Nice synthesis.

I find one important omission of the science rather worrying however. The article says

"More problematic is the nitrous oxide (NO2) found in concentrations up to 25 ppm. This gas is 310x as potent a greenhouse gas as carbon dioxide, but its resident time in the atmosphere is much shorter."

leading me to wonder 'how much shorter?'

The IPCC report (www.ipcc.ch chapter 2) tells the truth: NO2 has a lifetime in the atmosphere of 114 years! THIS IS TEN TIMES LONGER THAN METHANE.

The fact that the authors did not know this, or did not bother to find it out is understandable, given their obvious enthusiasm for all aspects of ammonia. However, it is a serious omission from the analysis that needs to be included. Also, what does the 25ppm phrase mean? 25ppm of gas flues from vehicles that burn ammonia?

I agree with a previous poster who said the first priority must be on reducing demand for ammonia.

Robin

Here's the chapter in question, see page 212. I find it particularly annoying that the authors said its residence time is "much shorter" as if they were trying to mislead people. 100 years is less than an order of magnitude below the average residence time of a molecule of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Just thinking an interesting future stage of the analysis would be a breakdown of the waste gases: When NH4 burns in O2, what % of the result is H2O, NO2, N2 etc?

Any chemists out there with a clue?

Robin

It depends on how well tuned the engine is. If NH3 and O2 are burned in the perfect mixture, it would produce H20 and N2. If the mixture is to oxygen rich, it will produce NOx's. If the mixture is too oxygen lean, the exhaust will contain unburnt ammonia which is even more toxic. The ammonia enthusiasts will tell us that all cars will be perfectly tuned all the time. I have no data.

Having been at the Ammonia Fuel Network conference I know that it's a control problem on both spark and compression engines, each needs at least some hydrocarbons to get started, and the cooler, slower burning ammonia is pretty well behaved with the exception of the nitrous oxide. It's way more potent than CO2, but you only get 25 ppm, so it's a net win, but not perfect.

25 ppm of what? Well, the results need to be peer reviewed and they're not there yet. My feeling is that it's resolvable but it'll take a little time and attention to get the emissions right.

It's the same as for an engine burning petrol or natural gas. If it's a nice hot well-tuned engine, petrol gives you H2O and CO2. In practice, when the engine's starting up, and when it's not well-tuned or when idling at traffic lights, or if it gets revved too much, combustion is imperfect, and you get lots of CO (carbon monoxide), which is the deadly poison some suicides rely on when they put the exhaust into their car and run the engine.

So ideally an NH3 engine would produce just H2O and N2. In practice, a significant amount of nitrous oxides (NOx) will be produced. This will contribute to acid rain and the greenhouse effect. In fact, 800 million cars burning NH3 (ammonia) will most likely have a greater greenhouse effect than 800 million cars burning petrol or natural gas; less NOx will be produced than CO2, but it has a much greater greenhouse effect.

The other aspect is producing ammonia for agriculture. Something like 7-8% of greenhouse gases (in CO2-equivalent terms) is caused by too much nitrogen fertiliser being added, and this leaching into the soil, reacting and being processed by bacteria there, and becoming NOx gases. However, this is a problem with both artificial and natural fertiliser (animal manure, etc). So that's a problem not with how you get the nitrogen fertiliser in the first place, but how it's applied. Anything which offers cheap and plentiful nitrogen fertiliser will tend to increase the amount farmers use; the typical farmer is more concerned with having a fertile field this season than climate change in a generation or two.