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Australia does not have huge deposits of hydrogen they're just sitting around trying to find uses for. So the input for this technology is imaginary. Making a

Australia does not have huge deposits of hydrogen they're just sitting around trying to find uses for. So the input for this technology is imaginary. Making ammonia out of hydrogen, which is so useful that half your food comes from it, is called the Haber-Bosch process (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process), and has been around for about a century. Ammonia is a pretty crappy way to move things around too. Not as bad as hydrogen, but if you have ammonia, reacting it with some CO2 to make urea is how the professionals do it. Ammonia is still a dangerous gas or liquid. Urea is inoffensive little white pellets. You can already buy urea at American truck stops as "DEF" or diesel exhaust fluid. Finally, unless they've miniaturized their technology to where you can pump ammonia into your car to run it on hydrogen instead of filling it directly with hydrogen, you're still limited by hydrogen's crappy storage density where it's needed most- in the car. So let's take two flows and compare them to this technology's flows: NG -> pipeline -> CNG -> CNG Engine (simple, if not all that widespread) e- -> grid -> EV charger -> battery -> EV motor (same) vs. Aussie coal -> CO2 + H2 -> NH3 -> H2 -> H2 tank -> Fuel Cell -> EV motor or Aussie PV -> H2 -> NH3 -> H2 -> H2 tank -> Fuel Cell -> EV motor I wish I could educate newspeople on how to distinguish real breakthroughs from university-sponsored snake oil like this.

