BASF shuts a hydrogen (ammonia) plant permanently because of the price of natural gas.

[NNadir]

Once again, over and over and over, I've been posting a graphic from the scientific literature about the sources and uses of hydrogen, the latest "bait and switch" scam flying around.

Once again:



The caption:

Figure 1. Global current sources of H2 production (a), and H2 consumption sectors (b).

Progress on Catalyst Development for the Steam Reforming of Biomass and Waste Plastics Pyrolysis Volatiles: A Review Laura Santamaria, Gartzen Lopez, Enara Fernandez, Maria Cortazar, Aitor Arregi, Martin Olazar, and Javier Bilbao, Energy & Fuels 2021 35 (21), 17051-17084]

I referred to this graphic, and reproduced it, discussing a paper in the journal I discussed above here: The current sources and uses of hydrogen.

The graphic shows that the main use for hydrogen, above and beyond petroleum refining, is to make ammonia. This is the famous Haber-Bosch process brilliantly covered by Vaclav Smil in his book Enriching the Earth, first published in 2004, continuously in print, and as worth reading in 2023 as it was in 2004.

And here's the news from antinuke heaven, Germany:

BASF closes ammonia production plant in Germany

Excerpts from the article:

German chemicals company BASF has announced the closure of one ammonia production plant at its headquarters in Ludwigshafen due to high energy costs.

The site was impacted the most by additional energy costs of €3.2 billion which were recorded by BASF globally, with higher natural gas costs accounting for 69% of the overall increase.

BASF aims to save costs of more than €500 million in non-productive areas by the end of 2024, and lower fixed costs by over €200 million annually by the end of 2026 in Ludwigshafen.

Around 700 positions in production are likely to be impacted at the headquarters. BASF, however, is “confident” it will be able to offer most of the affected employees employment at other plants.

I added the bold.

I guess in "solar and wind will save us" wonderland they aren't making hydrogen using solar and wind energy, as the graphic above suggests.

There is no evidence that the 4% of hydrogen produced by electrolysis is produced using electricity from solar and wind; electricity is increasingly dependent on the use of fossil fuels, both in Germany and elsewhere. The electrolytic hydrogen is a byproduct of the chlorine industry, which has always generated hydrogen using grid electricity.

[GreenWave]

1. Has anyone told our sun about the absurdity of burning hydrogen?

I heard it was several hundred millions tons per second...

[Think. Again.]

2. The transition has begun...

The ammonia plant was closed due the high cost of producing ammonia from natural gas as BASF looks forward to transitioning away from fossil fuels.

From the article:

"The reduced power and natural gas demand at the site will cut its carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by around 0.9 million metric tonnes per year, leading to a 4% reduction in BASF’s global CO2 emissions.

BASF aims to secure greater supplies of renewable energy for the plant. “We want to develop Ludwigshafen into the leading low-emission chemical production site in Europe,” he said. "

This is great news!

Thank You for posting this Nnadir!

[Alexander Of Assyria]

3. Natural gas prices in EU have risen...Russia no longer supplies. Simple economics.

Conflating result with causation.

[Think. Again.]

5. Yep!

And the very young non-CO2 industry will only continue to get cheaper as market-scaling continues to build!

Great news!

[Alexander Of Assyria]

6. The evolution of hydrogen continues. Not long until all hydrogen prod. is using renewable energy.

It’s no brainer.

Hydrogen….and nuclear as the electrolysis energy source, ideally.

[Caribbeans]

4. Ruh Roh!

How dare you highlight the details kind sir?

BASF aims to secure greater supplies of renewable energy for the plant

Something tells me this is not the intended take-away from OP




BASF and RWE proposing 2GW offshore wind farm for green electricity and hydrogen for chemical industry



As hydrogen continues to play a larger and larger role in the transition expect more frantic attempts to divert attention.

The energy revolution will not be stopped by anyone or any nation - it's too late

[Think. Again.]

7. Now, now...

...wouldn't want to gloat, DU is certainly not the place for demeaning, insulting, abusive, psychologically manipulative, or flat out dishonest posts (for most of us anyway).

[Alexander Of Assyria]

8. The fossil fuel industry is diverting billions into false advertising on hydrogen and EVs.

Self preservation of a dying industry, it’s always been that way with dying industries.

