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Comment by sidewndr46 | Hacker News Reader

You'd have to ship the ammonia to the point of use, which is going to be significantly more hazardous

If ammonia cannot be shipped safely than the whole thing is moot. We're talking about "shipping" ammonia halfway around the world in the fuel tanks of these ammonia fueled ships. If storing it long term in fuel tanks can be done safely, than so can shipping it to port.

This also means ammonia may end up getting produced at the globally best places, the places where the solar resource is extremely good, like Chile, Namibia, parts of the middle East, then shipping elsewhere.

Sunny places with good ports and cheap land.

Shipping ammonia is commonly done already. For example, the first few search results for "ammonia tanker" has a story of Maersk ordering up to ten new tankers with 93000 cubic metre capacity each.

This is illogical - we ship a live nuclear reactor around the world in a nuclear carrier or icebreaker. But you cannot take it out and put it on a truck

That has more to do with the design of the vessel than anything.

You “ship” electricity near a port via the electric grid, and then make ammonia near or in the port. Economies of scale might favor having a few ammonia factories and then shipping it around by boat.

Ammonia makes zero sense as a general use fuel, but ships need MW of power over several days and aren’t in populated areas.

Assuming, it’s actually viable which isn’t guaranteed.

OK, that sounds like a good plan. But that's the opposite of what was proposed further up this thread.

It depends on whether you prefer to transfer electricity or ammonia. You get to pick whatever is easier, which caps the difficulty at not high. The suggestion of shipping ammonia was for the sake of convenience, not a burden. It's optional.

the actual post I replied to originally said

"build the ammonia producing plant close to your solar/wind parks"

You can't pick that and then decide not to transfer the ammonia and decide not to transfer the electricity. Unless your solar plan is at the loading dock or something.

The suggestion of shipping ammonia was for the sake of convenience, not a burden. It's optional.

Yes you have to transfer electricity in that case. We already know transferring electricity is easy.

Don't get hung up on "picking" one as if the downsides get locked in at the pre-design phase. If it's difficult to transfer ammonia then nevermind go back to the existing easy option of wires.

In other words, if that specific detail doesn't work out, it is not an argument against ammonia. It was just a potential bonus, not core to the idea. And it doesn't fundamentally change things. It's not the "opposite" plan.

Someone makes a statement. I point out that statement has implications. Someone then suggests an idea that is counter to the original statement. I point out that is inconsistent. Your response is "Don't get hung up on".

Your argument at this point has just devolved into some variant of "don't confuse me with the facts"

You said the plan was the opposite, but it was only a tiny optional detail that's opposite.

The phrasing in that comment rejected the original plan as a whole, and that's not right.

Also the comment you called a "good plan" was still talking about shipping ammonia as a maybe! So even in that detail it's not the opposite of the original comment.

I think your first comment was fine, but it's not your first comment that I replied to.

I wouldn’t get that hung up on the specifics when we are using terms like ‘near’ which is why I said boats for economies of scale.

I was thinking of navigable waterways which are common near major wind farms and some solar, not just major ports which rarely have a lot of space available. The UK is already facing issues with moving offshore wind around the country, an Ammonia plant could theoretically make a lot of sense.

It only needs to be easier to ship than hydrogen.

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