Comment by Gibbon1
3 days ago
You need about 50-55kwh to produce a kg of hydrogen.
Urea molar mass is 60. And the formula is CO(NH2)2. 4 moles of hydrogen per mole. So 6.6% hydrogen by weight.
1000kg of urea needs then 66.6kg of hydrogen. At 55khw per kg of hydrogen you need 3666 kwh per ton of urea. (not counting other energy inputs).
At $0.05/kwh that's $183 for the hydrogen input.
Worth mentioning the internet says fertilizer is about 7% of an average farm budget and only 1% of the cost of food at the store.
I'm on the side of sure no problem really when it comes to green nitrogen fertilizer.
Another PoV is not the profit from producing home ground fertiliser but the risk of not having fertiliser at "just the right time".
Locally (Western Australia) there are some 8.3 (ish) million hectares of grain planted annually; that's a high spike demand for both fertiliser and fuel that can be interrupted by supply chain issues (eg: war) leading to extensive losses wrt expected harvests.
Oh I'm in that camp. I live in a country that didn't produce its own fertilizer. Sounds like a terrific risk to me