[NNadir]

10. Yes, I know about the soothsaying that left the planet in flames. Nevertheless, the plant shut...

...because despite all the hydrogen soothsaying by hydrogen salespeople over the last half a century, accompanied by slick ads posted here and elsewhere, hydrogen is still made by the steam reforming of dangerous fossil fuels.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

14. Gasoline and diesel and etc. etc....is made from fossil fuels also, right?

Or make hydrogen using power from renewables…no brainer!

The worlds greatest companies, economies, and masses of scientists and money sit firmly on one side.

[NNadir]

15. It would be nice if this assertion of the dubious "Appeal...

...to Popularity" logical fallacy included specifics about who the so called "masses of scientists" alleged to not know the 2nd law of thermodynamics are, but the fallacy would still be a fallacy.

I spend huge parts of every week in the primary scientific literature, and where this hydrogen thermodynamic nonsense is covered, usually for the purpose of getting research grants and not because 50 years of soothsaying has produced a "hydrogen economy," it is just that, soothsaying.

The Journal of Hydrogen Energy, which I sometimes read to learn about thermchemical cycles that have perfunctory solar thermal sources of primary energy that nonetheless are only practical with continuous high temperatures using nuclear energy in process intensification settings, is now almost half a century old, having started publication in 1976.

If it was going to work, it would have, but it didn't work, isn't working, and won't work.

The "renewable energy" fantasy has failed, and failed dramatically and disastrously.

I wouldn't call the persistence of this idiotic waste a "no brainer." I'd call it evidence of no brains.

For the record, the greatest minds, from Enrico Fermi on down of the 20th century, invented and developed nuclear energy. It was rejected by popular stupidity, and the highly successful marketing of fear and ignorance.

Fossil fuel companies sometimes endorse this so called "renewable energy" hydrogen wishful thinking exercise as part of their marketing budget. It distracts people from reality, keeps them in business and makes their obscene profits remain obscenely high.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

16. Major economies and major companies employ an unknown to me but must be significant cadre

of scientists and specialists and ultra specialists.

This is the army of knowledge I trust when I imagine a future of hydrogen energy and electric energy not produced by current dirty primary energy….and eventually much more primary energy by renewables.

……

Slightly related topic…

Although nuclear energy is being woefully neglected, understanding how this is the only true primary energy source without significant thermal loss.

Leave political influence and mass hysteria influence…scaled nuclear has to be ramped up significantly. How to overcome the misplaced hostility?

I do not know who produces the smallest, safest, tested integrated nuclear power plant for commercial use…there exists a vision where safe mini nuclear power plants compact enough to power a neighborhood size populace can, in independent operation, power everything.

Neighborhood nine nuclear power plant…is that’s an imagined thing possible?

[NNadir]

17. Oh. I see. You have no references but simply made a declaration without any supporting...

...information.

You do not know of this significant cadre of such scientists, but you assume they must exist.

I'm not sure I agree. To be a scientist one must be aware, at a minimum, to my mind, of the 2nd law of thermodynamics. This would automatically preclude enthusiasm for hydrogen fuels, a tiresome idea that crops up every decade or so until reality sets in. This nonsense has waxed and waned in popularity, with depressing regularity, since the 1970's at least, possibly earlier. I first only became aware of it in the 1970's myself.

It's an article of faith that there will be "much more primary energy by renewables." This faith of course, is now half a century old, but the reality is that the planet is in flames because it didn't work, isn't working and won't work. 12 Exajoules at 3 trillion dollars in 15 years doesn't cut it. In any case, so called "renewable energy" is not sustainable, not clean, and never will be sustainable and clean. There is not enough mass on the planet, enough minerals to mine, and not enough wilderness left to destroy, rivers to destroy, ecosystems to lace with access roads, to make it significant.

Very few of the "hydrogen from wind and solar will save us" know anything at all about nuclear energy except that they are happy to kill people by hating it, because they have been trained to hate it, again without any information, numbers or references. Afterall, they all watched Jane Fonda and Jack Lemmon in "The China Syndrome," in the 1970's.

They just love cartoons, those kind of people.

I know a lot about nuclear energy, of course because I look for the information and I write about it frequently using things called "numbers" and "references" and "data."

