Latest / The Manufacturing Podcast with Fexingo: Factories, Supply Chains, and Industrial Business / How a Factory in Norway Is Making Ammonia from Wind
Transcript
- Lucas: So there is a plant in Norway, just outside the town of Herøya, that is trying to make ammonia—the stuff in fertilizer—using only wind power. And it's not a pilot project. They're aiming for industrial scale. Luna: Ammonia from wind? That sounds like a chemistry class experiment, not a factory. Lucas: It's real, and it's part of a bigger push to clean up one of the dirtiest corners of the chemical industry. Ammonia production currently accounts for about two percent of global carbon dioxide emissions. Most of it comes from natural gas, in a process that's basically been the same for a century. Luna: Right, the Haber-Bosch process. I remember that name from high school chemistry. Lucas: Exactly. It was developed over a hundred years ago, and it works by combining nitrogen from the air with hydrogen, under high pressure and temperature. But that hydrogen usually comes from methane, and that's where the emissions come from. What this Norwegian plant does instead is get hydrogen from water, using electricity from wind turbines. Luna: So the difference is basically where the hydrogen comes from. Natural gas versus water. Lucas: Right. And when you split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity, that's called electrolysis. If that electricity comes from a renewable source, you end up with green hydrogen. Then you feed that hydrogen into the Haber-Bosch process, and you've got green ammonia. Luna: And why ammonia? Why not just use the hydrogen directly as a fuel? Lucas: Good question, because hydrogen is notoriously hard to store and transport. It's a tiny molecule, it leaks through steel, it needs to be kept at extremely low temperatures or very high pressure. Ammonia, on the other hand, is a liquid at moderate pressure and can be handled like a lot of other industrial chemicals. Plus, it already has a global supply chain because it's used to make fertilizer. Luna: So you're not just making a fuel, you're piggybacking on an existing industry. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why a lot of people see ammonia as a promising option for shipping, for example. The maritime industry is under pressure to cut emissions, and ammonia can be burned in engines or used in fuel cells. There are already some ships being built to run on it. Luna: But isn't ammonia toxic and corrosive? I remember it's dangerous stuff. Lucas: It is, and that's a real concern. It's not a perfect solution. But the infrastructure for handling it safely already exists across the world, because we've been moving it around for a hundred years to make fertilizer. So the risks are well understood. Luna: Makes sense. So what's happening at this particular plant in Norway? Lucas: So this is a project called Herøya, and it's being developed by a company called Norsk e-Fuel. They've built a pilot plant that uses wind power from a nearby farm to run electrolyzers. The goal is to produce around twenty thousand tons of green ammonia a year, initially. That's small compared to a conventional plant, but it's a real step. Luna: Twenty thousand tons—how does that compare to a typical ammonia plant? Lucas: A large conventional plant might produce over a million tons a year. So this is a fraction of that. But the point is to prove that the technology works at a commercial scale, and to start building the market for green ammonia. Luna: And why Norway? Is it just because of the wind? Lucas: Partly, but also because Norway has an abundance of renewable electricity, especially from hydropower. That gives them access to cheap, clean electricity, which is the biggest cost in green ammonia production. Plus, they have a strong industrial base and a history of chemical production. Luna: So it's not just about wind, it's about the whole energy system around it. Lucas: Exactly. You can build a wind farm anywhere, but if you don't have the grid infrastructure or the industrial knowledge, it's harder. Norway has both. Luna: I'm curious about the economics. Green ammonia has to be more expensive than the conventional stuff, right? Lucas: Right now, yes. The cost of green ammonia is roughly two to three times higher than conventional ammonia, depending on electricity prices and the price of natural gas. But that gap is narrowing as renewable costs keep falling and as carbon pricing gets stricter. Luna: And there's also a premium for green products, isn't there? Like, companies are willing to pay more to decarbonize their supply chains. Lucas: That's exactly what's driving early demand. Shipping companies, fertilizer makers, even some chemical companies are signing agreements to buy green ammonia at a premium, partly to meet their own sustainability goals. Luna: So the market might be there, even at a higher price. Lucas: And if the cost of renewable electricity keeps dropping—which it has been, pretty steadily—then green ammonia could become cost competitive within a decade or two. That's a big if, but it's not a crazy projection. Luna: I also read that ammonia can be used in power plants to co-fire with coal, as a way to reduce emissions. Is that something this plant is looking at? Lucas: It's a possibility, but the main focus right now is on shipping and fertilizer. The reason is that those are hard to decarbonize sectors where there aren't many alternatives. For power generation, you have more options like solar and wind, so the value of ammonia is lower there. Luna: So it's a targeted solution for specific problems, not a silver bullet. Lucas: Exactly. And that's why it's interesting—it's a niche, but a big niche. The shipping industry alone burns around three hundred million tons of fuel a year. If you replace even a fraction of that with ammonia, you're talking about a massive market. Luna: That's a lot of potential. But I imagine there are technical hurdles to overcome. I mean, electrolysis doesn't work perfectly at scale, right? Lucas: Right. The main challenge is efficiency and durability. Electrolyzers are improving, but they're still not as efficient as we'd like. And they degrade over time, which increases maintenance costs. The Norwegian plant is testing some of the latest technology, so it's also a sort of proving ground. Luna: So even if this specific plant doesn't make a huge dent in global emissions, it's valuable as a test bed. Lucas: Exactly. And there are similar projects popping up in other countries, like Australia and Saudi Arabia, which have even cheaper renewable energy. So the learnings from Norway could help them scale up faster. Luna: That makes sense. So what's the timeline for this plant? When will it be fully operational? Lucas: The plan is to have the full-scale plant running by around 2028, with the current pilot providing data to inform the final design. They're also looking to expand capacity to a hundred thousand tons a year eventually. Luna: So it's still a few years off. But if it works, it could be a model for other countries. Lucas: That's the hope. And the interesting thing is that this isn't just about making a cleaner chemical—it's about proving that industrial processes can be transformed. The same approach, using renewable electricity to produce green hydrogen, can be applied to making steel, cement, and other heavy materials. Luna: So ammonia is a stepping stone. Lucas: Yeah. And if it works, it could unlock a whole new wave of decarbonization in heavy industry. That's what makes this plant so important, even though it's just one factory in Norway.