At the recent presentation I gave on ammonia as the new low-carbon maritime fuel, I was asked about the ability to scale production over the next couple of years. I think the time horizon we should be looking at is over the next 8 years up to 2030 and then 10 years after that, how things are likely going to change. We as consultants are often asked to look into our crystal balls and envision the future. We try our best to do it using data, looking at trends, making assumptions and all.
For ammonia, the demand is expected to more than double over the next 28 years. That’s still a fair amount of time, and as long as it grows by a rate of about 4% per annum, the supply will be able to meet demand in 2050. Not inconceivable though from historical trends on the production figures, it seems far fetched. But that is because ammonia has traditionally been demanded only as an industrial feedstock and for production of fertilisers. The people concerned about the competition with the existing agriculture or food industries have misplaced concerns because those are the guys who have been using grey ammonia and perfectly happy to continue to do so. The new demand is likely going to require green hydrogen; which means we are going to start growing new supply of this ammonia from scratch; no legacy issues of waiting for existing facilities to ramp up.
Then there are people pointing out the challenge of getting green electricity which seem short in supply to begin with. That is true to a certain extent; Singapore is having to import electricity from neighbouring countries, using actual physical transmission lines. But most of the time, this is caused by the fact that renewable resources may be scarce where the power demand centers are. If there are far flung locations rich with renewable resources, we can still capture these sites to produce green hydrogen as well as green ammonia, then ship them out.
So I’m actually pretty optimistic about trying to hit those demand and supply numbers over the long time frame that we are talking about. It might well surpass those numbers when the market really takes off. But the key is ensuring there’s clear price signals; and if there’s proper legitimate demand for green hydrogen, then someone will have to certify it and audit the production.