Hydrogen energy storage in AMMONIA: Fantastic future or fossil fuel scam?

Back in june 2019 I made a video about  energy storage in hydrogen there was a lot   of media excitement around at the time talking  about how hydrogen could play a pivotal role   in our transition away from fossil fuels not least  because of its ability to store energy for quite   long periods of time and then release it whenever  the electricity grid was falling short of power   from renewables like during the dark months of  winter or on days when the wind doesn't blow that   media hype still exists today of course in fact  if anything it's got louder and more prevalent   during the 2020 pandemic era societies all over  the world appear to have been afforded more time   to stop and think about how we can all live and  work sustainably on our march through the 21st   century hydrogen is a very good energy carrier  it's got very high level of energy per unit mass   the trouble is it's also a very low density gas at  room temperature in fact it's about only a third   of the density of natural gas so in order to store  it and transport it we either have to cool it   right down to below minus 250 degrees Celsius to  make it into a liquid that takes up far less space   or we have to pressurize it to somewhere  between 100 and 300 times atmospheric pressure   in that pressurized form though hydrogen contains  about 40 000 watt hours of energy per kilogram   compared to only about 280 watt hours per kilogram  that the best lithium-ion batteries can produce   so you can see why the energy industry  thinks it could be an attractive option   both cooling and pressurizing methods are already  commonly used today too but they both take a   lot of energy removing about 30 percent of the  efficiency from the overall hydrogen production   and supply chain process on top of that hydrogen  is a very reactive gas which tends to make steel   become brittle and that's not ideal if you're  shipping the stuff in pressurized steel cylinders   or transporting it through pipelines so the  latest industry buzz is all about how to   store and ship hydrogen in a safer and more  efficient way using a very well established   infrastructure that's already in constant use  every day all over the planet in order to take   advantage of that infrastructure though you  first have to convert hydrogen into ammonia   and that concept appears to have  opened up a whole new can of worms  hello and welcome to Just Have a Think the  latest market reports on the global value of   ammonia production tell us it's worth nearly 73  billion dollars today with an annual production   volume of about 175 million tons the bulk of which  is used for nitrogen fertilizers in agriculture   but the potential benefits of transporting and  storing ammonia as a very long-term energy carrier   are attracting a great deal of interest  from all sectors of the energy industry   ammonia is comparatively easy to transport and  store certainly compared to hydrogen anyway   it liquefies at only -33 degrees Celsius  compared to -250 odd degrees for hydrogen   and if you choose to pressurize it instead  then it only needs to be compressed to   10 times atmospheric pressure and it doesn't  react with steel the way hydrogen does either   might sound a bit counterintuitive to say this  but it's actually a better hydrogen carrier   than hydrogen itself but the same volume ammonia  contains 50 percent more hydrogen than hydrogen   does a molecule of ammonia contains one nitrogen  atom and three hydrogen atoms the air we breathe   is about 78 percent nitrogen so there's no  shortage of that and there's no shortage of   hydrogen either in fact it's the most abundant  element in the universe but here's where the can   of worm starts to peel open because the industrial  processes for liberating nitrogen and hydrogen and   combining them into ammonia are currently among  the dirtiest in the world using about two percent   of the world's fossil fuels and accounting for  1.2 percent of our total global CO2 emissions   why so nasty well you first have to liberate the  nitrogen and hydrogen atoms from their naturally   occurring states you can get hydrogen from water  using electrolysis and if you're a regular view of   this channel you'll no doubt have heard me talking  about that process before but the reality is that   the vast majority of hydrogen production is  currently achieved through a process called   steam methane reforming which essentially bombards  natural gas or methane with steam at extremely   high temperature and pressure to force the carbon  and hydrogen atoms apart certainly a very fast and   effective way to produce hydrogen but it's also  a very fast and effective way to produce carbon   dioxide which is generally not captured in the  process and just gets released back up into the   atmosphere separating nitrogen gas out of the  air is pretty easy using a cryogenic process   but nitrogen exists in nature as N2 and breaking  the strong chemical bonds that hold nitrogen   molecules together is no mean feat the existing  method is to compress the nitrogen and hydrogen   at about 250 times atmospheric pressure and  temperatures of about 400 degrees celsius in tall   narrow steel reactors where an iron catalyst  helps to liberate the individual nitrogen atoms   so that they'll react with the hydrogen atoms in  the right proportions to produce ammonia it's a   process called Haber Bosch named after Fritz Haber  who discovered the reaction in 1909 and Carl Bosch   who industrialized it some years later the  process uses a huge amount of energy which   is usually provided by fossil fuels which of  course means more CO2 released into the atmosphere   now those market reports I mentioned earlier  also project that the commercial ammonia sector   will grow by at least another six billion dollars  just in the next five years and keep growing after   that so you can imagine our friends in the fossil  fuel industry are extremely keen to ensure that   the process for creating ammonia continues to  use as much of their steam reformed methane gas   and fossil fuel generated electricity as