Carbon-free ammonia production could grow by as much as 30 times its current levels by 2030, accounting for 13% of global supply, according to BloombergNEF (BNEF). Today, just 1.1 million tonnes of clean ammonia – tipped to be an important clean energy source of the future – are produced per year. But this could rise to 32.4 million by the end of the decade, the report found. North America, China and the Middle East will be the key producers of the gas, which can be used as a fuel for shipping and as a vector to transport hydrogen around the world. However, these uses are theoretical at this stage, and today ammonia is predominantly used in fertiliser and explosives. The conventional production method involves extracting hydrogen from natural gas, then mixing the hydrogen with nitrogen drawn from the atmosphere. While ammonia itself contains no carbon, the process of extracting hydrogen from natural gas produces CO2 as a byproduct. There are two solutions to this, BNEF said: either capturing the CO2 emissions using carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology – known as ‘blue ammonia’ – or manufacturing hydrogen from water using renewable energy – known as ‘green ammonia’. BNEF predicted blue ammonia would dominate this decade. “However, global policy support is stronger for green, which could overtake blue from 2030,” it said.
