Carbon Commentary newsletter

1, Green ammonia. Mixed news over the last few weeks. The fully flexible plant at Ramme in Denmark started operation, using wind power and electricity from a newly installed solar farm. In a world first, ammonia is made only when energy is available. The factory has no hydrogen store, substantially reducing production costs. This is a vitally important advance towards making key chemicals only when electricity is cheap. But the major green ammonia project in northern Sweden – ‘Power2Earth’ – was finally abandoned. And a large scheme in southern Chile was put on hold. Ignis, the developer, blamed the slow development of the green hydrogen market for its decision but others pointed at the severe regulatory barriers in the country.

2, Green steel in China. Baowu Steel, the world’s largest producer, opened a one million tonne hydrogen direct reduction site in southern China, avoiding the use of coal in the making of the iron. I think this is the largest hydrogen steel plant in the world. The CO2 savings are specified at over 3 tonnes per tonne of steel, suggesting complete decarbonisation of both the direct reduction and the subsequent electric arc furnace. (Primary steel production typically entails only about 2-2.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions). This would be a superb achievement although the company itself says it will save only ‘50%-80%’ of emissions.

3, Hydrogen for Total refinery. RWE said it had begun commissioning its green hydrogen production facility in north west Germany. The output from this 100 MW initial stage will be transported via a 600 km pipeline to Total’s refinery in Leuna in the east of the country. Storage will be provided at an underground site close to the point of production which is due to open in mid 2026. Total indicates it wants to use 100% green hydrogen for its refinery operations. It has already contracted to buy 200,000 tonnes a year for its European locations and intends to purchase a further 300,000 tonnes when available.

4, Non-biological synfuels. HIF Global operates a trial production site for synthetic gasoline in Chile and is developing four other locations around the world at commercial scale. It is also experimenting with direct air capture to deliver the CO2 it need alongside the green hydrogen required for the production of the various fuels it intends to commercialise. HIF announced an agreement with the government of Uruguay to push ahead with a major production site that will produce almost 900,000 tonnes of e-methanol. E-methanol is likely to be a key shipping fuel and can be used as a precursor to other synthetic fuels, including aviation kerosene.The project has a budget of more than $5bn. While still at an early stage, the agreement lays out how renewable energy will be provided for the new plant, commits to an upgrade of the railway to be used to transport the fuel to the port of Montevideo, indicates how the CO2 will be routed to the new plant and deals with issues such as environmental permitting.

5, Agrivoltaics. As note 10 below suggests, many countries are disturbed - probably to an excessive degree - by the impact of ground-mounted PV on food production. In France, for example, obtaining permission to use productive land for solar panels is very demanding. PV developers can combine farming with solar to ease their way through regulatory barriers. In Italy, European Energy announced that its 225 MW agrivoltaic project in Sicily would go ahead after receiving a Contract for Difference. This park will use elevated structures to hold the panels well above field level, allowing agriculture to take place underneath. The company says this will be largest solar farm in Italy when constructed. European Energy said it had also won CfDs for two small agrivoltaic projects in France. In Germany, construction was completed by another developer of a site in Bavaria of about 17 MW capacity, the biggest agrivoltaic park in the country. Here the panels are also elevated and wheat will be grown underneath.

6, Sodium ion batteries. Recent price reductions in lithium ion batteries have reduced interest in the sodium-based alternative. A new study looks at the likely evolution of the costs of the two types and concludes that sodium will still be likely to become the lower cost version. In addition, metal sodium is also less subject to price variations and its sourcing and processing can be more widely distributed around the globe. The study says that lithium ion battery production lines can be easily switched to sodium equivalents, removing another important obstacle. In a perhaps surprising set of conclusions, the researchers also offer agressive predictions for future battery manufacturing rates, suggesting that over 100 TWh a year is possible worldwide by 2050. (For comparison, around a third of the UK’s annual electricity production). They also suggest that the declining prices of batteries means that storage costs should not be seen as any form of impediment to a transition away from fossil fuels. Batteries will not add significantly to the overall price of reliable renewable electricity, they conclude.

7, Cheaper electric trucks. As concerns mount about the future of light electric commercial vehicles, emphasised by the withdrawal of the Ford 150 all electric pickup, one design studio in California is continuing to develop low cost light trucks. Backed by more than $700m of investment from Jeff Bezos among others, Slate Auto aims to have electric vehicles for sale in late 2026. In an unusual move, it aims for a radically reduced sticker price of around $25,000, compared to more than twice that for the Ford 150. But this lower cost only gets the customer the most basic of trucks and doesn’t seem even to include paint. Nevertheless Slate says that 150,000 customers have spent $50 to reserve their space in the queue for this vehicle with its range of about 150 miles/240 kilometres.

8, EV battery use per kilometre travelled. Current electric cars deliver about 6 kilometres per kilowatt hour on typical moderate speed journeys in reasonably warm weather. Renault shared details of a test that achieved over 12 km/kWh using a specially designed vehicle driven at consistently high speeds and at lower than average temperatures, both of which increase battery use. The experimental car will never enter production but key features such as limited weight and low rolling resistance for the tyres will eventually find their way into new models.

9, Chinese hydrogen gas turbine. Faced with long backlogs in the delivery of new gas turbines, few electricity producers are looking at adding substantial extra capacity in the next years. However China is developing its own manufacturing industry. It recently installed the world’s first turbine that will burn 100% hydrogen. This relatively small 30 MW unit will be used to generate electricity at times of grid shortage with the hydrogen having been made using electrolysis during periods of surplus renewable production and then stored.

10, Solar land use. Loss of agricultural and other land to solar installations is a concern in many countries, including the UK. An online site recently reported that UK government estimates show that only about 0.6% of the country’s agricultural land area will be used by solar at the end of 2030 if the national target of 47 GW capacity is met by that date. Strangely, this estimate assumes that almost all PV installed over the next five years will be ground-mounted (i.e. rooftop installations cease). Even allowing for this unusual decision, I looked at the numbers and concluded that they are too pessimistic. The average future need for land for UK solar is estimated at around 2 hectares a megawatt and the extra capacity required to get to the 2030 target is about 25.5 GW. Using government estimates of total agricultural land area and the area already taken by solar, my numbers would suggest a maximum of 0.4%, not 0.6% of agricultural land. (Estimates for other countries would be different because space requirements are partly tied to the latitude of the installation). And as rooftop installations are still strongly growing, the eventual land use for solar will be well below this figure.