bayesian_horse 8y ago
Maybe the scientists involve did think twice before embarking on such an endeavor?
- Dylan16807 8y ago
  You seem to be dismissively implying that because scientists are experts that they have obviously considered this. Which isn't true at all. Scientists are typically much more motivated by the pursuit of knowledge than strict commercial value.
yomly 8y ago
I checked out the Toyota Mirai - it does indeed use hydrogen gas cylinders from what I can tell. So this research is targeting simply the ability to transport hydrogen. Ironically, the ships that carry all that ammonia to Asia almost certainly used fossil fuels and who knows what the carbon footprint around building the membranes for the hydrogen transfer is like
- JoeAltmaier 8y ago
  And shipping is the most egregiously polluting transportation in existence. Something like 10 to 30% of emissions come from 6000 ships in service. Folks claim its ok because it settles into the ocean quickly - ok for everybody but the ocean.
  - metta2uall 8y ago
    This is just false - shipping contributes only 2-3% of global emissions (see e.g. http://theconversation.com/the-shipping-sector-is-finally-on-board-in-the-fight-against-climate-change-95212 http://theconversation.com/the-shipping-sector-is-finally-on...).
  - marcosdumay 8y ago
    > Something like 10 to 30% of emissions come from 6000 ships in service. Some 10% to 30% of sulfur emissions come from those ships. They do that because they move in the open ocean where nobody cares about a short lived pollutant. Sulfur moves quickly into the ocean where it not only non-toxic, but also beneficial to life. (Sulfates - what it will settle down into - is widely used as fertilizer on land.)
    - manicdee 8y ago
      Just like CO2 is good for plants therefore buringnoilmis great formthe environment?
      - marcosdumay 8y ago
        Well, there is certainly some amount where the wrong kind of life takes over. It is way over what cargo ships throw around, but people have been polluting some parts of the ocean with too much sulfates.
  - vpribish 8y ago
    this is from some horribly irresponsible clickbait newsy reporting a couple of years ago. It's only a very specific subtype of emissions, not 'emissions' in general.
baybal2 8y ago
>Urea is inoffensive little white pellets. Except it became one of the most controlled substances around out of a sudden.
- MisterTea 8y ago
  You're thinking of ammonium nitrate. Urea is not a powerful oxidizer so it is not useful in making explosives.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    Yes, totally mistook it for urea nitrate.
88e282102ae2e5b 8y ago
> So the input for this technology is imaginary. They proposed one use, which would be to use it as storage for solar/wind power. Perhaps their plan is that when there's excess output from renewables, they'll use electrolysis to generate hydrogen gas from water?
- manicdee 8y ago
  That is exactly the plan. With renewables you have to deploy far more than you need due to capacity factor, so to average 100kW on solar you need to deploy between 300kW and 400kW of capacity. So during the course of the day you will be generating significantly more or significantly less power than required. Batteries and hydro will help for short term storage of excess power (ie: overnight, during cloud passage) but for long term storage (eg for transport by sea) you need something with higher energy density. For export especially you need high energy density since shipping charged batteries across the planet is going to be extremely inefficient. The breakthrough this membrane represents is an increase in the “well to wheels” efficiency of the hydrogen economy (which is lower overall than the “pure electric” economy involving BEVs). Having said that, the “well to wheels” efficiency of H2 using Ammonia as a transport medium is under 20%, so it’s really only useful when there is plentiful cheap energy which nobody else has a better use for. Other uses for plentiful cheap electricity could be (for example) chilling or heating large volumes of water or other thermal mass for air conditioning and industrial processes. If you have large tanks of water you can spend energy chilling (or heating) them when electricity is cheap, then use the chilled water to cool whatever it is you have that is getting too hot (and vice versa for hot water storage). But if people are willing to pay enough for hydrogen at point of use, there will be an economic case for producing ammonia in Australia to be converted to hydrogen in Japan resulting in 1kWh in Japan costing about the same as 4kWh in Australia.
baybal2 8y ago
>So let's take two flows and compare them to this technology's flows: >NG -> pipeline -> CNG -> CNG Engine (simple, if not all that widespread) >e- -> grid -> EV charger -> battery -> EV motor (same) >vs. >Aussie coal -> CO2 + H2 -> NH3 -> H2 -> H2 tank -> Fuel Cell -> EV motor >or >Aussie PV -> H2 -> NH3 -> H2 -> H2 tank -> Fuel Cell -> EV motor There is still one dark horse in the competition: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-ammonia-on-demand-alternative-production-method.html https://phys.org/news/2017-06-ammonia-on-demand-alternative-... On my memory, there were countless claims of "direct" ammonia production, and all came to be uneconomical or being outright scams. But in last few years, there were numerous works on catalytic production with some merit to them.
thinkcontext 8y ago
This. The comparative advantage nations have over each other in energy in a post-fossil fuel world will be much reduced. That is, Saudi Arabia has a huge advantage over Japan in terms of cheap fossil fuel energy, so Japan imports a lot from them. Though Saudi Arabia likely has an advantage over Japan in renewable resources, its not as dramatic as their fossil fuel advantage, so Japan would invest in their own energy resources and import less of them. Because of this there will likely be much less international energy traded in general.
falsedan 8y ago
> university-sponsored snake oil It's coming out of the CSIRO, which while not the greatest at commercialisation, have a pretty solid track record of not spinning bullshit. The car spinning looks like it's coming from auto industry wingnuts.
Someone 8y ago
”Australia does not have huge deposits of hydrogen” Australia has plenty of sunlight, though, much more than they need. In the long term, if/when we live of renewables, they hope to export the energy in it. The traditional solution is a cable, but Australia is fairly distant from the possible export markets. That, I think, is where this comes in. Australia has access to oceans that have the hydrogen, and air contains the necessary nitrogen. I would think they envision producing ammonia at scale, shipping it in tankers to a densely populated country or a country that has less sunlight, converting it back to electricity in a power station there, and feeding the result into the grid. Doable? Yes. Economically viable? Who knows. That doesn’t only depend on this process, but also on the question how easily other countries can get their power cheaper.
- mchannon 8y ago
  It might help to note that in 2009, Australia imported 900,000 tonnes of urea. Gonna take a long time before they meet that demand. Australia's an energy importer, big time. Sure, bargeloads of coal go out to places like Saudi Arabia, but tankerloads of oil and LNG come in. If you want to export your energy cheaply, look at Aluminum (sorry Aussies, Aluminium to you) instead. It's safe, made from local ingredients, and stable. That's why gulf petrostates are putting huge aluminum smelters in- much cheaper to make the aluminum with their natural gas than compress and store the stuff.
  - photojosh 8y ago
    I live 20min from the largest aluminium smelter in Oz. :) It's the largest energy consumer in the state and every time there's fears about electricity blackouts they make the news because of the worry about their potlines getting killed. We're also a bit LNG exporter... so I'm curious, as what you're saying they're doing in the gulf should apply here too. When they use LNG for smelting, are they using it to generate electricity or burning it direct for heating?
    - dwd 8y ago
      What I never understood was why they didn't tap into Portland's geothermals for a ready source of steam to run a local electricity generating turbine. These days they would have to be worried about a bushfire hitting Loy Yang. It was a close call in 2009 when they could have lost the mine and plant. There's a gas powerstation at Mortlake and talks of building another for Alcoa as it could feed straight off the Otway Basin gas fields. I see a few wind farms have popped up, no doubt due to the areas reputation for being constantly windy.

