Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

ammoniaenergy.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 133 posts

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#51

Post by hunterpayne »

philipkglass wrote: post #8
umvi wrote: post #6

So 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.

Sort of, but there are important details you miss. First the nitrogen triple bond is one of the strongest in nature so it takes a lot of energy to break it. So we don't actually do that in the way you think in a real ammonia plant. Instead we heat (usually) Magnesium and that extracts Nitrogen from the air (actually a pure nitrogen atmosphere). That's not what is happening in this plant. And the difference in the effectiveness of those two different methods is probably pretty big. This seems more like a PR stunt to get investment.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#52

Post by defrost »

hunterpayne wrote: post #43
kulahan wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they don’t. They remain subsidized. Solar surpassed fossil fuels in efficiency ages ago, and I don’t even LIKE solar. Fossil fuels have no redeeming qualities in the major energy sectors anymore, aside from ONE: the plants are VERY cheap to build.

"Solar surpassed fossil fuels in efficiency ages ago" You are going to have to explain this. Because there is no measurement of efficiency in which solar PV in Minnesota in efficient in any way. To produce a watt of electricity using natural gas actually produces less CO2 than a watt from solar that far north. So it isn't even more environmentally friendly. And its far more expensive. It uses far more energy. So I ha…

> to produce a watt of electricity using natural gas actually produces less CO2 than a watt from solar that far north.

For the next watt, you need more natural gas which co-releases more CO2 .. or you can just use the same solar panel again - with its fixed up front CO2 cost already "paid for"

Over 25 or 30 years a panel keeps producing w/out additional CO2 release, during that same period natural gas extraction and consumption continue releasing CO2.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#53

Post by hunterpayne »

zahlman wrote: post #48
richardc323 wrote: post #7

I 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/…

> It is better than getting fertiliser from fossil fuels, but it is still not great. Please explain how there is anything even remotely bad about it.

Its horrendously inefficient...and inefficiency is usually bad for the environment. For example, the solar PV when sited in Minnesota is so inefficient just making the electricity from natural gas would produce less CO2 per watt. So there is that, and that's before you look at if all the equipment you use to build the plant was better used elsewhere. And then you could put the solar PV somewhere where it would actually been better than just burning natural gas for electricity.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#54

Post by avadodin »

epistasis wrote: post #2

Perfect 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 be…

I don't support fossil fuels but wind works a small fraction of the time, it is awful to wildlife and it is an eyesore.

Instead of wasting the already wasteful energy by making fertilizer out of air, these farms could likely much more efficiently re–capture runoff from their waterways that is now being dumped into the sea harming humans and wildlife alike.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#55

Post by defrost »

hunterpayne wrote: post #46
Animats wrote: post #4

There 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…

Its trying to complete with making ammonia from natural gas. So probably not. Natural gas is priced as a waste product and the industrial process we use there is about 120 years old. So its just about the hardest target on the board to beat on price.

It's providing an alternative to middle east sourced fertiliser from plants that can no longer ship or, in some cases, can no longer operate due to war damage.

US states aren't the only places on the globe building out renewable powered green hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, etc.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#56

Post by hunterpayne »

philipkglass wrote: post #15
richardc323 wrote: post #7

I 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/…

We would probably have large scale use of renewable ammonia by now if fracking hadn't made natural gas so cheap. Natural gas is the largest variable-cost input to making most ammonia (it's processed with steam reforming to generate hydrogen), and in the United States it cost more 20 years ago than it does now: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/DHHNGSP The cost of wind power and solar power have fallen dramatically,…

"We would probably have large scale use of renewable ammonia"

I seriously doubt that. Using natural gas to make ammonia is cost effective even if natural gas prices go up by a lot...and by that I mean they could go up 10x and it still makes sense. Its a really, really efficient industrial process.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#57

Post by aaron695 »

epistasis wrote: post #2

Perfect 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 be…

[dead]

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#58

Post by undersuit »

avadodin wrote: post #54
epistasis wrote: post #2

Perfect 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 be…

I don't support fossil fuels but wind works a small fraction of the time, it is awful to wildlife and it is an eyesore. Instead of wasting the already wasteful energy by making fertilizer out of air, these farms could likely much more efficiently re–capture runoff from their waterways that is now being dumped into the sea harming humans and wildlife alike.

How are you going to recapture fertilizer runoff.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#59

Post by c1ccccc1 »

defrost wrote: post #55
hunterpayne wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its trying to complete with making ammonia from natural gas. So probably not. Natural gas is priced as a waste product and the industrial process we use there is about 120 years old. So its just about the hardest target on the board to beat on price.

It's providing an alternative to middle east sourced fertiliser from plants that can no longer ship or, in some cases, can no longer operate due to war damage. US states aren't the only places on the globe building out renewable powered green hydrogen, methanol, ammonia, etc.

I mean, I guess the answer there would be to build the usual kind of Haber-Brosch process plants that run continuously, and feed them with hydrogen derived from natural gas. But just build them in the US.

Re: Producing ammonia and fertiliser using wind power in Morris, Minnesota

#60

Post by strictnein »

epistasis wrote: post #2

Perfect 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 be…

> hyper-conservatism to protect fossil fuel interests

The #1 state, by far, in terms of solar, wind, and energy storage is Texas. There is likely no other state that is also as pro-fossil fuels as Texas. It's also a state known for its conservative stance on almost everything.

But the market doesn't care and it flourished without government intervention or significant aid, simply because Texas let's you build things, and the market likes to make money.

Post reply on HN