Insight
Ball: Green tech startups falsely assume two-cent renewable power at 100% capacity
“If you're going to be in climate tech, you want to be green, and so you're almost certainly tethering yourself to a renewable source, which means your capacity factor isn't going to be a hundred percent. So it's kind of like having your cake and eating it, too…”
Assertion Supported
Ball: Ammonia transport costs can be double the levelized production costs
“Ammonia, you know, we did a deep dive on what those distribution costs could be, and, you know, you, depending on where you are in, in the U.S., or, and I'll stay U.S. Centered, but this is even more so outside the U.S., Those distribution and transport costs …”
Assertion Supported
Ball: Compressed gas hydrogen storage costs $0.30 to $1.20 per kg
“The levelized cost of hydrogen storage ranges from somewhere between 30 cents a kilo hydrogen to about a buck 20 a kilo hydrogen for compressed gas.”
Opinion
Ball: Decentralized thermochemical ammonia synthesis is the most advanced novel pathway
“Probably the most advanced we've seen is the thermochemical approach of this decentralized thermochemical processes to produce ammonia.”
Insight
Ball: Direct air input plus cheap electrons could unlock green ammonia
“If you said what's like one big miracle, one thing I was thinking about was if you could have a air as your input as opposed to actually eliminating the nitrogen generation completely that coupled with I, the cheap electrons and also the cheap capex for the hy…”
Assertion Supported
Ball: Transport costs create a 25 percent price umbrella for decentralized ammonia
“You know, again, that five to 600 dollars a ton selling price, about maybe 20, 25% of that is transportation. So there is some budget, even within the U.S., for these decentralized approaches.”
Insight
Ball: Modular ammonia costs are driven by upstream hydrogen and nitrogen feedstocks
“I think we saw this a lot in the modular ammonia space where, you know, the secret sauce is on this low pressure, low temperature, relatively reactor. And that's a really nice to have, but what, you know, we found, you know, doing our own internal work is that…”
Insight
Ball: Upstream hydrogen and nitrogen drive bulk of modular ammonia costs
“And that's a really nice to have, but what, you know, we found, you know, doing our own internal work is that, you know, upstream of your ammonia reactor, there's two things you need. You need a hydrogen source and you need a nitrogen source. And those scale d…”
Insight
Ball: Over-specifying minor components in TEA blinds startups to key economic drivers
“If you're so busy counting the number, you know, the power in your pumps and the number of little widgets and valves and et cetera, you might miss something that's really crucial that actually is a driver of your economics because you were focusing on, on so m…”
Assertion Supported
Ball: SMR provides about 75% of hydrogen for ammonia production
“Today, about 75% of the hydrogen that feeds, ah, the ammonia loop comes from a process called steam methane reforming”
Assertion Supported
Ball: Hydrogen production causes roughly 80% of ammonia GHG emissions
“The steam methane reforming and the hydrogen production is responsible for around like 80% of the GHG emissions that come from ammonia because of this process.”
Assertion Supported
Ball: US long-term average ammonia price is $500 to $600/ton
“The long-term average selling price of ammonia in the US between five to 600 dollars a ton”
Assertion Supported
Ball: Green ammonia electricity costs $210 per ton at 2 cents/kWh
“So, in the in the example I just gave, so if you were saying two cents for energy cost, and we were saying it's 50 kilowatt hours per kilogram of hydrogen input, that's about 20 cents a kilo of ammonia, or 210 dollars per ton. So, almost half your budget, if w…”
Assertion Supported
Ball: Ammonia distribution costs can reach double the production cost
“With, you know, ammonia, we did a deep dive on what those distribution costs could be, and, you know, you, depending on where you are in, in the U.S., or, and I'll stay U.S. Centered, but this is even more so outside the U.S., Those distribution and transport …”
