Scaling Up Hydrogen: The Case For Low- Carbon Ammonia

In the quest to clean up industry and scale low-carbon hydrogen, the ammonia sector will likely be an early adopter. Decarbonizing ammonia would lead to large reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, shipping and chemicals production. Developers have announced a pipeline of 180 million metric tons of low-carbon ammonia plants that could be built by 2035, but the challenge is now to secure offtake contracts and financing for this production. This BNEF/Climate Technology Coalition White Paper provides new cost analysis for low-carbon ammonia production and outlines potential commercial actions and policy considerations that, if implemented, should stimulate the required demand and set the industry on a path to decarbonization.

The Bloomberg New Economy Climate Technology Coalition

This paper was commissioned as part of BloombergNEF’s work as Research Partner for the Bloomberg New Economy Climate Technology Coalition. The Coalition was formed in 2022 by a global group of stakeholders that are well placed to provide insights on approaches to industrial decarbonization. It has set an agenda to identify and support the rapid scale up of the next generation of climate-critical green technologies that will be instrumental in achieving the world’s goals to avoid climate catastrophe. The planet simply cannot wait for polluting industries to slowly shift strategy and technologies. This initiative seeks to inspire and lead by example. It will take getting into specifics to make any tangible progress and, to that end, the Coalition – composed of technology specialists, researchers, financiers, industrialists and public sector experts – is initially focused on tackling
roadblocks to scaling up the clean hydrogen ecosystem, and further on decarbonizing ‘hard-toabate’ sectors (industries where cleaner alternatives are currently lacking or prohibitively expensive) through initiatives on low-carbon ammonia, methanol and steel. Coalition members have given insight into their own projects and efforts in these areas, some of which can be found in this BNEF-produced report. The Coalition finds it encouraging that BNEF’s thorough analysis shows potential for decreasing green hydrogen costs, identifying pockets of
demand and increasing clean hydrogen and ammonia production capacity.

Steering Committee:

Mike Bloomberg, Founder of Bloomberg LP & Bloomberg Philanthropies and Three-term Mayor of NYC
Mark Carney, UN Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance and Chair of Brookfield Asset
Management; Head of Transition Investing; Chairman of the Board, Bloomberg
Natarajan Chandrasekaran, Chairman, Tata Sons
Bruce Flatt, CEO, Brookfield Asset Management
Dr. Andrew Forrest AO, Chairman, Fortescue
Sara Menker, Founder & CEO, Gro Intelligence
H.E. Khaldoon Khalifa Al Mubarak, Managing Director and Group CEO, Mubadala
Neil Shen, Founding & Managing Partner of HongShan (Sequoia China)
Lord Adair Turner, Chairman, Energy Transitions Commission
Lei Zhang, Founder and CEO, Envision Group

The Climate Tech Coalitions’ research partner, BloombergNEF (BNEF), is a strategic research provider covering global commodity markets and the disruptive technologies driving the transition to a low-carbon economy.