Liquid Ammonia as Fuel – More on the Subject

I figured that my posts on Renewable Energy World on liquid ammonia would eventually get some response. I had been wondered how it could be possible that so few people were working on projects in this area, as it really does seem like an important idea. In particular, as a liquid energy storage medium, it has the potential to solve three tough problems simultaneously.  In addition to being clean, safe, reliable, and scaleable, liquid ammonia can help in:

1) Moving large amounts of energy around a large land mass (like the lower 48 states) in a way that would compete with electrical. (Proponents point out that a great deal of this piping infrastructure is already in place.)

2) Storing large amounts of energy locally in a way that would compete with molten salt, batteries, and pumped storage hydro-electric reservoirs, compressed air energy storage (CAES), and

3) Storing small amounts of energy in portable devices, potentially solving the battery cost, energy-density, and charging infrastructure issues in electric transportation.

Yet it seemed that, for all this technical and economic merit, precious few people had any familiarity with the subject at all. But, in response why “thinking out loud” here, I got a phone call this morning from a bright young man in Indiana, Daniel Miller, who led me to the a great deal of information on the website of The Leighty Foundation. And here’s a real treasure trove from Iowa State University, which hosts an annual meeting on the subject.  Interested readers will be kept out of trouble for quite a while coming up to speed on this fascinating idea.