The world’s first commercial modular green ammonia plant is starting up in Kenya and the company behind the technology plans to deploy the facilities as far away as Iowa’s Landus Cooperative in Des Moines, according to a Bloomberg report.
The Kenyan plant, which was designed and will be run by US-based Talus Renewables, Austin, is sited near Naivasha just outside Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Under a 15-year offtake agreement, Talus will supply Kenya Nut Co. Ltd., which grows a variety of crops.
It uses electricity, which in Kenya Nut’s case will be supplied from an onsite solar farm, to split water atoms, freeing up hydrogen to be mixed with nitrogen to create the fertilizer. By doing so it removes the need for the fertilizer to be imported from countries like Russia, cutting costs, securing supply, and reducing emissions of climate-warming gases.
“The average bag of fertilizer in sub-Saharan Africa travels 10,000 kilometers,” Hiro Iwanaga, Talus’ Founder, said in an interview. With this plant “you can locally produce a critical raw material, carbon free,” he said.
While the plant at Kenya Nut is small, producing 1 mt/d of fertilizer, the company plans to eventually have Talus produce 200 mt/d from larger plants on its sites to supply 95% of its needs, said Graeme Rust, Kenya Nut’s CEO.
The plants currently come in two sizes, the one deployed at Kenya Nut and a 10 mt/d facility. The larger ones need about 11.5 megawatts of power. Iwanaga said the company is currently raising money in a funding round and plans a larger one next year, which will include securing project finance.
Talus also reported that it has an agreement with Landus Cooperative. Landus lists Talus as one of the cooperative’s Innovation Connector Partners for the 2023 season.
“The green ammonia that Talus’s systems produce is both reliable and locally produced, which reduces costs by addressing supply chain insecurity and challenges,” said Matt Carstens, Landus CEO and President. He added that green ammonia is “an exciting innovation to consider.”
Talus is seeking to set up its plants in a number of locations across Africa such as sugar plantations. It also plans to work with mining companies to make the ammonia used in blasting.
Talus reports that representatives from Yara Africa & Asia, USDA, and the US Agency for International Development were recently onsite at the Kenyan plant. “We had the chance to show off our technology and talk about the unprecedented opportunity it presents for difficult-to-decarbonize industries like agriculture,” Talus said.