The POWER Podcast

Bitcoin mining is the process used to generate new coins and verify new transactions. The process involves vast, decentralized networks of computers around the world that verify and secure blockchains, the virtual ledgers that document cryptocurrency transactions. In return for contributing their computing power, miners are rewarded with new coins. The process ultimately requires a lot of energy to perform, which is where power companies come in. “Bitcoin mining can help the energy sector,” Andrew Webber, founder and CEO of Digital Power Optimization (DPO), said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “Instead of just selling power to third-party Bitcoin miners, we suggest, that, in many circumstances, energy companies themselves are actually far better positioned to build their own Bitcoin mines and undertake this strategy and this activity for their own purposes in a vertically integrated way, where again, the energy company owns the Bitcoin mine. And by operating a Bitcoin mine, in conjunction with an energy asset, in an intelligent and thoughtful way, you can really optimize your generation assets in a way that you couldn’t really have done without a tool like Bitcoin mining to help you.” Webber said the idea came to him while reading a story in the newspaper. “I was reading [a Los Angeles Times] article about the state of California paying the state of Arizona $20 per megawatt-hour to get rid of all of its power. And I said, ‘What is going on? That seems absolutely crazy to me. I'll take all of it. You know? I'll set up a Bitcoin mine there, and just, any power you don’t want, just send it to me, I’ll take it for free,’ ” he said. Webber explained how Bitcoin mining can help power companies alleviate issues. “This is a mechanism that can go almost anywhere and soak up this excess available power where it’s produced, and then apply that value elsewhere across the globe in a way that actually solves these problems,” said Webber. “So, it’s quite an interesting tool for the energy sector once they get their heads around how this will help.” Bitcoin mining provides flexibility, too. If power is needed suddenly for customers, the power company can respond by simply shutting down the mining operation. “You can just turn it off, and so, it makes a really good tool to respond to sharp jumps in demand or transmission difficulties,” Webber said. “It’s sort of energy management infrastructure. And when you start thinking about an energy company building these things, it’s not really Bitcoin mining, you’re managing your energy assets in a different way, using a different system.” Setting up a Bitcoin mining operation is fairly simple. Webber said a 1-MW system fits in what looks like a standard shipping container—essentially, a 40-foot by 8-1/2-foot big metal box. Inside are racks, wiring, all the networking equipment, a filtration system, cooling fans, and 300 to 325 very specialized computers. The container is connected to a transformer supplied by 240-V or 277-V power, and mining can begin on whatever schedule works best for the power company including 24/7/365. In the end, however, Bitcoin mining is just one tool in a power management toolbox. It can be used in combination with other solutions, including battery storage and green hydrogen production. “All of these are things that need to be incorporated and thought about, not individually, but frankly, in concert with one another,” said Webber. “Right now, I think the energy sector has close to zero understanding that this is available to them, and that’s what we’re hoping to change. And I think it’ll be probably commonplace over the next decade or two.”

