5 ms·

Ammonia?

epistasis 4y ago
We will definitely be making a ton of that for fertilizer, and use green hydrogen as a feedstock for that. Using green ammonia a fuel would be, as I said, using hydrogen as a step towards other fields. But I sincerely hope ammonia is never allowed as a fuel near cities, because the NOx pollution would be horrifying. I think ammonia as a fuel for shipping might be more realistic. But then, I'm just a random guy on the internet who spends an hour or two a day learning about the energy transition, I could be very wrong.
- franckl 4y ago
  Low NOx ammonia burner have been demonstrated, and you can add an SCR filters to filter the rest. Our team at Airthium is working on a low NOx external ammonia burner tailored to our energy storage system.
  - Jistern 4y ago
    In addition, NH3 (ammonia) would probably first be used in cargo ships (which I learned in another thread here on HackerNews) which currently produce vast amounts of pollution. The main point is this: cheap, clean, renewable electricity promises to make fuel cheap. Those who claim "Hydrogen isn't a fuel; it's a means of storing energy." are absolutely wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel "A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work." Usually, the hydrogen-isn't-a-fuel wonks seem to be social justice warriors who are arguing speciously out of anger against fossil fuel companies which they believe are pushing hydrogen as a means to increase the use of "dirty hydrogen."
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Shipbuilders are investing in electrolysed ammonia production at ports right now, to fuel the ships they will build to burn it. Full production at the first such I know of is scheduled for 2026. It takes a damn long time to build GW-scale anything.
      - Jistern 4y ago
        Actually, you were the one who taught me this. Please see... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832490 Thanks. Here's a link I suggest you include when posting on the subject... https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betting-big-on-ammonia https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betti... "Also by 2024, the Viking Energy is poised to become the first vessel propelled by ammonia fuel cells...." Hydrogen and ammonia per se are not very important. What's important is that as a result of cheap, plentiful, renewable energy, a huge opportunity now exists for an efficient and effective means of converting that energy into a useful fuel (or fuels). Please understand that I’m not arguing that hydrogen, generally, and ammonia, in particular, are bad fuels. They seem to be very promising… today. But I can imagine that they might be replaced in, say, 25 years with “the next big thing.” What’s unlikely to change in, say, 25 years is this: cheap, plentiful, renewable energy. When looking at energy these days, most engineers and business people are struggling with the following: they are so accustomed to energy being dear (being expensive) that they are having a difficult time wrapping their minds around the new reality. Namely, energy, much like most popular commercial agricultural products in the West from, say, 1650 to 1875, and steel from 1850-1875, and long-distance phone calls from 1985 to 2005, is on the cusp of becoming extremely inexpensive. One of the results of cheap energy is obvious: energy efficiency will become much less important than it is today. Imagine if you lived in Phoenix, Arizona. You’d probably be somewhat focused on conserving fresh water because, well, fresh water is expensive there, just as it is in the middle of most hot, arid deserts. But what if you moved from Phoenix, Arizona to, say, Recife, Brazil? You probably wouldn’t bother much with conserving fresh water because, well, much of the time, you could quench your thirst simply by walking outside, looking up, and opening your mouth. (I’m being facetious). Collectively, vis-à-vis useful energy, it is as if we were all quickly moving from Phoenix, Arizona to Recife, Brazil. Of course the Hacker News hoi polloi will need to find a new casus belli once the global warming boogeyman abruptly vanishes ignominiously into the dustbin of history along with their pet energy fantasy, nuucuuler energy (read in the accent of President George W. Bush). Finally, I’ve become extremely contemptuous of the arrogant and ignorant arguments in favor of nuclear energy on Hacker News that seem to pop up every month or so. These days wind and solar are generally cheaper and easier means of creating useful energy. (Sure, nuclear-powered submarines make sense, but that’s a very small niche case). Bring on downvotes… cowards!
  - epistasis 4y ago
    I love the vision on your website. Any chance such scrubbers and combustion could be put on mobile engines for motorcycles and cars and trucks? That's my biggest fear for ammonia being combusted in cities. Though batteries handle city-based use cases well, once ammonia is a fuel I fear for urban environments with poor air pollutions controls, like those often found in India.
- politician 4y ago
  I agree with you that we should be wary of burning Ammonia as a fuel directly, but its use for liquified hydrogen transport is extremely interesting. One paper: https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30495-5 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30495-5
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Ammonia will certainly be burned for fuel, at first in ships, soon after in peaker plants, eventually in farm and construction equipment.
    - politician 4y ago
      It makes total sense, but I’m just concerned about the consequences of an overturned tanker truck of ammonia in a populated city. The other use cases are fine afaic: offshore, rural.
      - ncmncm 4y ago
        Trucks of it might be banned from densely populated areas, or require extra safety precautions.
    - Jistern 4y ago
      I think you are obsessed with ammonia as a fuel source. Ammonia might never make it to peaker plants, nor farm, nor construction equipment. The sun shines brightly 100% of the time and the wind blows strongly 100% of the time... somewhere. California currently imports electricity from... Wyoming. With a network of ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission (UHV electricity transmission) lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity... throughout the USA, the current concern many engineers seem to have with "the energy storage problem" associated with renewable energy might vanish into irrelevancy. At 7pm on Tuesday, most of the East Coast might get 80% of its electricity produced by photovoltaics in the Mojave Desert in Nevada; whereas on Wednesday at 2am, Florida might get 90% of its electricity produced from wind generators in Custer County in Oklahoma. Even if 20% of the electricity were lost due to long-distance transmission, it wouldn't matter much if the electricity were produced extremely inexpensively. Currently, almost 100% of the aforementioned solar and wind energy are "lost" because almost all of the sunlight in the desert simply lands on the ground, and the wind in the prairies simply blows along without being utilized. Sure, for airplanes and cargo ships, fuel is important. But for most terrestrial uses (such as in cities and farms) "just in time" electricity might be the best solution. "But, what about outages?" I'm glad you asked. The military and hospitals have backup diesel generators. Personally, I think "evil" coal-fired power plants might be a feasible source of local, backup electricity which would normally be used very rarely. The current "anti-coal" bandwagon is absurd. Coal is a great source of fuel. However, much of the world "went crazy" burning way, way, way too much coal for a couple of hundred years. We never should have done that because of the terrible pollution we suffered from. My favorite things about coal are this: it's very easy to store and very easy to burn. If people want to store tanks of hydrogen gas in their backyards above ground, or tanks of ammonia underground, that would probably be fine too. But for large scale, backup sources of electricity (say for a city like Portland, Oregon) "evil" coal-fired power plants might be the cheapest and easiest method. As long as the ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission network has suitable redundancy, is maintained properly, and is not sabotaged (say, by terrorists) then I would guess that within 10 years or so, it would be up over 95% of the time; and within 25 years or so, it would be up over 99% of the time.

