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Any alternative fuel will have to establish sufficient infrastructure for refueling, that will be a major challenge. It's also a challenge for EVs, but those ha

Any alternative fuel will have to establish sufficient infrastructure for refueling, that will be a major challenge. It's also a challenge for EVs, but those have the advantage that you can also charge them at home in many cases. And ammonia is something you certainly don't want to refuel in an open system like for gas currently. You'd need a technology with really convincing advantages to offset the cost of yet another refueling infrastructure. And any chemical storage that isn't fossil fuel will have to offset the inefficiency of synthesizing that fuel using electricity. Not sure how much more efficient synthesizing ammonia would be compared to synthesizing gas, but probably not efficient enough to be viable.

dalbasal 3y ago
I agree... Any alternative has two core issues... Adoption curve issues and scalability/potential. What do you do when adoption is 2%, 20%, etc. If issues exist at 5% adoption rates can't be solved, those at 50% will never be relevant. Toyota's much talked about new line on EVs is all about this. Elons intital (underpants) plan for Tesla was all about this. Not just destinations, destinations with passable pathways. There are easy places to get started. Buses, trucks, specific locales that can be served by dedicated fueling facilities. To make that a useful plan though, you need to be able to reach level L+1 from L, and a realistic vision of pathways to L+n. I'd also note that it was mostly Tesla's financiers that made an "investment case" where Tesla's potential is proportional to the EV market broadly. Tesla's Elon strategy never (openly) looked beyond model 3. Cubertruck is strategic, but not in a sense that has much to do with EV adoption rates in general.
KennyBlanken 3y ago
There's also the small matter that ammonia is both highly corrosive and highly toxic. Gasoline will fuck you up over years if you're exposed to it often enough, but ammonia can be fatal in a matter of seconds depending on the vapor concentration. You drown in your own mucus; it's very high up there on the "shitty ways to die" chart. I'll never forget the cashcam video from a state trooper coming across an ammonia truck with a leak. He inadvertently walks into the gas plume, starts coughing, collapses, and you can hear him choking to death from his body mic. Ammonia is also responsible for a lot of deaths in places with large refrigeration systems (food processing/storage, mostly.) Toyota is jumping the shark with their anti-ev bullshit.
- theshrike79 3y ago
  Take all that you found out about ammonia from the post above. Now remember the videos of people putting gasoline in plastic bags and open tubs in the back of their car during the covid shortages. It will happen with ammonia too if it with some miracle becomes as big as gasoline. People will die.

dalbasal 3y ago

I agree... Any alternative has two core issues... Adoption curve issues and scalability/potential. What do you do when adoption is 2%, 20%, etc. If issues exist at 5% adoption rates can't be solved, those at 50% will never be relevant. Toyota's much talked about new line on EVs is all about this. Elons intital (underpants) plan for Tesla was all about this. Not just destinations, destinations with passable pathways. There are easy places to get started. Buses, trucks, specific locales that can be served by dedicated fueling facilities. To make that a useful plan though, you need to be able to reach level L+1 from L, and a realistic vision of pathways to L+n. I'd also note that it was mostly Tesla's financiers that made an "investment case" where Tesla's potential is proportional to the EV market broadly. Tesla's Elon strategy never (openly) looked beyond model 3. Cubertruck is strategic, but not in a sense that has much to do with EV adoption rates in general.

KennyBlanken 3y ago

There's also the small matter that ammonia is both highly corrosive and highly toxic. Gasoline will fuck you up over years if you're exposed to it often enough, but ammonia can be fatal in a matter of seconds depending on the vapor concentration. You drown in your own mucus; it's very high up there on the "shitty ways to die" chart. I'll never forget the cashcam video from a state trooper coming across an ammonia truck with a leak. He inadvertently walks into the gas plume, starts coughing, collapses, and you can hear him choking to death from his body mic. Ammonia is also responsible for a lot of deaths in places with large refrigeration systems (food processing/storage, mostly.) Toyota is jumping the shark with their anti-ev bullshit.

theshrike79 3y ago
Take all that you found out about ammonia from the post above. Now remember the videos of people putting gasoline in plastic bags and open tubs in the back of their car during the covid shortages. It will happen with ammonia too if it with some miracle becomes as big as gasoline. People will die.