https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/sep/23/tugboat-powered-by-ammonia-sails-for-1st-time-show/
Beat me to it. That was in my open tabs to post
I've got a few quid in a company called AFC energy. They have hydrogen systems designed for off-grid, but their other angle is ammonia cracking to create hydrogen which they claim is more efficient than straight up electrolysis. Remains to be seen whether I trade out in profit.
I think the gist is that hydrogen is tricky to transport and store, so ammonia is effectively a battery and works well for anything off grid.
Seems to make sense that electricity curtailment could be redirected towards storing energy chemically, especially in places that lack preferential hydro geography. Lots of sums and energy (in)efficiencies involved and big unknowns like government subsidies.
I finally wondered about green ammonia production and came across this
https://e360.yale.edu/features/from-fertilizer-to-fuel-can-green-ammonia-be-a-climate-fix
A couple interesting points
- with renewable electricity, green ammonia is pretty easy to make using water (electrolysis) as the source for hydrogen
- the energy density of ammonia is about half that of fossil fuel.
Ammonia sure will have its challenges though, it is very corrosive to plastics and some metals, and pretty toxic to humans at relatively low concentrations. Maybe boats and ships are a good place to start because energy density is less important there than in other forms of transportation.
Ammonia has a lot going for it too. We've been making it for a long time. It has hydrogen in it but no carbon.
I think the use case for the farms is interesting. They're already spreading huge amounts of ammonia-based products around and have a lot of practice in storing hazardous chemicals, have a good source of nitrogen, room to put windmills to fuel electrolysis, need to power tractors but are not necessarily range sensitive so the lower energy density is less of a problem than for a long-haul trucker.
Yeah, that's an interesting idea too. On a related note, I've often thought they could run their equipment off of the energy from their animal waste. It seems like a huge resource not to use.
Some farms do have methane capture systems that they use to run things. I think it's easier, though, to use it for things like heat than to run a tractor which normally requires diesel
In the Midwest, a lot of family farms have gone straight grain and no longer raise cattle or hogs like they did up until the 1970's. It's hard to compete against huge factory cattle operations. They have even removed the fences which used to enclose each field since the fences are not needed for cattle anymore.
> no longer raise cattle or hogs like they did up until the 1970's
Same here. We have zero dairy farms and the only cattle you see are small herds raised for local "buy a side of beef for your freezer" direct retail sales.