bayesian_horse 8y ago

Maybe the scientists involve did think twice before embarking on such an endeavor?

Dylan16807 8y ago
You seem to be dismissively implying that because scientists are experts that they have obviously considered this. Which isn't true at all. Scientists are typically much more motivated by the pursuit of knowledge than strict commercial value.

yomly 8y ago

I checked out the Toyota Mirai - it does indeed use hydrogen gas cylinders from what I can tell. So this research is targeting simply the ability to transport hydrogen. Ironically, the ships that carry all that ammonia to Asia almost certainly used fossil fuels and who knows what the carbon footprint around building the membranes for the hydrogen transfer is like

JoeAltmaier 8y ago
And shipping is the most egregiously polluting transportation in existence. Something like 10 to 30% of emissions come from 6000 ships in service. Folks claim its ok because it settles into the ocean quickly - ok for everybody but the ocean.
- metta2uall 8y ago
  This is just false - shipping contributes only 2-3% of global emissions (see e.g. http://theconversation.com/the-shipping-sector-is-finally-on-board-in-the-fight-against-climate-change-95212 http://theconversation.com/the-shipping-sector-is-finally-on...).
- marcosdumay 8y ago
  > Something like 10 to 30% of emissions come from 6000 ships in service. Some 10% to 30% of sulfur emissions come from those ships. They do that because they move in the open ocean where nobody cares about a short lived pollutant. Sulfur moves quickly into the ocean where it not only non-toxic, but also beneficial to life. (Sulfates - what it will settle down into - is widely used as fertilizer on land.)
  - manicdee 8y ago
    Just like CO2 is good for plants therefore buringnoilmis great formthe environment?
    - marcosdumay 8y ago
      Well, there is certainly some amount where the wrong kind of life takes over. It is way over what cargo ships throw around, but people have been polluting some parts of the ocean with too much sulfates.
- vpribish 8y ago
  this is from some horribly irresponsible clickbait newsy reporting a couple of years ago. It's only a very specific subtype of emissions, not 'emissions' in general.

baybal2 8y ago

>Urea is inoffensive little white pellets. Except it became one of the most controlled substances around out of a sudden.

MisterTea 8y ago
You're thinking of ammonium nitrate. Urea is not a powerful oxidizer so it is not useful in making explosives.
- baybal2 8y ago
  Yes, totally mistook it for urea nitrate.

88e282102ae2e5b 8y ago

> So the input for this technology is imaginary. They proposed one use, which would be to use it as storage for solar/wind power. Perhaps their plan is that when there's excess output from renewables, they'll use electrolysis to generate hydrogen gas from water?

manicdee 8y ago
That is exactly the plan. With renewables you have to deploy far more than you need due to capacity factor, so to average 100kW on solar you need to deploy between 300kW and 400kW of capacity. So during the course of the day you will be generating significantly more or significantly less power than required. Batteries and hydro will help for short term storage of excess power (ie: overnight, during cloud passage) but for long term storage (eg for transport by sea) you need something with higher energy density. For export especially you need high energy density since shipping charged batteries across the planet is going to be extremely inefficient. The breakthrough this membrane represents is an increase in the “well to wheels” efficiency of the hydrogen economy (which is lower overall than the “pure electric” economy involving BEVs). Having said that, the “well to wheels” efficiency of H2 using Ammonia as a transport medium is under 20%, so it’s really only useful when there is plentiful cheap energy which nobody else has a better use for. Other uses for plentiful cheap electricity could be (for example) chilling or heating large volumes of water or other thermal mass for air conditioning and industrial processes. If you have large tanks of water you can spend energy chilling (or heating) them when electricity is cheap, then use the chilled water to cool whatever it is you have that is getting too hot (and vice versa for hot water storage). But if people are willing to pay enough for hydrogen at point of use, there will be an economic case for producing ammonia in Australia to be converted to hydrogen in Japan resulting in 1kWh in Japan costing about the same as 4kWh in Australia.

