7 operations and have been for a long time. “High electrolyzer utilization reduces the specific share of electrolyzer capital costs in hydrogen production costs; on the other hand, a higher utilization increases electricity costs, as hours of expensive electricity will increasingly be included. Hence, in order to minimize hydrogen…

Okay, there's a gap between requiring 24/7 usage, and "only exist for the purposes of using excess power that would otherwise go to waste" and I think we agree that electrolysis is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#108

Post by pfdietz »

7952 wrote: post #101
pfdietz wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it balances out renewables, it also then pushes new nuclear entirely out of the picture.

I don't see why. Currently you would subsidise a nuclear power station because it provides reliable capacity that you may not need. The customer is created artificially by the market. But if you can link nuclear with hydrogen production the customer is not artificial anymore. You could provide guarantees about future hydrogen prices instead and still get the capacity. You then get a product that helps to decarbonise…

It pushes out new nuclear because the levelized cost of new nuclear is much higher than the levelized cost of wind/solar. And with highly dispatchable demand, levelized cost is what matters.

Why should someone who wants hydrogen buy expensive nuclear electricity when they can use much cheaper renewable electricity?

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#109

Post by Retric »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #106
Retric wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As I said, it’s an outdated analysis the point was theses things are a long way from 24/7 operations and have been for a long time. “High electrolyzer utilization reduces the specific share of electrolyzer capital costs in hydrogen production costs; on the other hand, a higher utilization increases electricity costs, as hours of expensive electricity will increasingly be included. Hence, in order to minimize hydrogen…

Okay, there's a gap between requiring 24/7 usage, and "only exist for the purposes of using excess power that would otherwise go to waste" and I think we agree that electrolysis is somewhere in the middle of those two extremes.

If we are talking today then absolutely.

However, the grid is expected to have a lot of unused capacity. California is already at the point where 5% of all solar power produced is wasted and people are still constantly adding solar because the current economic break even is ~50% of all solar produced being wasted. That would average around 4-5 hours a day of basically “free” electricity which isn’t quite enough, but at scale at scale electrolysis equipment is almost that cheap and will probably hit that point.

This becomes more likely when you consider efficiency as a useful tradeoff. 40% efficiency at 2c/kWh or 20% efficiency at 1c/kWh potentially spend the same amount on electricity per kg of hydrogen but the second is likely much cheaper to build. You could potentially have several designs that get turned on or off depending on the current spot price.

Re: Industrial ammonia emits more CO2 than other chemical-making reactions (2019)

#110

Post by [deleted] »

dragonwriter wrote: post #39
shroompasta wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

obviously not killing people. I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP, when low birth rates are somewhat of a godsend in times like these. Then nations with low birth rates scramble to find ways to up the birth rates despite understanding the C02 cost. It's ironic, really.

> I'm just demoralized that low birth rates are stigmatized as they are correlated with lower GDP Low birth rates are correlated with higher GDP/capita; concerns are raised about them because they have a (decades delayed) effect of population aging producing a drop in the ratio of workers to those two old and infirm to work.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN