Article

Nuclear-powered ammonia production in Indonesia

A consortium of Danish and Indonesian companies - including Topsoe, Copenhagen Atomics, Pupuk and Pertamina - will collaborate to develop a 1 million tonnes per year, nuclear-powered ammonia project for fertiliser production in Bontang, Indonesia. Copenhagen Atomics’ thorium molten salt reactors will power 1 GW of solid oxide electrolysis capacity.

Article

Nuclear-powered ammonia production

The potential for nuclear-powered ammonia production is developing fast. Two seperate industrial consortia (Copenhagen Atomics, Alfa Larval & Topsoe, and KBR & Terrestrial Energy) have formed to develop thorium-fueled reactors, and hydrogen & ammonia production is a key part of their plans. Given nuclear electricity dominates France’s energy mix, a grid-connected electrolyser project at Borealis’ fertiliser production plant in Ottmarsheim, France will be one of the first examples of commercial-scale, nuclear-powered ammonia production. And, while capital costs & lead times remain significant, mass production of new technologies and research into flexible power production capabilities are emerging as key to unlocking nuclear-powered ammonia production.

Article

Ammonia production from offshore nuclear power

Samsung Heavy Industries and Danish organisation Seaborg have signed a new agreement to develop floating nuclear power plants. The partners have identified P2X projects producing hydrogen and ammonia fuel as key applications for the 800 MW vessels. This follows a report released in January, where UK-based CORE POWER suggests floating nuclear power to produce offshore ammonia can create a network of strategically-located refueling points to service a wide range of maritime transport, with particularly promising applications in the US.

Article

Ammonia combustion analysis: powertrains, turbines & power generation

This week we explore four updates in ammonia combustion R&D:

1. A team from the University of Cambridge has shown merchant vessels are the strongest candidates for conversion to run on ammonia powertrains, with cargo capacity losses of 4-9% able to be feasibly offset by operators.

2. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have successfully tested a thermochemical recuperation (TCR) reactor to improve the efficiency of a dual-fuel, diesel-ammonia compression ignition engine by minimising ammonia slip.

3. A global team led by Cardiff University researchers has revealed some of the inner workings of ammonia combustion in gas turbine flames.

4. A global team has produced a cradle-to-gate environmental assessment for ammonia production and ammonia-based electricity generation, suggesting that renewable and nuclear ammonia have a significant role to play in decarbonising the power sector.

Paper

The Bridge to 100% Nuclear Hydrogen, Enabling Pure Ammonia

My talk will explain what the bridge to 100% nuclear hydrogen is, and how our LWR fleet can be saved by storage and industrial applications like producing Hydrogen at Scale for Ammonia production; and I will walk the audience through the processes and systems available to us, right now, today, to give new life to merchant nuclear and make the way for advanced nuclear. Our storage systems allow for grid balancing and capacity stabilization using excess Merchant LWR nuclear capacity coupled to thermal and pumped storage, and the system would accept otherwise curtailed renewable inputs. With the storage capacity of…

Paper

Ammonia: A New Business for Nuclear Energy

Nuclear Energy can be used to support and help decarbonize traditional steam methane reforming and electrolysis to produce hydrogen. Options for integrating nuclear with ammonia, and ammonia derivatives include providing power to an air separation unit to produce nitrogen, and hydrogen combustion to deplete oxygen while providing heat for high temperature steam electrolysis. A comparison of CO2 emissions reduction and costs of urea synthesis indicate there is a strong business case for using nuclear reactors at large and small-distributed ammonia plants. A case for producing 3 tons of ammonia from a 1-MWe power supply will be given.