> the nature of the chemical industry being what it was, and is, one could be confident that it would come down to a reasonable figure when anybody wanted it in quantity.
The price of which is forecast to go up.
Green Ammonia is made from renewable energy, which is forecast to become cheaper.
It also requires electrolysers which are ramping up production and are also predicted to fall in price as they get made at scale from cheaper components.
So it's a fairly safe bet even if you don't believe all the published academic papers that go through the working in great detail, or the business cases that predict a multi-Billion dollar market for it.
What is the basis in physics for your belief that ammonia can be produced more efficieblntly, and why was it not done already?
It's not "cheaper" for a mob connected waste disposal firm to dump waste into a river. If they were prosecuted for the damage they did to other people's property and had to pay for the damage they did then they'd need to raise their prices to the point that just dealing with it properly would be cheaper.
In physics terms:
Dig up hydrogen connected to carbon. Separate the hydrogen from the carbon. Release the fossil carbon into the atmosphere as CO2. Capture the same amount of CO2 from the atmosphere. Seperate it from oxygen, store the carbon. Use hydrogen to make Ammonia.
Versus
Use electricity to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. Use hydrogen to make Ammonia.
This is a nice paper on the different fuel cycles of hydrogen ammonia and methyl.
Roundtrip efficiencies for hydrogen and ammonia are both at about 30% plus. Don't know how high it could theoretically go.