<Will the UK Face a Natural Gas Crisis this Winter? (Part 1 of 2) The Oil Drum DrumBeat: October 29, 2008>

73 comments on Ammonia Fuel Network Conference - 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

JCG on October 29, 2008 - 11:22am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Ammonia has been used directly in solid oxide fuel cells and in cracked form (thermocatalytically split into H2 and N2) in lower-temperature polymer electrolyte fuel cells with typical 50% electrical efficiencies. Any well-designed fuel cell will be able to achieve this kind of chemical-to-electrical conversion efficiency. This efficiency level is very similar to those for hydrogen fuel cells, thanks to ammonia's small required energy for decomposition.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
SacredCowTipper on October 29, 2008 - 11:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Nice to see a genuine expert showing up to comment on this area, since I'm pretty much helpless there.

You should write at length and further school us on this topic - a few more paragraphs wouldn't kill you, would it? :-)

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
JCG on October 29, 2008 - 2:14pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Sure... I'm not much of a blogger but I'll check back now and then to see if there are any burning fuel cell questions.

But everybody should remember that a fuel cell is just the icing on the cake; using an ammonia-fueled device is the easy part - the real challenge is gaining acceptance for its use as a fuel in the first place.

A fuel cell gives you chemical-to-electric energy with less total losses than an ICE-powered genset, but at a greater capital cost. Fuel cell costs have come down quite a bit in the last several years, let's hope that trend continues!

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Paleocon on October 29, 2008 - 3:01pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I heard cost estimates this week of $7K per kilowatt for hydrogen fuel cells. Are NH3 cells similar? An ICE generator is of course significantly less. For low-run use, fuel cost is less significant than considerations such as fuel shelf life, genset total maintenance, run-time between planned maintenance events, and other factors that play into total cost of ownership.

Do NH3 fuel cells get the same incentives as H2?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.
Paleocon on October 29, 2008 - 11:03pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

This table illustrates fuel cell incentives for a few states, as compiled by BCI (a renewable energy vendor/integrater):

               Incentive                                        State        Federal
Federal         30% tax credit or $3,000 per KW                              30%
Connecticut     Local option property tax exemption             $405*  
Florida         75% tax credit of capital and        
                operating costs, up to $12,000 per unit         $12,000
                Sales tax exemption(6%)                         $1,169*
Maryland        30% tax credit or $1,000/kW         
                if fuel cells serve a green building            $5,000
New York        20% tax credit up to $1,500 per 
                unit; includes installation costs               $1,500
Washington      Sales tax exemption(7% -9.3%)                   $1,364*

At a fuel cell installed cost of $5K-$7K per kw, they show an advantage over batteries over the long-term for new-build application where a battery system would require a chassis and HVAC. This is perhaps not universally the case, so batteries will probably still "win" for some applications even with the incentives.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

73 comments on Ammonia Fuel Network Conference - 2008

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version