Ammonia Energy: Hydrogen’s Dark Horse?

DATE: Wednesday, 21October 2020

TIME: 2:00pm – 3:15pm AEDT

The session will highlight the opportunities for Australia from green ammonia and discuss the way forward to develop the industry.

Chair: Penelope Howarth, Assistant Director, Climate Change Branch, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Research Fellow, Energy Change Institute, Australian National University

Panellists:

Andrew Dickson, Business Development Manager, CWP Renewables

John Mott, Chair, Ammonia Energy Association

Rob Stevens, VP Ammonia Energy and Shipping Fuel, Yara International ASA

Sam Muraki, Executive Advisor, Tokyo Gas

Leonie Muldoon, Chief Executive, SA Department for Trade and Investment

Trevor Brown, Executive Director, Ammonia Energy Association

Penelope Howarth

Assistant Director, Climate Change Branch, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and

Research Fellow, Energy Change Institute, Australian National University

Penelope Howarth is a multi-lingual economist, diplomat and international development professional with over 25 years’ experience in international organisations and Australian Government roles. As Energy Director at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum (APEC) Secretariat in Singapore (2015-2018), she supported a comprehensive program of international energy decarbonisation cooperation and technical exchanges between APEC’s 21 members. She is currently Research Fellow at the Zero-Carbon Energy for the Asia-Pacific Grand Challenge, on secondment from the climate change team at the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Penelope’s ANU research focusses on ammonia, its emerging energy applications and ammonia certification of origin to support international trade in in this exciting ‘new’ clean fuel. 

Andrew Dickson

Business Development Manager, CWP Renewables

Andrew Dickson is the Development Manager of the Asian Renewable Energy Hub (AREH), an export oriented renewable energy project at oil and gas scale. AREH will combine 15+ GW of wind and solar generation to produce hydrogen and ammonia for export. Andrew has 16 years of experience developing wind / solar PV / solar thermal / microgrid / hydrogen / ammonia projects in most Australian states. He has a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical and Electronic) degree from the University of New South Wales and a Master of Science and Technology Commercialisation degree from the University of Adelaide.

John Mott

Chair, Ammonia Energy Association

John graduated in Mechanical Engineering from the Bendigo Institute of Technology in 1973. His career in the industrial refrigeration industry using ammonia, has spanned 45 years, the last 20 years of which John was General Manager and CEO of Gordon Brothers, Australia’s pre-eminent ammonia refrigeration manufacturer and contractor. John has been active in a number of industry bodies during his career and has continued involvement with the AEA and ASTI, and helped start GESCA in his retirement.

John is Fellow of the Institution of Engineers Australia (FIEAust) Fellow of the Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air conditioning and Heating (FAIRAH) Affiliate member of the Board of Directors of the Ammonia Safety & Training Institute (ASTI) Life member of the American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Aircon Engineers (ASHRAE) Chair of the Australian chapter of the Ammonia Energy Association (AEA) Director of Impact Recovery Ltd, Bendigo Director of GESCA Pty Ltd (Green Energy Supply Chain Australia)

Rob Stevens

VP Ammonia Energy and Shipping Fuel, Yara International ASA

Rob has an MSc in chemical engineering and a PhD in Applied Thermodynamics from Delft University of Technology, the Netehrlands. Rob started his career in Yara in product and technology development for fertilisers. Since then Rob held several management positions in Yara production (Urea, ammonia and nitric acid), of which 10 years in ammonia, including the General Manager role at Yara Pilbara, Western Australia. Currently Rob works as VP Ammonia Energy and Shipping Fuel in the Climate Neutrality team, with a focus to bring green ammonia at scale, contributing to the Yara target of climae neutrality by 2050 in the full the value chain.

Sam Muraki

Executive Advisor, Tokyo Gas

Shigeru MURAKI joined Tokyo Gas Co., Ltd. in 1972 after graduating from Applied Chemistry Department of the University of Tokyo. He was appointed chief representative inNew York from 1989 to 1994. From 1996 through 2004, he worked at Gas Resources Dept. He was promoted to senior executive officer and CTO in 2004. In 2007, he moved to Energy Solution Division in charge of marketing in commercial and industrial markets and power business. He was appointed Executive Vice President in 2010 and Vice Chairman in 2014. Since April 2015, he has been Executive Adviser for Tokyo Gas.

He was Program Director of Energy Carriers for SIP (Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program) from June 2014 to March 2019. He has been Representative Director of the Green Ammonia Consortium since July 2019. He has assigned to Regional Vice Chair, Asia Pacific and South Asia, of World Energy Council since May 2016. He was awarded the Medal of Honor with Blue Ribbon in May 2017.

Leonie Muldoon

Chief Executive, SA Department for Trade and Investment

Leonie has extensive trade and investment expertise across multiple international markets, having worked with Austrade most recently as the Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner Singapore and previously as Investment Commissioner for Japan and later, North Asia where she was responsible for inbound investment from the region into Australia; Senior Trade and Investment Commissioner and Country Manager Japan and as General Manager South Asia, carrying responsibility for India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Leonie is a lawyer by profession having been a Partner with Mallesons Stephen Jacques in their Sydney Banking and Finance practice. 

She also has commercial experience, having been responsible for leadership and management of a range of businesses in diverse sectors, spanning call centres (Sitel Corporation-CEO Australia and COO Asia Pacific), consulting, training (General Manager Professional Service‑Standards Australia, later SAI Global) and online legal publishing (CEO-TimeBase).

Leonie holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Bachelor of Law with Honours from Monash University, and a Master of Law from Columbia University in New York. She also speaks Japanese.

Trevor Brown

Executive Director, Ammonia Energy Association

Trevor Brown, CFA, is the Executive Director of the Ammonia Energy Association, a global trade association that promotes the responsible use of ammonia in a sustainable energy economy. The AEA aims to accelerate the energy transition by connecting industry and research across sectors and across continents, to use ammonia as a carbon-free hydrogen-dense energy carrier. Previously, Trevor was a theater and film producer and later an independent ammonia industry analyst. Since 2012, he has been an agitator for the commercialization of sustainable ammonia synthesis technologies.