4 ms·
> Unlike solar cells or battery cells, I don't really see much chance for 'learning rates' and technology improvement to drastically drive down the cost of gree
by kragen 2y ago
> Unlike solar cells or battery cells, I don't really see much chance for 'learning rates' and technology improvement to drastically drive down the cost of green ammonia. Falling electrolyser costs are nice, but they're only a portion of the process plant CAPEX, and the cost of the green electricity dominates the economics over the process plant CAPEX anyway. (...) So for green ammonia to get adopted, a strong 'carbon price' needs to be in place, and I think that same strong carbon price would make biodiesel competitive.
You seem to be contradicting yourself here? If learning rates and technology improvement drastically drive down the cost of solar cells, as you say they might, and the cost of electricity dominates the cost of green ammonia, as you say it does, doesn't that mean that the learning rates and technology improvement in solar cells will drastically drive down the cost of green ammonia? Wouldn't that make ammonia much cheaper than biodiesel, keeping biodiesel from being competitive?
(I'm not sure ammonia is a competitive fuel for other reasons, such as the corrosion and safety issues discussed in the article, but it seems clear to me that if it's going to be uncompetitively expensive, it would have to be because one of the premises above is wrong, for example because the cost of green ammonia is dominated by capex or because solar cells stop dropping in cost. I don't see how you can sustain those premises and deny the conclusion.)