Posts Tagged by Bill Leighty
Liquid Ammonia Fuel and Model Sustainable Cities
| November 28, 2010 | Posted by Daniel-Miller under Energy Storage |
Perhaps a number of you recall Mr. Shields’s blog posts regarding ammonia fuel from a few months ago. I believe there is also a reference to ammonia in “Renewable Energy: Facts and Fantasies” during the interview with Matt Simmons.
I would like to thank Craig Shields for inviting me to post as a guest blogger here at 2GreenEnergy in order that I can post any original thinking that I may have regarding ammonia and green energy. The invitation had its roots in that I had referred Mr. Shields to Bill Leighty for more information about ammonia fuel. And I will very likely soon be an intern with the NH3 Fuel Association, which is the new name for the Ammona Fuel Network.
For those who like like the link to my “Model Sustainable Cities” website for my most public work, it can be found at http://modelsustainablecities.weebly.com. Read More
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Ammonia Fuel Network — Great Presentation on Energy Storage and Transmission
| June 14, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Energy Storage |
The Ammonia Fuel Network’s Executive Direct John Holbrook was good enough to send me a few DVD’s in which Bill Leighty made presentations on the numbers that surround ammonia a fuel. I was struck by a number of things.
First, Bill is a consummate presenter to an academic audience. He’s measured, rational, and extremely credible – without a hint of bombast – or really any effort to use emotion to convince the audience of anything at all. Even in a subject matter in which the entire survival of our species is at stake, Bill just plows though the material as if he were discussing Hannibal and the Punic Wars. This dispassionate approach carries into the choices he makes to frame the discussion of the imperative to move to renewables. “We only have 200 years of coal left,” he says, choosing an indisputable but fairly unexciting fact. It was as if, if we only had more coal, everything would be just fine. I would have been up there waving my arms and talking about Chernobyl, skyrocketing cancer rates, global climate change, and empowering terrorists. I could almost Bill thinking: I could do that too. But why?
Second, I realize that I’ve been a bit glib about energy storage and transmission. Although there is very little discussion here about concentrated solar power and molten salt energy storage, there is considerable exposition on the cost of electricity transmission – which is considerable. I began to realize how challenging all this HVDC grid build out really is, given the costs, the NIMBY (not in my backyard) effect, and the consequent political and legal difficulties.
An elegant solution here would be one that addressed several different problems in one. And I challenge anyone to review these presentations and not be impressed with the elegance with which liquid ammonia offers a reasonably low-cost answer to the challenges we will ultimately face as the penetration of renewables grows larger and the issue of firming (delivered reliable power, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year) becomes more thorny. We have about 20 GW of wind installed in the US today, representing about 2% of our total capacity. And already the wind industry to running out of places to plug its power into the grid. Without a solution to store and transport that energy, the renewables industry will quickly hit a wall – and ammonia just may be the answer.
If you’re interested in the presentations, please let me know.
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Liquid Ammonia as Fuel — Summary
| June 5, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
Like hydrogen as a fuel, liquid ammonia is a carrier of energy, as opposed to a source of energy. When we create ammonia out of nitrogen and hydrogen, we add energy to form a compound that can later be broken down, releasing some of that energy for useful purposes at a time and place of our choosing.
In that sense, ammonia is like compressed air or batteries: you can only take out the energy you had put in earlier. As a substance, this is constrated against gasoline and other fossil fuels, the chemical energy in which was created by our sun long ago.
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Liquid Ammonia as Fuel – More on the Subject
| June 4, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Energy Storage |
I figured that my posts on Renewable Energy World on liquid ammonia would eventually get some response. I had been wondered how it could be possible that so few people were working on projects in this area, as it really does seem like an important idea. In particular, as a liquid energy storage medium, it has the potential to solve three tough problems simultaneously. In addition to being clean, safe, reliable, and scaleable, liquid ammonia can help in:
1) Moving large amounts of energy around a large land mass (like the lower 48 states) in a way that would compete with electrical. (Proponents point out that a great deal of this piping infrastructure is already in place.)
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