baybal2 8y ago

>So let's take two flows and compare them to this technology's flows: >NG -> pipeline -> CNG -> CNG Engine (simple, if not all that widespread) >e- -> grid -> EV charger -> battery -> EV motor (same) >vs. >Aussie coal -> CO2 + H2 -> NH3 -> H2 -> H2 tank -> Fuel Cell -> EV motor >or >Aussie PV -> H2 -> NH3 -> H2 -> H2 tank -> Fuel Cell -> EV motor There is still one dark horse in the competition: https://phys.org/news/2017-06-ammonia-on-demand-alternative-production-method.html https://phys.org/news/2017-06-ammonia-on-demand-alternative-... On my memory, there were countless claims of "direct" ammonia production, and all came to be uneconomical or being outright scams. But in last few years, there were numerous works on catalytic production with some merit to them.

thinkcontext 8y ago

This. The comparative advantage nations have over each other in energy in a post-fossil fuel world will be much reduced. That is, Saudi Arabia has a huge advantage over Japan in terms of cheap fossil fuel energy, so Japan imports a lot from them. Though Saudi Arabia likely has an advantage over Japan in renewable resources, its not as dramatic as their fossil fuel advantage, so Japan would invest in their own energy resources and import less of them. Because of this there will likely be much less international energy traded in general.

falsedan 8y ago

> university-sponsored snake oil It's coming out of the CSIRO, which while not the greatest at commercialisation, have a pretty solid track record of not spinning bullshit. The car spinning looks like it's coming from auto industry wingnuts.

Someone 8y ago

”Australia does not have huge deposits of hydrogen” Australia has plenty of sunlight, though, much more than they need. In the long term, if/when we live of renewables, they hope to export the energy in it. The traditional solution is a cable, but Australia is fairly distant from the possible export markets. That, I think, is where this comes in. Australia has access to oceans that have the hydrogen, and air contains the necessary nitrogen. I would think they envision producing ammonia at scale, shipping it in tankers to a densely populated country or a country that has less sunlight, converting it back to electricity in a power station there, and feeding the result into the grid. Doable? Yes. Economically viable? Who knows. That doesn’t only depend on this process, but also on the question how easily other countries can get their power cheaper.

mchannon 8y ago
It might help to note that in 2009, Australia imported 900,000 tonnes of urea. Gonna take a long time before they meet that demand. Australia's an energy importer, big time. Sure, bargeloads of coal go out to places like Saudi Arabia, but tankerloads of oil and LNG come in. If you want to export your energy cheaply, look at Aluminum (sorry Aussies, Aluminium to you) instead. It's safe, made from local ingredients, and stable. That's why gulf petrostates are putting huge aluminum smelters in- much cheaper to make the aluminum with their natural gas than compress and store the stuff.
- photojosh 8y ago
  I live 20min from the largest aluminium smelter in Oz. :) It's the largest energy consumer in the state and every time there's fears about electricity blackouts they make the news because of the worry about their potlines getting killed. We're also a bit LNG exporter... so I'm curious, as what you're saying they're doing in the gulf should apply here too. When they use LNG for smelting, are they using it to generate electricity or burning it direct for heating?
  - dwd 8y ago
    What I never understood was why they didn't tap into Portland's geothermals for a ready source of steam to run a local electricity generating turbine. These days they would have to be worried about a bushfire hitting Loy Yang. It was a close call in 2009 when they could have lost the mine and plant. There's a gas powerstation at Mortlake and talks of building another for Alcoa as it could feed straight off the Otway Basin gas fields. I see a few wind farms have popped up, no doubt due to the areas reputation for being constantly windy.