Des Moines Register
12-10-06
Doak: Coming soon to a gas station near you: Anhydrous ammonia?
By RICHARD DOAK
SENIOR EDITORIAL COLUMNIST
You pull your car into a farm service store and tell the attendant to fill 'er up - with
anhydrous ammonia.
Instead of getting bushels per acre, you get miles per gallon.
The notion apparently isn't as far-fetched as it seems. Serious minds are thinking
that ammonia might actually be the best candidate for freeing America from its
dependence on imported oil.
They include Norm Olson, project manager for the biomass energy
conversion (BECON) facility, which is part of Iowa State University's Iowa
Energy Center. "It's just sort of a grassroots effort," he said of the thinking about
ammonia.
For three years, the center has sponsored national conferences for scientists and
engineers to discuss the possibilities. Among the attendees this year was Ted
Hollinger, CEO of Hydrogen Energy Center Inc. of Algona, where an engine that
will meet all of California's emission standards is being developed to run on
ammonia.
Ammonia, it turns out, might be the quickest route to the Hydrogen Economy
(discussed in an editorial on the cover of this section). The farm chemical is
essentially a means to deliver hydrogen. Ammonia (NH3) contains more
hydrogen per unit of volume than pure hydrogen does.
It offers the advantages of hydrogen, such as near zero pollution, with few of the
disadvantages, such as the need to be stored under extreme pressure.
Developing an infrastructure for delivery is seen as a major obstacle to the use of
hydrogen, but an extensive infrastructure, including pipelines, already exists for
ammonia. Ammonia can be handled a lot like propane. It is unpleasant stuff, but
Olson said it has a better safety record than gasoline.
Olson notes that Gov. Arnold Swartzenegger boasts of California having some
30 hydrogen filling stations. Big deal. Iowa has hundreds of retail outlets for
ammonia.
Your car engine today will not run on ammonia, but Olson says it could with
modification. The ammonia needs to be blended with an accelerant. Olson says
that could be ethanol or biodiesel, making a blended fuel that can be totally
produced domestically.
That's one possible mark against ammonia today. Most of it is produced from
natural gas, and as gas supplies grow tight, more ammonia is imported. There
would be no point in trading imported oil for imported ammonia.
But Olson says electricity from wind can be used to produce ammonia
domestically, from water and air. Forty years ago, the military considered using
ammonia as a fuel for that very reason - it theoretically could be produced in the
field from air and water.
Another possibility is producing ammonia from biomass, which Iowa has aplenty.
Hydrogen and ammonia can also be produced from coal. That seems to be the
method that gets most attention, because it appears to be the lowest cost way to
produce great quantities of hydrogen, but it might not be the best choice. The
greenhouse gas carbon dioxide is a byproduct of the coal method.
No matter how it's produced, ammonia just might be the fuel of the future, or at
least a bridge to the future.
The U.S. Energy Department is underwriting development of an emissions-free
and petroleum-free vehicle, called FreedomCAR, with a goal of success by 2015.
Olson says an ammonia-fueled vehicle could meet the FreedomCAR standards
today. Emissions from an ammonia engine are water vapor and N2 - nitrogen
gas, the most common gas in the atmosphere.
Like hydrogen, ammonia can be burned in an internal combustion engine, or it
can operate in a fuel cell to generate electricity. The high cost of fuel cells is
another roadblock on the way to the Hydrogen Economy, but Olson said the
types of fuel cell that operate on ammonia are cheaper than ones used for
hydrogen. Chalk up one more possible advantage for ammonia.
It seems there's hardly anything not to like about ammonia, except the aroma.
Unexpected things are going to happen as we figure out ways to get along
without petroleum. Maybe ammonia as a transportation fuel will be one of them.
After all, 120 years ago who would have foreseen the application that would be
found for an obscure cleaning fluid called gasoline?
RICHARD DOAK is senior editorial columnist. He can be reached at (515) 2848542 or ddoak@dmreg.com.