possible  that's one of the reasons why you may have seen   the big fossil fuel producers getting all  evangelistic about the new hydrogen economy   that everyone's now talking about in the media but  there are other ways of producing ammonia which   are rapidly being developed all of which would  eradicate fossil fuels entirely from the process   the details are set out in this comprehensive  article researched and written by Robert Service   for Science Magazine and this 2020 paper  written by chemist Douglas MacFarlane and   his team published by Cell Press and as always  I'll leave links to both those papers in the   description box below this video MacFarlane's  team at Monash University in Melbourne Australia   has come up with what they describe as a reverse  fuel cell which bypasses both the steam reforming   and Haber Bosch processes in one go it works  like this renewable energy from wind and solar   drives an electrochemical reaction involving an  anode and a cathode both coated with specially   formulated catalysts with a separator membrane  sitting between them in an ionic electrolyte   water reacts at the anode to form hydrogen ions  and electrons the hydrogen ions are able to pass   through the separator and they get attracted to  the cathode on the other side the electrons make   that journey via the electrical circuit nitrogen  gas comes in at the cathode side and combines with   the hydrogen ions to produce ammonia all of this  happens at low temperature and low pressure it's a   very efficient way to make ammonia but it's still  currently extremely slow compared to the Haber   Bosch system other methods are in development that  can significantly speed up the process including a   system at Australia's commonwealth scientific  and industrial research organization or CSIRO   it's called a membrane reactor a pair of long  concentric cylinders are heated to 450 degrees   Celsius hydrogen is forced into the space between  the two tubes where catalysts lining the space   split the hydrogen molecules into individual atoms  that can then pass through the atomic lattice of   the outer tube wall to react with nitrogen gas  which has been pumped into the inner cylinder   the inner surface is lined with a catalytically  active metal like palladium which does the job   of splitting the nitrogen into individual atoms  and causing a reaction which combines the newly   liberated hydrogen and nitrogen ions into ammonia  this setup produces a much faster reaction than   the electrochemical one but at the moment only a  small fraction of the hydrogen gas is reacting so   the team are working hard on ways to improve that  efficiency a third method has been developed by a   team at the Colorado School of Mines led by Ryan  O'Hare it's a button-sized version of the reverse   fuel cell we just looked at but O'Hare's version  is made of ceramic materials and operates at much   higher temperatures the reaction in that setup is  about 500 times faster than the Monash University   system but still not yet fast enough to hit the  criteria set out by the US Department of Energy   all these teams are working fast to get the  improvements they need but right now the trade-off   seems to be between efficiency of reaction  and speed of reaction the team that finds the   right combination to improve both those factors  will have themselves a very valuable commercial   commodity outside of its current main function as  a fertilizer feedstock ammonia as a liquid energy   carrier has until recently been regarded purely  as a supplier of hydrogen energy with a final   step in the supply chain being a process that can  crack the ammonia back into hydrogen and nitrogen   at the point of delivery but the potential scope  of ammonia energy applications has been widening   it's now also being proposed as a direct fuel for  shipping and heavy transport vehicles like buses   and in power generators direct ammonia  fuel cells power turbines and even jet   engines the only exhaust outputs from these  machines would be pure nitrogen and water   there's clearly still some development to be done  on these systems and that's raised some serious   questions from environmental groups who are  concerned about that fossil fuel industry hype I   mentioned earlier governments around the world are  now enthusiastically launching themselves toward   hydrogen as an apparently green solution not just  for storing energy but also directly heating homes   and fueling vehicles these are all ostensibly  very positive developments but the caveat offered   by environmental groups like DeSmog is that we  risk building out national and international   supply chain infrastructures based on large scale  supplies of apparently green ammonia and hydrogen   only to find that the new zero carbon methods of  production are not able to keep up with demand at   which point the fossil fuel boys will weigh in  with their existing carbon heavy technologies   that may be an unnecessarily pessimistic  projection but I guess only time will tell   now I already know from the amount of emails and  comments I receive on this subject that it's one   that provokes strong sentiments on both sides  of the argument that's why the comment section   is there of course so if you've got views on  this or some direct experience from inside these   industries then jump down and leave your thoughts  there that's it for this week though thanks to   our fantastic patreon supporters who help keep the  channel independent and keep these videos ad free   and a quick shout out to the folks who've  joined since last time with pledges of $10   or more a month they are Pierre Morasti Igor  Weissmann Mr Bega Leslie Guy Dale Hulst Benjamin   David Eve Wyatt Nicola Tesla Tim French Jesse  David Price Frederick Simon and Dave Reilly   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Channel: Just Have a Think

Views: 165,835

Rating: 4.9568391 out of 5

Keywords: Ammonia, hydrogen, hydrogen storage, renewable energy, sustainable energy, membrane reactor, reverse fuel cell

Id: 5Y_2Z_VwFNc

Length: 12min 19sec (739 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 20 2020