Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
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Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#2Perfect project for rural Minnesota, that needs the ammonia, but also has a surprising amount of solar colocated with farms. And a fair amount of wind in the southwest.
However there are far far larger projects going on over the world. China is building multiple GW of wind and solar to power a massive ammonia/green hydrogen site right now. I frequently hear of sites in Spain in the hundreds of MW range.
The US has been pivotal in the invention of these technologies, but hyper-conservatism to protect fossil fuel interests is preventing us from getting the benefits as quickly as we should.
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#3It would be interesting to get details what’s the process behind. Can you reproduce it on personal level?
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#4There are press releases which link to other press releases. Found the technical paper from 2021.[1]
The ammonia plant is built for intermittent operation, so it can shut down or reduce output when there's no wind. No need to store much electrical energy. Storage tanks hold the ammonia. It's a reasonable idea, but is it cost-effective? No numbers are given. Still, fertilizer independence alone is worth something. You can do this anywhere with wind or sun.
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#5[dupe] Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49048819
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#6So basically: wind generators power electrolysis to create hydrogen, the hydrogen is fed to a normal Haber-Bosch plant which is still powered by coal or gas. So basically the wind power is just replacing the carbon footprint of a single input (hydrogen) to a H-B plant?
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#7I grew up on an organic orchard, so don't get excited about artificial sources of nitrogen for agriculture and horticulture. It is better than getting fertiliser from fossil fuels, but it is still not great.
My mind goes to energy storage. If it was a smart way to do that, people would probably be doing it, who knows. Well, someone wrote a paper about it in 2022: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09601...
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#8So basically: wind generators power electrolysis to create hydrogen, the hydrogen is fed to a normal Haber-Bosch plant which is still powered by coal or gas. So basically the wind power is just replacing the carbon footprint of a single input (hydrogen) to a H-B plant?
The only chemical inputs a Haber-Bosch plant needs are nitrogen and hydrogen. The nitrogen always comes from air and in this plant the hydrogen comes from electrolysis. The plant also needs electrical power to run compressors, but that can also be supplied by wind and it's minor compared to the embodied energy of the hydrogen input.
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#9[dead]
Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota
#10I grew up on an organic orchard, so don't get excited about artificial sources of nitrogen for agriculture and horticulture. It is better than getting fertiliser from fossil fuels, but it is still not great. My mind goes to energy storage. If it was a smart way to do that, people would probably be doing it, who knows. Well, someone wrote a paper about it in 2022: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/…
Turns out the article is on the Ammonia Energy Association website, wake up Richard.