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53 comments on Storing Energy Using Graphite
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53 comments on Storing Energy Using Graphite
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Since ammonia is of such enormous industrial importance(explosives and N-fertilizer in particular) and both electricity and ammonia are fungibles, why not just make ammonia from excess power and sell it? Then you can take the equivalent amount of natural gas(typically) that would otherwise have gone into ammonia production and use that for power production when it is nescessary. As long as people are using natural gas for power generation the end result will be the same; you saved some other source, typically coal or natural gas, that didn't have to go into either power or ammonia production.
ETA: Other sinks may be sodium/potassium hydroxide + chlorine gas or desalination of water. In essence find lucrative industrial end uses of power and integrate them as a variable load into your power generation scheme. Balance load instead of storing energy.
ammonia is a renewable, clean, combustible liquid fuel.
If you burn it you get back exactly what you had, only much less of it. If you keep it you have a valuable industrial and agricultural input.
you had at place you can't use it. in place you can't use it you can have it in over abundance and at much lower cost. you gain more in the first place and lose some later on, you can still be ahead.
ammonia as agriculture input degrades soil organicity, causes erosions and run-offs, generates strong GHG through soil interaction.
"you had at place you can't use it."
A frequent problem for cheap renewable power is that it's stranded out in the middle of a desert or up in the mountains somewhere.
Ammonia is actually fairly easy to transport and store; even more so if you produce end products like nitric acid or ammonium nitrate. If there are no transmission lines or the transmission lines are being used close to capacity it's certainly much easier to make ammonia or its derivates and transport them instead of transporting power.
"ammonia as agriculture input degrades soil organicity, causes erosions and run-offs, generates strong GHG through soil interaction."
And even so yields keep going up, farming still manages to be a carbon-sink according to every study I've seen on the subject and demand for "non-organic" food is still going strong.
As long as there's a market for explosives used in construction and mining and artificial N-fertilizer I don't see ammonia-derivatives being replaced anytime soon; you might as well make it with renewable energy rather than natural gas if it makes more economical sense than renewables for power.
even more so if you produce end products like nitric acid or ammonium nitrate.
one of the most cost effective way for transport is pipeline. ammonia can be transported via pipeline. can nitric acid or ammonium nitrate be transported in that way?
And even so yields keep going up, farming still manages to be a carbon-sink according to every study I've seen on the subject and demand for "non-organic" food is still going strong.
the question is for how long? performance enhance drug can do wonders for a short while but can kill the taker in the long run. farming sinks carbon but ammonia interacting with soil produces N2O which is a few hundred times stronger a GHG than CO2.
the point is that there is nothing in higher and more critical demand than renewable, clean and easily transportable liquid fuel. ammonia can play a much bigger role in this way than anything else.
no need to tell me the usefulness of NH3, since i am NH3 ;)
Building pipelines or storage is a huge barrier to entry. I believe just shipping it via boat/train/truck(in that order of preference) is good enough to get things started while still making environmental sense.
Yes, you could ship ammonium nitrate via pipeline in solution if you wanted to, but it probably makes more sense to ship the ammonia without excess water if you have access to a pipeline.
I don't see this debate being settled in the near future. In the mean time, is it better to fix nitrogen using renewable energy sources instead of natural gas when and where it is practical?
N20 is also produced by nitrogen-fixing bacteria, urine, manure etc. Most if not all sources of N-fertilizer share this problem. Are you sure it does not just come down to how much N-fertilizer you use and how timely the application is?(fertilizer application should be scheduled according to the specific needs of the plant and in the nescessary amounts for best effect)?
All the more reason you should take the ammonia and use it instead of converting it back to electricity.
the sooner to stop using hydrocarbons for fuel or fertilizer feedstock the better.
ammonia as agriculture input degrades soil organicity, causes erosions and run-offs, generates strong GHG through soil interaction.
One could always apply it as a folar feed.