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by Gibbon1
896 days ago
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I think I roughly guess if you're using electrolyticly generated hydrogen to make ammonia it'd take about 10kwh/kg of electricity. If you can get wholesale renuabes at $0.05/kwh that'd be about $0.50/kg energy cost. Wholesale ammonia prices are about $0.30/kg. A lot of that wholesale price is natural gas. You can see the relation here. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=52358 If you dig at industry press releases you see a lot of interest in using renewables to generate hydrogen to make ammonia. Which says the above is on track that it's economic. And also shields manufacturers from natural gas price swings. Not to mention you can locate plants anywhere. |
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Tractors run on diesel fuel, the trucks that move the grain run on diesel, the trains typically run on diesel, the ships typically run on diesel. The plant that processes it into food runs on coal or natural gas, or possibly some hydro power or nuclear. The bag that stores the food comes from natural gas (sometimes oil). Then that package is shipped to a store using diesel. The store powers its lights (also made from a polymer from natural gas) via natural gas generators.
One of fertilizers you point out is ammonia comes as a product from natural gas & it's the only current viable way to do it commercially, at scale.
Sure one day, we may replace all these components, but in-reality it's not anywhere close to being replaced.