Aero-derivative gas turbines are widely used in the power industry. As the name implies, aero-derivative gas turbines evolved from innovations to proven technologies used in airplane jet engines. These gas turbines provide anywhere from 30 MW to 140 MW of efficient, reliable power, and deliver operational savings to energy providers worldwide. According to Harsh Shah, vice president of sales and business development with Mitsubishi Power Aero, there are four key areas where aero-derivative gas turbines are used. “The first is what we would call a traditional peaking application,” he said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. This is important when demand exceeds supply during certain periods of the day. “You basically want an asset that can cover the extra demand,” he said. Another application is what Shah called “reverse peaking.” This is when supply decreases quickly for some reason, such as cloud cover affecting solar output, a rapid decrease in wind generation, or some other supply disruption. “If supply drops below the demand, you can have solution like aero-derivatives to cover that in very, very, very short time,” said Shah. Shah said emergency and fast-track applications also provide regular opportunities for aero-derivatives. These can arise from weather-related events or other unforeseen activities. Sometimes, problems result from inadequate planning, or other political and social motivations that require quick deployment of power systems, which aero-derivatives are ideally suited to accommodate. “Last, but certainly not least, is distributed power and grid independent operations,” Shah said. Things like crypto-mining operations or hydraulic fracturing require significant power, and aero-derivative units can quickly fill the role and offer the mobility to change locations, if situations change. As mentioned, aero-derivatives fill an important role in support of renewables, and that is likely to increase as more renewable energy resources are added to the grid. “Renewables growth and its impact on grid dynamics is, I believe, one of the key challenges that the power sector faces as it aims to decarbonize over the next 20 or 30 years,” Shah said. Power producers worldwide strive to supply reliable power to all customers 100% of the time. That requires dispatchable assets that can provide power as needed, which intermittent renewable resources are not capable of without energy storage or immense overbuild. “On-demand, aero-derivative power, we believe, is an ideal way to bridge this capacity and reliability gap effectively, and more importantly, very affordably,” said Shah. “Such peaker plants would offer, in our view, a clearest path to complementing the rise in renewables while still maintaining grid stability and reliability.” Aero-derivative gas turbines are very effective because of their inherent fast-start and flexible design. “The units are designed for five-minute starts from a complete cold condition,” Shah explained. Mobile units are highway compatible and can provide emergency power in nine days or less upon arrival. With modular designs, quick-disconnect cables, factory assembled modules, and pre-fabricated field piping, aero-derivative gas turbines are designed to minimize setup time and promptly begin generating the precise power needed for almost any situation.

Countries throughout the world have set carbon emission reduction targets in an effort to limit the effects of climate change. Many are striving to achieve net zero in coming decades. Yet, governments also want to maintain, or even improve, living standards for their citizens, which means keeping power affordable and reliable. This poses some potentially conflicting priorities. “I think one of the most important topics we’re dealing with right now is how fast can we decarbonize the power generation and the electricity generation in the societies around us,” Karim Amin, executive board member with Siemens Energy, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “But on the other hand side, we also see the importance of security of supply. I mean, the world needs reliable electricity. It’s very important not only for the economic development, but for the very same life that we have.” Amin acknowledged that adding more renewable energy is important. “There is no doubt that we need more and more and faster deployment of renewables,” he said. “Important, of course, is to realize and understand that renewables also have challenges.” Amin suggested energy storage will play a big role in future power systems, as will gas turbines. “We are transiting from, as I said, fossil-based into renewable, but we need to resolve the issue of intermittence and storage,” he said. “There are a few technological solutions that could also help to bring the CO2 footprint of the gas turbines down by almost two-thirds through hydrogen co-firing or through carbon capture technologies. So, there are ways that the world is looking at right now and really implementing to use the gas turbines in the time where the storage capacity in terms of maturity of technology is not yet there.” Coal-fired power plants are a significant source of CO2 emissions worldwide. A couple of years ago, Siemens Energy chose to stop participating in new coal power projects. However, the company still provides service to the existing coal fleet. “Actually, the service helps existing units that are running in any case to be upgraded, and to bring their CO2 level down. So, we actually contribute in this regard,” said Amin. Siemens Energy invests a lot, about €1 billion every year, in research and development (R&D). “A big part of that—more than 20% of that, and it’s increasing year on year—is really going into new technologies that would help accelerate the energy transition,” Amin said. Still, there is a delicate balance that must be maintained, which is to put as much effort as possible into renewables while still finding a way to keep the system “reliable, stable, and affordable.” At the same time, Siemens Energy is putting its money where its mouth is, so to speak. The company has committed to using only electricity supplied by renewable energy resources by 2023. It has also committed to becoming climate neutral in its own operations by 2030, which includes reducing absolute scope 1 and 2 greenhouse gas emissions by 46% by 2030, compared to 2019. Amin said that climate change is “the biggest challenge” that we have right now, and one that must be dealt with. “The problem is sophisticated. It’s not as simple as putting renewables and pulling the plug on gas, for example, because in the end of the day, you need to keep the day to day life running—critical infrastructure running—and renewable does not solve this issue on its own. It’s a solution that needs to happen, taking a number of elements into consideration and working as fast as possible through this transition process,” he said.

