Posts Tagged by liquid ammonia
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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Liquid Ammonia Bravely Faces Its Challenges
| June 10, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
Ask and ye shall receive. I happened to mention that I’d like a bit more information on ammonia as fuel – and moments later I got that information in spades. In particular, I had been wondering why more people weren’t studying this subject, given its potential to resolve so many of our energy problems — and the floodgates opened.
The nature of the opportunity is coming into focus — but so is the scope of the challenges: the clean energy “triumvirate” as I call them – the technology, the economics, and the politics surrounding the migration to renewables. It’s clear that ammonia must find its way across significant hurdles in all three.
Helping me come to a better understanding of all this was John Holbrook, a man who wears many hats when it comes to this fascinating subject, including his role as the executive director of the non-profit Ammonia Fuel Network. Though John is acutely aware of the challenges presented by big money and big politics, his main focus is the technology – in particular, the development of Solid State Ammonia Synthesis or SSAS – a process of creating ammonia out of water and atmospheric nitrogen such that no expensive, energy-intensive electrolyzers or high pressures are required.
But the clean and inexpensive formulation of ammonia is just one of a few important chasms to be crossed. What about distribution and consumption? There are thousands of miles of ammonia pipeline already in place — and there are 800 NH3 “fueling stations” (fertilizer outlets) in Iowa alone — but, like hydrogen or EV charging stations, we’re not exactly right around the corner from having safe and ubiquitous dispensers to fill up our cars with liquid ammonia.
And let’s not ignore the political challenges. Imagine for a moment that John and the other high-level minds working on this problem are successful, that the technology is fully in place, and that we could, if we wanted to, formulate huge supplies of safe and inexpensive ammonia. Now, realize that this fuel you will be producing is regarded by neither the US Department of Energy nor the Environmental Protection Agency as a fuel at all. DOE recognizes NH3 as a hydrogen carrier — not a direct fuel. But, since DOE has discouraged the idea of on-board vehicle generation of H2 (“on-board reforming), DOE has no use for NH3, which is the universe’s best hydrogen carrier — all punctuated by DOE’s dismissive white paper of 2006.
Bottom line: You have a product with no demand. Your breakthrough — even when you make it happen — is like launching the I-Pad — in 1958. You have a world in which there is very little capital — financial or political — behind ammonia as fuel — in both the public and private sectors.
But John remains upbeat: “I’ve learned to be patient. And hey, we’re making progress. Matt Simmons is a great example.”
Though he’s right, what we have here in essence is a huge educational challenge. My fondest hope is that John and his people align themselves with someone with a proven track-record in marketing, which I define as “the ability to communicate value.” We can formulate and deliver ammonia. But can we formulate and deliver the story that will make this breakthrough meaningful? We’ll have to wait and see.
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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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Liquid Ammonia as Alternative Auto Fuel
| May 31, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Electric Vehicles |
Frank Eggers writes in:
EVs may well be the vehicle technology of the future, but it is too soon to know for sure. It may be that artificially produced fuels, such as ammonia, will become practical to replace petroleum-based fuels and internal combustion engines designed to run on those fuels will predominate.
Frank: Thanks for this. Please tell us all more about liquid ammonia as fuel. Matt Simmons of Peak Oil fame, with whom I’ve spoken a few times, really loves ammonia. But I have trouble understanding the attraction. OK, it’s another liquid, and the building out a new delivery infrastructure won’t be as arduous as it would be for hydrogen.
But do we really need it? Aren’t we fairly close to batteries that get the job done?
I don’t see big money betting on it — or even discussing the idea. What am I missing?
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Liquid Ammonia as Fuel
| May 5, 2010 | Posted by Craig Shields under Biomass |
In a recent post, Bill Paul points out that the reaction to the oil spill in the Gulf should be algae-generated biofuels. But why not liquid ammonia, as Peak Oil pundit Matt Simmons would suggest? As Matt old me when I interviewed him for my book on renewables (and then reminded me in a phone call the other day) anhydrous ammonia is an ultra-clean, energy-dense alternative liquid fuel, for which an enormous delivery infrastructure is already in place. With the exception of hydrogen (for there is virtually no delivery infrastructure) ammonia is the only fuel that produces no greenhouse gases (GHG) on combustion. Ammonia will power diesel and spark-ignited internal combustion engines, and can be manufactured from simply water and air using clean renewable energy.
I’ll see if I can see Bill to comment on this.
