(585l) Deep Decarbonization of the World's Largest Industry: Ammonia's Role As Low-Cost Energy Carrier and Storage Medium in Integrated, Optimized, Continental Systems for Total Energy Supply

Anhydrous Ammonia, NH3, as a fuel, may have a vital role in humanity's global Grand Challenge: Transforming the world's largest industry, from ~ 80% fossil to ~ 100% renewable, CO2-emission-free (CEF), renewable energy (RE) sources, as quickly as we prudently and profitably can.
Attempting this via electricity systems, alone, will be technically and economically suboptimal, suffering delays while citizens oppose building many of the new electricity transmission lines necessary to gather, transmit, and deliver the very large quantity of energy required to supply all humanity's energy, for all purposes, from diverse sources. Hydrogen and Ammonia are teh only C-free fuels.

Because NH3 is a carbon-free fuel, nearly 18% hydrogen by weight, with slightly over half the energy density of gasoline by volume, it is potentially the foundation of a complete, integrated, optimized energy system -- rivalling the electricity "Grid" in magnitude and importance in meeting this Challenge. Iowa State University, recognizing this potential, has hosted thirteen annual Ammonia Fuel Conferences, which include NH3 as a renewable energy (RE) transmission and storage medium, as well as a transportation and distributed generation fuel.
Most of our RE is today generated as electricity from wind, solar, and hydro -- which vary in output at time scales of seconds to seasons. We therefore need low-cost energy storage, for annual-scale firming storage.

A safe, reliable, proven ammonia delivery and storage infrastructure already exists in the US. Approximately 3,000 miles of carbon-steel ammonia pipeline is in service in America�s agricultural heartland, mainly in the Corn Belt. Almost a hundred large terminals for refrigerated ammonia storage are distributed along the pipeline. Barges, trains, and trucks round out the delivery system, which supplies the ammonia from the terminal to the farmer when he needs it for the growing season. The state of Iowa, alone, has over 800 retail outlets where farmers buy �anhydrous� or �nitrogen�, the vernacular for ammonia fertilizer, NH3.

We now store liquid NH3 in "atmospheric" steel on-grade tanks, of typical 30,000 ton capacity, which is ~ 200,000 MWh as the chemical energy in NH3. Capital expenditute (capex) is ~ $ 0.10 / kWh, far below the likely cost of electricity battery storage, assuming continued progress in battery technology and capex and O&M costs.

But we lack a process by which to synthesize NH3 directly from RE-source electricity, water, and air. Electrolysis plus Haber-Bosch (EHB) is too costly, in capex and energy conversion losses, especially at the low capacity factor (CF) inflicted on any downstream process by the low CF of the RE sources: typically 30 - 45 %.
This novel synthesis process is chemical engineering's Grand Challenge.

Like hydrogen, ammonia can burn directly in spark-ignited internal combustion engines (ICE), and in combustion turbines (CT), and may also be fed directly to medium temperature solid oxide, proton-conducting ceramic, and molten-salt direct-ammonia fuel cells, with only nitrogen and water vapor as combustion products. Like hydrogen, ammonia is lighter than air and is not a greenhouse gas.

All of ammonia�s energy is derived from its hydrogen content; it can be easily reformed to hydrogen and nitrogen, with N2 returned to its source, Earth�s atmosphere. NH3 has the highest hydrogen content by volume of any liquid fuel, including gasoline, liquefied natural gas (LNG), liquefied petroleum gas (LPG, propane), ethanol, and even liquid hydrogen. Liquid anhydrous ammonia, NH3, has more atoms of hydrogen per liter than liquid hydrogen. This ability of NH3 to store hydrogen very compactly at ambient temperature and moderate pressure is a key advantage for NH3 over GH2.

Chemical engineering now needs to collaborate with the electricity industry's many facets -- including utilities, USDOE national laboratories, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Edison Electric Institute, and many non-profit organizations (UCS, NRDC, RFF, WRI, et al) -- to model the total global future energy system, including GH2 and NH3 as complete, integrated, optimized energy systems for gathering from diverse sources, transmission, low-cost storage, distribution, and end-use of RE-CEF energy.

EMP threat: NH3 infrastructures could be built with simpler controls than the electricity Grid's, for better resilience as we face more probable threats from aerial nuclear explosions attacking our electricity grid and other infrastructures.

This presentation will explore the options and aspects for this important investigation, based on Bill Leighty's 16 years' co-authored research at: www.leightyfoundation.org/earth.php