From Bloomberg via the Financial Post, February 18:
Yara International ASA said it’s brought on two partners for a project that will enable its flagship chemical plant to produce ammonia and hydrogen in the greenest way possible.
Statkraft AS and Aker ASA agreed to join Yara in switching its facility in Porsgrunn, Norway to run on renewable energy and convert its production methods to eliminate the use of natural gas. The companies said doing so could potentially cut 800,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year — the equivalent of emissions from 300,000 cars.
The project would be the first conversion of an existing large-scale factory that produces ammonia, which can be used to facilitate the use of hydrogen as a fuel. There’s immense interest in developing cheaper ways to produce clean hydrogen, which it burns without producing CO2, because of its potential as a climate-friendly replacement for fossil fuels currently used in industries such as shipping and aviation.
Producing ammonia requires manufacturers to obtain hydrogen as a chemical component. Porsgrunn currently does this by using natural gas in a carbon-intensive process. To produce so-called green ammonia, it would have to switch to renewable sources of energy and rely on electrolyzers, which run a current through water to separate the hydrogen and oxygen atoms....MUCH MORE
