With 80%-90% losses -- Haber-Bosch is inefficient and so is combustion. I just have a hard time picturing that beating batteries. If it made a high value chemical maybe economically, but not on a purely energy basis, the efficiencies just can't add up.

Haber-Bosch requires compression to ~100bar or greater to see much of any conversion and has something like 15% yield per cycle. It is not pretty.

I find it impossible to imagine transitioning engines and fueling stations to ammonia before we get batteries light and reliable enough to meet the majority of people's needs. We put many power plants worth of petrochemicals into ammonia right now, replacing it would be great but it just doesn't seem like a low fruit to grab at.

What I think is a lot of this is put out there as an attempt sideline workable technologies to keep the fossil fuel party going. 'Clean coal' 'Carbon Capture' 'Next Generation Reactors' 'Hydrogen economy' all unworkable trash.

I agree, I won't name and shame but the grant I was working on was clearly funded by some coal lobby or something because the premise was desperate on the face of it.

I practically said "this won't work efficiently, you should just not burn the coal" because nothing else could be justified energetically even if it was maybe economical. I tried my best but I can't change thermodynamics.