South Korea is considering abandoning plans for co-firing ammonia with coal, the country's minister for climate, energy and environment Kim Sung-hwan has said.
The government is reviewing a potential change in course, Kim told the Korean parliament's climate, energy, environment and labour committee today. "I think it's right to stop co-firing at coal-fired power plants," Kim said. But plans for co-firing hydrogen with natural gas will remain in place, he said.
The administration of Lee Jae-myung took office in July and is doubling down on expanding renewables capacity. It wants to phase out all coal-fired power plants by 2040 which would effectively rule out co-firing of ammonia beyond the next decade. Seoul earlier this month cancelled the second round of its clean hydrogen power generation bidding market that would subsidise hydrogen and ammonia co-firing under 15-year contracts, arguably because of this policy change. The process will be relaunched at a later stage, the Korea Power Exchange said, but probably with different rules and possibly excluding ammonia co-firing.
Kim acknowledged today that co-firing ammonia "does not contribute significantly to carbon reductions," even though it had featured prominently in decarbonisation and power generation plans drawn up by previous governments.
Critics of ammonia and hydrogen co-firing have long pointed to limited CO2 reductions compared with other potential use cases in hard-to-abate sectors and have argued that this could extend the lifetime for heavily-polluting power plants. They have also pointed to high costs for clean hydrogen and ammonia which are exacerbated by major inefficiencies in the process.
While Kim said that the government will continue to pursue hydrogen co-firing, he noted that there should be specific support mechanisms for hydrogen use in areas where it is "absolutely necessary," such as steelmaking. The focus should be on "improving domestic electrolysis technology" rather than on imports and "it is right to support it through subsidies," Kim said.
