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> That's very last century of you I thought his was going to be a reference to production of hydrogen and ammonia in the 20th century via electrolysis, by the

• defrost 2y ago
  I could have, and almost went there but for a few details: * Norsk Hydro was economic and made a profit for most of last century (the claim was that hydrogen was uneconomic) * I didn't know the details of how Norsk Hydro sourced hydrogen - from water via hydroelectricity seemed obvious and would have made a great example of an economic green hydrogen use. Norsk definitely used "green hydrogen" from 1911 - 1929: The first potassium nitrate was shipped out on 8 December 1911, and two years later the plants were making a profit. The 1920s were a tough time, and production decreased, but in 1929 the electric arc technology was replaced by the Haber process ( from: your link ) It was unclear to me a few hours back whether hydrogen was still extracted from water for the increasing demands of fertilizer and explosives or whether it was sourced from biowaster | natural gas. Reading about a bit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vemork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vemork suggests that Vemork kept up the hydrogen production for the heavy water trade at the very least. I err towards caution when not particulalry certin <shrug>. Good call though.