Lofty goals have been established in the U.S. for the offshore wind industry. The U.S. Department of Energy, Department of the Interior, and Department of Commerce announced a national goal in March 2021 to deploy 30 GW of offshore wind capacity by 2030. That would mark a significant increase from the 42 MW of offshore wind energy currently operating in the states. Meanwhile, the California Energy Commission (CEC) adopted a report yesterday establishing offshore wind goals. It seeks to develop 2 GW to 5 GW of offshore wind by 2030, and 25 GW by 2045. California has no offshore wind installed today. Other states also have individual goals. The challenges to reaching these goals are many. “From my perspective, looking at where we are now, there are some significant challenges that the U.S. has to face,” Chris Cowland, vice president of Global Offshore Wind with Worley, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Cowland, who is based in the UK and has spent the last 22 years working in the offshore sector, said the timeline is a “huge challenge,” noting that adding 30 GW of capacity by 2030 will not be easy. “There’s going to be a lot of pressure on governments to look at different policies—how they can accelerate. There’s going to be pressure on fabrication yards and supply chains, the whole remit of how are we actually going to get things to market much, much quicker,” he said. “So, that’s going to be a significant challenge, particularly just taking, as it stands at the moment, about eight years to get from auction to first power.” The lack of local content poses an obstacle too. Cowland said local content is “absolutely fundamental.” Yet, even as he touted his support for developing local resource markets, Cowland said that local content could adversely affect costs, because developed regions such as the U.S. have difficulty competing against suppliers in Asia and other low-wage areas of the world. While shipping costs are lower for local suppliers, other costs can outweigh the benefits, resulting in competitive advantages for foreign suppliers. “The U.S. needs to think slightly differently on that, in terms of: How are we going to drive local content? How are we going to drive lowest possible cost? And I think the answer there is looking at innovation, digitally enabled platforms, and things like that,” said Cowland. The area that Cowland believes the U.S. has perhaps the greatest potential to exploit revolves around standardization. “If we want to hit the ambitions of our governments, you need to stop reengineering and actually start driving standardization into the sector,” Cowland said. “Once you’ve got that standardization, that really then allows us to start to think about how do you scale-up the infrastructure to really support the development of these wind farms, whether it’s new port facilities—What sort of deep-water access do we need? What are the laydown areas that we need? What sort of O&M [operations and maintenance] hubs do we need? And there’s going to be a lot of supply bases that we’re going to need around us to support these facilities,” said Cowland. “Investment isn’t the obstacle here. It’s actually how do you get the investment into the supply chain as quickly as we need it,” he said.

Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) programs have become quite prominent in communities across California, and have begun to spring up in other states including Illinois, Massachusetts, and Ohio. Through CCA, communities can purchase electricity on behalf of residents and businesses, in place of investor-owned utilities such as Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison. The California Community Choice Association claims local governments in more than 200 towns, cities, and counties across California have chosen to participate in CCA to “meet climate action goals, provide residents and businesses with more energy options, ensure local transparency and accountability, and drive economic development.” The association says there are currently 24 operational CCA programs in California serving more than 11 million customers, and it expects those numbers to continue growing. One of the places where CCA is providing benefits is in the San Francisco Bay area. East Bay Community Energy (EBCE), a not-for-profit public agency, operates a CCA program for Alameda County and 14 incorporated cities, serving more than 1.7 million residential and commercial customers in the area. EBCE initiated service in June 2018 and expanded to the cities of Pleasanton, Newark, and Tracy in April 2021. As a guest on The POWER Podcast, Nick Chaset, CEO of EBCE, explained some of the benefits his agency provides to customers. “There are three categories of benefits that we really focus on. One is cost savings. So, since we started operations in 2018, we have delivered upwards of $30 million in bill savings to our customers, relative to what the cost of electricity from PG&E would have been, if they had stayed on that service,” he said. “The second is clean energy. So, we have delivered higher levels of renewables over the course of our operations, on average. Since we started operating in 