If I knew how to overcome irrational dogmatic hatred, I'd probably be famous, but I'm not. I'm just a cynical old blogger nearing death and contemplating the victory of stupidity.

Nevertheless let's be clear, the hatred of nuclear energy is killing people and killing the planet. I'm quite sure that what I often say to close my posts is true: "History will not forgive us, nor should it."

All I can do is to rage against the ignorance machine, which has nonetheless won the day and is getting worse by the hour, including, but hardly limited to, the popular idea, a lie, that somehow hydrogen has become primary energy, which it isn't.

[lapfog_1]

9. It's always worth it to note that H2 is not a power source

it is a energy carrier.

Like a battery. Whether made from natural gas or made from water, or from other means.

Unlike a battery, it is hard to store hydrogen ( it can squeeze through most materials ). And the energy content is low for the volume ( which is why it must be stored at high pressure ). There are many other downsides to using Hydrogen.

That said, here is an interesting project from EPFL.

https://www.thebrighterside.news/post/groundbreaking-solar-reactor-efficiently-generates-oxygen-hydrogen-and-usable-heat

note that the main component of this system is to use heat (solar in this case) rather than solar panels to break the hydrogen oxygen bond in a process known as high temperature electrolysis. The hydrogen can then be stored (on site) in high pressure carbon fiber tanks and used to create electricity and/or pure water at any time ( using a HICE genset for example ). For remote areas of the world without either electricity or clean water, this is a good solution to provide both. It solves the line loss and dangers of long transmission lines from a distant and large power generation, it solves the solar only "works" in the daylight problem, it doesn't use near as much expensive and getting harder to acquire minerals (potentially none if you don't use solar panels at all to do electrolysis). And it can use any source of water (brackish or waste water from farming, contaminated well water, etc).

[NNadir]

11. Storing energy when the world's energy supplies are filthy is just an appallingly stupid idea.

It's rather like building a space port for people returning from vacations on Mars before anyone goes to Mars, only dirtier.

[lapfog_1]

12. well, I guess we can only travel with electric street cars run by a nearby nuclear fission plant

because, as we all know, nuclear fission has no problems when it comes to being "dirty" . Ask any resident of Fukashima or Pripyat.




Did you even bother to look at the article I included? The energy is created (mostly) by capturing passive solar energy using parabolic mirrors... hardly a "dirty" energy source. As for storing it, the main complaint from the anti-solar people is that active solar only works when the sun is shining. This solves that issue by storing the energy as hydrogen gas in local high pressure tanks. Again, hardly dirty. And it solves the problem of electricity availability 24x7.

It is a decent alternative to building either a fossil fuel or nuclear ( or hydro electric ) electricity plant potentially 100s of km away from the users and incurring both the cost and line loss of transporting the energy from a distant source to where the users need it to be.

[NNadir]

13. Well, I guess not knowing the laws of thermodyanmics or anything about process intensification or...

...the wonder fuel DME, one can always try to appear witty being sure to include the sarcasm smiley.

I have a very different opinion of what wit might be, but who cares?

No, I didn't bother to read the tract. I'm pretty familiar with the wishful thinking tripe handed out by antinukes and don't need it. I don't read Bible tracts handed out by Jehovah's witnesses and I don't read "solar will save us" tracts handed out by antinukes either.

I know all about the gas dependent hellhole at Ivanpah and I don't need to hear another fucking excuse for that in flight bird fryer that did nothing to prevent the world from arriving at carbon dioxide concentrations greater than 424 ppm this May despite the destruction of huge tracts of wilderness for no good reason.

For the record, I'm something called an "environmentalist" rather in the tradition of John Muir and I don't believe that wilderness should be converted into industrial plants for marginal energy to satisfy the energy fantasies of people who really just don't give a rat's ass about wilderness. He was against the Hetch Hetchy dam, which was built, and I opposed Ivanpah which was also built.

Thanks, but no thanks for the religious tract. We're saw 424 ppm, the planet is in flames like the birds flying through the in flight bird fryer, and people are dying from exposure from extreme heat all over the world.

Those are facts and all the religious tracts in the world will not change them.

This chanting has played out.

Have a wonderful witty evening.