Mitsubishi is planning to advance into the production of fuel ammonia in Canada. According to Mitsubishi’s schedule, the produced ammonia will be shipped to Japan for use in coal-fired power generation in late 2020s.
　On September 8, Mitsubishi announced that it signed a memorandum with Shell Canada, a Canadian subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell on the production of hydrogen in Alberta, Canada. The hydrogen locally generated from natural gas will be converted to ammonia with an aim of export to Japan. As the first step hydrogen of 165,000 t per year will be produced in late 2020s and converted to ammonia of about one million tons for export to Japan for use in the coal-fired thermal power generation.
The company will construct hydrogen generating facilities in the site neighboring Shell Canada’s petrochemical plant, where the carbon dioxide from the hydrogen producing process will be captured and stored underground (CCS).
Ammonia draws attention as a fuel for decarbonization like hydrogen. Because it is commonly understood that we can realize to lower carbonization particularly in the coal-fired power generation by means of replacing coal with ammonia for use.
In Japan an attempt to verify the mixed combustion of 20% ammonia started this year in a boiler of JERA’s Hekinan Thermal Power Station of one million kW. A power generation company other than JERA also announced to replace the current fuel with ammonia for thermal power generation by 2050.
In the process to promote utilization of ammonia for power generation it will be indispensable to establish a large-scale supply chain for ammonia. According to the roadmap of Clean Fuel Ammonia Association consisting of the government, power generators and trading companies, a domestic demand for fuel ammonia has been figured out to be 3 million t per year in 2030 and 30 million tons in 2050.
The one million tons of ammonia assumed for export by Mitsubishi this time would correspond to a fuel cost per year for two units of power generator in case of 20%-mixed power generation of one million kW class.
　The company has so far begun to research on CCS for the production of fuel ammonia in Indonesia. In addition, it also implemented verification to transport to Japan so-called Blue Ammonia which had turned into CCS after production from natural gas, in collaboration with Saudi Aramco a state-owned oil company of Saudi Arabia and the Institute of Energy Economics, Japan. The company wishes to contribute to establishment of a supply chain aiming to introduce new energies like hydrogen and ammonia.