2018, I believe we’re somewhere in that 5–7% more renewable range—and that can be more or less than that average depending on how much renewable energy PG&E ends up actually buying—but on average, it’s been in that 5–7% more renewable.” The third thing Chaset said really differentiates EBCE from not only incumbent utilities, but also from some other community energy agencies is its emphasis and focus on investing in clean energy locally. In September 2021, EBCE commenced commercial operation of the Scott Haggerty Wind Energy Center, a 57-MW facility with 23 wind turbines located in Livermore, California, a community EBCE serves. It expects the wind farm to power more than 47,000 homes in its district. Beyond that, EBCE is doing several other projects to enhance local energy systems. “We are also building virtual power plant projects that integrate just over 1,000 residential solar and storage systems to provide consumers both clean energy and resiliency, and provide us with batteries that we can use to meet our broader customer base’s electricity demand,” Chaset said. “And we’re also investing in programs like electric vehicle charging stations. So, we have two large, fast-charging stations that we’re currently working to build and have plans to build a broader network of fast-charging stations across the 15 communities that we operate in.” Chaset suggested the nation could learn from California’s experience. Specifically, he said policies created in California could be applied at a federal level. “Policy is a critical lever to supporting the clean energy transition,” he said. “I would focus today on federal actions that can have really significant impacts in accelerating not just renewable energy, but really accelerating cost-effective energy. And I say that because today solar power and wind power are the cheapest sources of electricity generation out there. And so, we want more clean and cheap electricity, and we have the opportunity to accelerate that through a handful of actions.”

People around the world are searching for ways to decarbonize, and green hydrogen is a fuel that can help in that effort. Green hydrogen is produced through electrolysis using renewable energy, such as wind and solar power. Although most hydrogen produced today is made from natural gas, often referred to as gray hydrogen, new capacity is being added regularly to increase the amount of green hydrogen available to consumers. “We’re in the process of a major transformation in energy, and I think many people—people like Goldman and Bloomberg—believe that we’re going to be helping reduce the carbon footprint of the world by 20% by using hydrogen,” Andy Marsh, CEO of Plug Power, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. Although talk of a hydrogen economy may seem to some observers to be a relatively new development, Marsh noted that Plug Power has been in the fuel cell and hydrogen business for a quarter century. “What we’re kind of renowned for is that we created the first market for fuel cells,” Marsh explained. “We ended up putting fuel cells into forklift trucks for people like Walmart or Amazon.” However, the energy transition is the driving force behind recent growth. “All these activities have a lot to do with job creation. Over the past two and a half years, Plug has created over 2,300 jobs. Now, we have 3,000 employees,” said Marsh. “When I sit back and look at it, about 20% of our employees made the transition from the oil and gas fossil fuel industry to a clean energy. And finally, with everything going on in Ukraine, everybody’s beginning to realize that it’s so important for folks in the free world to be able to strive for energy independence. And I think hydrogen—the fact that you can create green hydrogen from green electricity that can be locally sourced—really is unique and can be used in such a wide variety of applications.” Marsh suggested the best use of green hydrogen today is as a substitute for gray hydrogen used in the steel and fertilizer industries. The switch would be a big step toward cleaning up these hard-to-decarbonize sectors. “That’s the biggest opportunity in the near term,” he said. Delivery van applications, such as for Amazon, UPS, FedEx, and others, offer another opportunity for hydrogen. While Marsh admitted there’s going to be a lot of electric vehicles operated as delivery vans, he suggested fuel cells offer a more attractive option in some cases. Referencing a study conducted by DHS, Marsh said when going greater than 150 miles and as van sizes increase, fuel cells make good sense. In early 2021, Plug and Renault launched a joint venture (JV) in France. The partners are targeting a 30% share of the fuel cell–powered light commercial vehicle market in Europe. When it comes to transporting hydrogen, Marsh suggested pipelines are vital. He offered an example to make his point, saying hydrogen could be moved a certain distance through a pipeline for roughly 3¢ to 4¢ per kilogram (kg), whereas, moving it the same distance as liquid hydrogen might cost 20¢/kg and in gaseous form via trucks might cost 80¢/kg. “For this to be cost-effective, pipelines are really important,” he said.

