Dell: Urea Production Should Not Count as Meaningful CO2 Utilization
Rebecca Dell · The many pathways to decarbonizing chemicals · Jan 24, 2022 · at 11:56
Rebecca Dell evaluates claims surrounding carbon capture and utilization (CCU) technologies in the context of nitrogen fertilizer production.
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“A lot of people point to this as, like, the most important CO₂ utilization that is already commercialized in our economy, but that's actually a really problematic way of thinking about it, because the way you make urea, you start with a pure concentrated point source of CO₂ at your factory. You attach all that CO₂ to your ammonia, turn it into urea, then you spread urea out on the fields, and basically the first thing that happens is a reaction called hydrolysis, Where the CO₂ and the ammonia break apart, and the CO₂ just goes straight up into the atmosphere. So you've turned this point source of pure CO₂ at your factory into a dispersed source of CO₂ all over your agricultural fields, much, much harder to control.”
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