Chinese Lessons In Clean Fuels And Clean Electrons

Without clean electrons, there are no clean molecules.

China is consolidating its leadership in clean technologies by taking a logical next step and going big on clean fuels. The Financial Times published an article on Monday showing that most of the clean-fuel projects (ammonia/methanol/aviation) that have reached FID or are operational are in China.

The companies driving these projects are all familiar to anyone who has worked in the wind industry: Envision, Goldwind, and Mingyang. All of them are Tier 1 wind turbine manufacturers, now pushing into clean molecules. A total of 54 commercial-scale clean-molecule projects are either in operation or have received finance.

If China completes all its planned projects by 2030, it could produce around 20 million tons of green ammonia, displacing about 10% of the global ammonia market. I have a feeling that this ammonia will be sold at exceptionally competitive prices.

So here is another Chinese lesson for Europe - a solid base in renewable energy and batteries is a prerequisite for all other clean technologies. Unless we overbuild wind and solar, we will be importing green ammonia and clean aviation fuels from China. You can’t engineer your way around scale.