Ammonia?

We will definitely be making a ton of that for fertilizer, and use green hydrogen as a feedstock for that. Using green ammonia a fuel would be, as I said, using hydrogen as a step towards other fields. But I sincerely hope ammonia is never allowed as a fuel near cities, because the NOx pollution would be horrifying. I think ammonia as a fuel for shipping might be more realistic. But then, I'm just a random guy on the internet who spends an hour or two a day learning about the energy transition, I could be very wrong.

franckl 4y ago
Low NOx ammonia burner have been demonstrated, and you can add an SCR filters to filter the rest. Our team at Airthium is working on a low NOx external ammonia burner tailored to our energy storage system.
- Jistern 4y ago
  In addition, NH3 (ammonia) would probably first be used in cargo ships (which I learned in another thread here on HackerNews) which currently produce vast amounts of pollution. The main point is this: cheap, clean, renewable electricity promises to make fuel cheap. Those who claim "Hydrogen isn't a fuel; it's a means of storing energy." are absolutely wrong. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel "A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work." Usually, the hydrogen-isn't-a-fuel wonks seem to be social justice warriors who are arguing speciously out of anger against fossil fuel companies which they believe are pushing hydrogen as a means to increase the use of "dirty hydrogen."
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Shipbuilders are investing in electrolysed ammonia production at ports right now, to fuel the ships they will build to burn it. Full production at the first such I know of is scheduled for 2026. It takes a damn long time to build GW-scale anything.
    - Jistern 4y ago
      Actually, you were the one who taught me this. Please see... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832490 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31832490 Thanks. Here's a link I suggest you include when posting on the subject... https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betting-big-on-ammonia https://spectrum.ieee.org/why-the-shipping-industry-is-betti... "Also by 2024, the Viking Energy is poised to become the first vessel propelled by ammonia fuel cells...." Hydrogen and ammonia per se are not very important. What's important is that as a result of cheap, plentiful, renewable energy, a huge opportunity now exists for an efficient and effective means of converting that energy into a useful fuel (or fuels). Please understand that I’m not arguing that hydrogen, generally, and ammonia, in particular, are bad fuels. They seem to be very promising… today. But I can imagine that they might be replaced in, say, 25 years with “the next big thing.” What’s unlikely to change in, say, 25 years is this: cheap, plentiful, renewable energy. When looking at energy these days, most engineers and business people are struggling with the following: they are so accustomed to energy being dear (being expensive) that they are having a difficult time wrapping their minds around the new reality. Namely, energy, much like most popular commercial agricultural products in the West from, say, 1650 to 1875, and steel from 1850-1875, and long-distance phone calls from 1985 to 2005, is on the cusp of becoming extremely inexpensive. One of the results of cheap energy is obvious: energy efficiency will become much less important than it is today. Imagine if you lived in Phoenix, Arizona. You’d probably be somewhat focused on conserving fresh water because, well, fresh water is expensive there, just as it is in the middle of most hot, arid deserts. But what if you moved from Phoenix, Arizona to, say, Recife, Brazil? You probably wouldn’t bother much with conserving fresh water because, well, much of the time, you could quench your thirst simply by walking outside, looking up, and opening your mouth. (I’m being facetious). Collectively, vis-à-vis useful energy, it is as if we were all quickly moving from Phoenix, Arizona to Recife, Brazil. Of course the Hacker News hoi polloi will need to find a new casus belli once the global warming boogeyman abruptly vanishes ignominiously into the dustbin of history along with their pet energy fantasy, nuucuuler energy (read in the accent of President George W. Bush). Finally, I’ve become extremely contemptuous of the arrogant and ignorant arguments in favor of nuclear energy on Hacker News that seem to pop up every month or so. These days wind and solar are generally cheaper and easier means of creating useful energy. (Sure, nuclear-powered submarines make sense, but that’s a very small niche case). Bring on downvotes… cowards!
