Ammonia

[SteamyTea]

I think is was when I started to derail a topic about something or other that @saveasteading said 'why have I not heard of this.

 

Well here is a bit about it.  Not new, nor clever, and it has been tested.

Start-up is developing world’s first ammonia-powered ships

Paste of copywrite material has been removed. You can read the full article here: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2367003-start-up-is-developing-worlds-first-ammonia-powered-ships/

 

Meanwhile here is a precis of what it says by ChatGPT:

 

"Amogy is a New York City start-up that aims to harness ammonia as a low-carbon fuel for the global shipping industry. The company has developed a more efficient and miniaturised "ammonia cracking" method that can chemically extract hydrogen from ammonia at a lower temperature. In July 2021, the company first demonstrated its system, supplying 5 kilowatts of power to a drone. Since then, Amogy has shown that its technology can work in a John Deere tractor, a semi-truck, and now a tugboat. A successful waterborne demonstration later this year would set a course for the first commercial offerings to follow in 2024. Ammonia is more easily stored and transported in a stable liquid form at room temperature than hydrogen. Many countries already have pipelines and port facilities for handling ammonia that is produced industrially as fertilizer for agriculture. The US alone has more than 5000 kilometers of ammonia pipelines. However, ammonia still "has a carbon footprint associated with the production" because the standard industrial process uses natural gas. Low-carbon ammonia production would require the use of carbon capture."

[ProDave]

All interesting stuff, but it comes back to use natural gas as the soruce (bad) or we need a LOT more renewable electricity going spare to make it carbon neutral.

 

Something for the future when (if we ever get there) there is more renewable electricity being generated than we know what to do with.

[TerryE]

Direct ammonia fuel cells are still very much a developing technology, but even with these the end to end efficiency v.v. BEVs means that the price / kWh is almost double so IMO they will remain a niche use, e.g. for shipping and aviation.