Ball: Modular ammonia costs are driven by upstream hydrogen and nitrogen feedstocks
Dr. Melissa Ball · Why climate tech startups get this one thing wrong · Oct 31, 2024 · at 24:54
Dr. Melissa Ball of Energy Impact Partners discusses early-stage techno-economic modeling pitfalls in modular chemical production startups.
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“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, 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 down well, That they can be prohibitively expensive, and so when you think, again, like, where you draw that, that system boundary, if you draw it just around the ammonia capex, you're gonna miss it. You're gonna miss that nitrogen source and hydrogen source. That is really the bulk of where the levelized costs come from.”
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