- epistasis 4y ago
  I love the vision on your website. Any chance such scrubbers and combustion could be put on mobile engines for motorcycles and cars and trucks? That's my biggest fear for ammonia being combusted in cities. Though batteries handle city-based use cases well, once ammonia is a fuel I fear for urban environments with poor air pollutions controls, like those often found in India.
politician 4y ago
I agree with you that we should be wary of burning Ammonia as a fuel directly, but its use for liquified hydrogen transport is extremely interesting. One paper: https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30495-5 https://www.cell.com/joule/fulltext/S2542-4351(20)30495-5
- ncmncm 4y ago
  Ammonia will certainly be burned for fuel, at first in ships, soon after in peaker plants, eventually in farm and construction equipment.
  - politician 4y ago
    It makes total sense, but I’m just concerned about the consequences of an overturned tanker truck of ammonia in a populated city. The other use cases are fine afaic: offshore, rural.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Trucks of it might be banned from densely populated areas, or require extra safety precautions.
  - Jistern 4y ago
    I think you are obsessed with ammonia as a fuel source. Ammonia might never make it to peaker plants, nor farm, nor construction equipment. The sun shines brightly 100% of the time and the wind blows strongly 100% of the time... somewhere. California currently imports electricity from... Wyoming. With a network of ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission (UHV electricity transmission) lines https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity_transmission_in_China https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-high-voltage_electricity... throughout the USA, the current concern many engineers seem to have with "the energy storage problem" associated with renewable energy might vanish into irrelevancy. At 7pm on Tuesday, most of the East Coast might get 80% of its electricity produced by photovoltaics in the Mojave Desert in Nevada; whereas on Wednesday at 2am, Florida might get 90% of its electricity produced from wind generators in Custer County in Oklahoma. Even if 20% of the electricity were lost due to long-distance transmission, it wouldn't matter much if the electricity were produced extremely inexpensively. Currently, almost 100% of the aforementioned solar and wind energy are "lost" because almost all of the sunlight in the desert simply lands on the ground, and the wind in the prairies simply blows along without being utilized. Sure, for airplanes and cargo ships, fuel is important. But for most terrestrial uses (such as in cities and farms) "just in time" electricity might be the best solution. "But, what about outages?" I'm glad you asked. The military and hospitals have backup diesel generators. Personally, I think "evil" coal-fired power plants might be a feasible source of local, backup electricity which would normally be used very rarely. The current "anti-coal" bandwagon is absurd. Coal is a great source of fuel. However, much of the world "went crazy" burning way, way, way too much coal for a couple of hundred years. We never should have done that because of the terrible pollution we suffered from. My favorite things about coal are this: it's very easy to store and very easy to burn. If people want to store tanks of hydrogen gas in their backyards above ground, or tanks of ammonia underground, that would probably be fine too. But for large scale, backup sources of electricity (say for a city like Portland, Oregon) "evil" coal-fired power plants might be the cheapest and easiest method. As long as the ultra-high-voltage electricity transmission network has suitable redundancy, is maintained properly, and is not sabotaged (say, by terrorists) then I would guess that within 10 years or so, it would be up over 95% of the time; and within 25 years or so, it would be up over 99% of the time.