Clean ammonia, which is produced by reacting clean hydrogen with nitrogen and capturing and sequestering the resulting carbon dioxide (CO2), is gaining momentum. In just the past few months, several more new clean ammonia production projects have been proposed along the U.S. Gulf Coast, many of them made possible by commitments from Japanese and South Korean companies that see the low-carbon fuel as an important part of the Far East’s future energy mix. Taken as a group, the dozen-plus projects now under development have the potential to produce tens of millions of tons of clean ammonia annually, and to create yet another massive energy-export market for U.S. producers. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss the new projects moving forward — and one being put on hold — and what’s driving the clean ammonia market.
Renewable Energy Analytics
There’s a new wind blowing in energy markets. Renewable supply sources, long considered a noble yet uneconomic cause when compared to traditional hydrocarbon markets, have now taken the forefront in new project development. Gone are the days when environmental impacts could be disregarded. In today’s world, companies’ outlooks are increasingly tied to their prospects for participating in the market’s green evolution, and those that don’t adapt will struggle to attract the capital needed for growth.
Renewable Energy Analytics (REA) has been developed by RBN to address the need for information in this burgeoning space. We cut through the noise and biased opinions to deliver the straight scoop on what actually works in renewable energy markets — and we’ll back it up with the economic and infrastructure fundamentals that underlie RBN’s foundational market analysis. The REA initiative is a vehicle for leveraging our expertise and knowledge of traditional hydrocarbons — oil, gas, and NGLs — into renewable sources like solar, wind, hydro-electric, and foremost in our new suite of analytics, hydrogen.
Don’t get lost in Hydrogen unit conversions.
Studio Session
It’s a Gas! CO2 – Watch the Replay!
If you missed our It’s a Gas: CO2 Studio Session, you’re in luck! A full REPLAY of the live session is now available, including the expert presentations, panel discussions, and Q&As led by RBN senior analysts and industry leaders. How are companies managing their carbon footprint, what infrastructure is needed to handle produced CO2, what government incentives and regulations are out there, how can CO2 be used in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), and what are the investment challenges facing the industry? Our speakers and panels address these questions and more.
You can also purchase the It’s a Gas: Hydrogen session or the entire It’s a Gas series, including the CO2, Hydrogen, and Propane sessions here.
Renewables Blogs
It’s no secret that the past several months have been challenging for the wind power industry, especially when it comes to offshore projects. Major developers have sought to renegotiate power-purchase agreements (PPAs) signed years ago, delayed work on some projects, and walked away from others, despite severe financial repercussions in some cases. On top of all that, only one of three offshore tracts available in the U.S.’s first Gulf of Mexico lease auction for wind power attracted any bids. It all amounts to a major setback in the Biden administration’s goal for the nation’s electricity to be 100% carbon-free by 2035. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the significant challenges being faced by wind power developers, what they mean for the projects currently under development, and some changes that could eventually help bring more of the renewable power online.
Considerable time and effort has been spent tracking the federal government’s plan to spend billions of dollars to create a number of regional hydrogen hubs. News about the Department of Energy’s (DOE) hub-selection process has been hard to come by, especially since the potential applicants weren’t publicly disclosed at the time of the agency’s informal cutdown in late 2022 and many potential developers, for competitive reasons, have elected to play their cards very close to the vest. In today’s RBN blog, we’ll publish the DOE’s full list of 33 encouraged proposals for the first time, examine some of the plans that were combined in an effort to produce a stronger joint application, and share a little about the concept papers that didn’t make the DOE’s informal cut.
U.S. production of hydrogenated renewable diesel (RD), which is made from soybean oil, animal fats and used cooking oil, is growing faster than expected. That may sound like good news for the renewable fuels industry, but it comes with the fear that the rapid growth might push RD production levels well past the mandates set by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), potentially triggering a sudden crash in Renewable Identification Number (RIN) prices that — if it happens — would rock the market. In today’s RBN blog, we estimate the likelihood and possible timing of such a market-shaking event.
Given all the recent attention, you’d think the prospects for carbon-capture project development are fantastic. In the U.S., last year’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) featured significant increases in the 45Q tax credit for carbon sequestration, improving the economics for a wide range of carbon-capture projects. On a global level, it seems clear that efforts to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and reach a net-zero world will continue for a long time to come. Nearly every plan to reach that target includes a significant reliance on carbon capture, with the International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasting that 7,600 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of carbon dioxide (CO2) — that’s 7.6 gigatons per year — will need to be captured and sequestered by 2050. We are a long way from those levels, given that most estimates put global carbon-capture capacity at a little more than 40 MMtpa today, or less than 1% of what the EIA thinks we’ll need in less than 27 years. In today’s RBN blog, we look at the main factors holding back the wider commercialization of carbon-capture initiatives in the U.S.
