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Strategies & Market Trends : The Epic American Credit and Bond Bubble Laboratory -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: gregor_us who wrote (93910)	4/30/2008 1:01:01 PM
From: Merlinson	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 110194

I wouldn't be surprised if ammonia ended up being intimately involved with thermal solar power. Although, as a gas, it's nasty stuff, it is easy to detect at about 1% of a dangerous level. It has a pretty good safety record because there is a great incentive to get away from a leak or spill unless one is unconscious and trapped in the wreckage or something. We make lots of it ( from natural gas) for fertilizer and making nitric acid, and, as a liquid, its transportation and storage is well understood and not expensive. It's the only liquid fuel hydrogen carrier besides pure hydrogen itself that is carbon free. (I'm not recommending it's use in things that crash, LOL) Here is another link that describes thermochemical synthesis of ammonia at much lower pressure than required for the Haber-Bosch method. pre.ethz.ch The only required inputs are sunlight, air, and water. Aluminum and carbon are used as catalysts and are recycled. This is just a summary and the links only point to abstracts so there is not much detail, unfortunately. Nothing about the economics of it. Would be nice if excess ammonia could be stored for use in long term baseload power-leveling generation (in turbines, etc) or used for fertilizer at a reasonable price.