Its 2021 and the robotic arms hold a sheet of glass against the screen printer that lays down the perovskite coating, carbon connectors and then seals the Greatcell panel that is then loaded into a container sized cassette rack along with hundred of others ready for fork lifting onto a road train for transport as vast arrays of them are continuously being added too in central south Australia.
The resulting 2c kWh hour electricity is used to heat massive underground tanks of molten salt at Port Augusta through which water is piped. The resulting disassociated super heated steam is piped through CSIRO membranes that suck out the hydrogen from the mixture, leaving the oxygen to flow to storage tanks, exchanging its heat with nitrogen in the process. The super-heated hydrogen continues on into a Haber Bosch reactor where it meets hot nitrogen, reacting together via an iron catalyst to form NH3. Due to the already hot gases, very little extra energy input required in the exothermic reaction, making it super efficient.
The gas is cooled by depressurisation and heat exchange then stored as pressurised ammonia for shipment to Japan and the rest of the world. Some of the hydrogen is combusted with the stored oxygen to drive super efficient turbine generators or fuel cells to supply the Australian grid with near instant cheap base load electricity as required to augment wind and solar.
At the overseas export destination, CSIRO membranes separate the far smaller hydrogen atoms from the nitrogen at will. The resulting hydrogen is used to power generators, fuel cells, injected into gas pipelines, to make fertilsers or chemical feed stock when combined with Co2 obtained by removing carbonic acid from seawater.
Australia's 33rd prime minister, fare welling the first tanker shipment from the fifth massive solar to ammonia export facility declares "Since the emergency worldwide imposition of a carbon tax in 2019, bought about by devastating global climatic events and an ice free arctic, Australia, through the likes of innovation CSIRO and GSL has been at the forefront of the transition to a carbon free economy. Far from being a disaster to our economy as many feared, the transition has bought immeasurable new wealth and jobs to our great country as we both lead and supply the world with affordable carbon free energy. As our coal and gas exports continue to rapidly decline, hydrogen and solar panel exports are growing to fill the gap."
GSL Price at posting:
17.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