“Wyoming is the energy state,” Scott Quillinan, senior director of research for the School of Energy Resources at the University of Wyoming, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “Our mission here at the School of Energy Resources is energy-driven economic development for the state of Wyoming. … We support the energy industry here through academic programs, research programs, and outreach and engagement.” One of the School of Energy Resources’ flagship projects is the Wyoming Integrated Test Center (ITC) located at Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s Dry Fork Station, about seven miles north of Gillette. “They have five small test bays and one large test bay,” Quillinan explained. “There you can test some things like amine capture. You can test membrane capture. You can test things like using carbon dioxide to make cement or to make other products,” he said. Next to the ITC is a project called the Wyoming CarbonSAFE, which stands for Carbon Storage Assurance Facility Enterprise. It is one of 13 original carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) project sites in the U.S. funded by the Department of Energy with the ultimate goal of ensuring carbon storage complexes will be ready for integrated CCUS system deployment. “Wyoming CarbonSAFE is looking at the commercial feasibility of carbon storage directly below Dry Fork station,” said Quillinan. “This project is looking at storing at least 2 million tons of CO2 per year in a stack storage complex directly below this facility. And that project is run out of our office here at the School of Energy Resources. So, eventually, all said and done, we’ll have the newest, cleanest coal-fired power plant in the United States, a research and development center looking at carbon capture and utilization, and a field laboratory looking at carbon storage. So, it’s really, really neat how it’s all coming together.” The school is also focused on diversifying the state’s coal-based economy. It’s doing that by developing novel and marketable products derived from coal. “We like to take a piece of coal, break it all the way down to its different components, and build it back up into some value-added product,” Quillinan explained. Some examples include agricultural soil amendments, asphalt and paving materials, and roofing and construction materials including coal-based bricks. “Today on campus, we’re currently building a demonstration house completely out of coal-based bricks,” said Quillinan. “Right next door to it, we’re building a demonstration house out of conventional materials so that we can test the performance from one house to the other—things like toxicity, fire performance, sound absorption, heat absorption. So, it’s a really neat program.” In addition to the carbon capture and storage, and carbon engineering product programs, the third pillar of the university’s carbon-based research involves rare earth elements and critical mineral extractions from coal seams. “It turns out the Powder River Basin coal seams have elevated concentrations of rare earth elements, and in some cases, that elevated concentration lies in the two to three feet of overburden directly above or below some of the coal seams,” Quillinan explained. Rare earth elements and critical minerals are used in many electronics components, non-reflective glass, batteries, and renewable energy technologies, among other things. About 90% of rare earth elements and critical minerals used today are mined overseas, many of them in China. With the current state of world affairs, having domestic supplies for these vital materials could be important to national security. “We’re pretty excited about this program and what it can do to bring some of that market back domestically, but to Wyoming specifically,” Quillinan said.

Some cybersecurity experts believe hackers pose a greater threat than ever to power plants and electric grids. Much of the operational technology (OT) used in power stations and throughout the grid was installed at a time when cybersecurity was more of an afterthought than a focal point in the design process. Furthermore, the pool of bad actors has grown increasingly large and complex, including nation states, activist groups, organized crime syndicates, malicious company insiders, thrill seekers, and a bevy of other folks with a variety of untoward motivations. Hackers are found in all parts of the world, meaning unscrupulous activity is occurring around the clock. The troublemakers aren’t always looking to deploy cyber warfare strategies on the spot, but rather, they often want to gain access to systems so they can cause chaos when the action would be most beneficial to their cause and/or most inconvenient for the system. People in the power sector haven’t been oblivious to the threat. A skilled group of professionals has been assembled to monitor systems and develop countermeasures to thwart possible attacks. Still, the vectors and tactics utilized by hackers are constantly evolving, which makes the task of protecting OT systems challenging. “What worries me right now about the threat landscape overall is that I see it accelerating, in particular, in the OT or the industrial cybersecurity environment,” Ian Bramson, global head of Industrial Cybersecurity at ABS Consulting, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. It’s not only the frequency of attacks that has changed, but also the kinds of attacks, what’s being targeted, how systems are being hit, the goals of the instigators, and the people responsible for the offenses have all shifted, he said. Bramson believes the conflict in Ukraine has increased cyber risks. “It’s what I call a multi-player game now,” he said. As an example, he mentioned a hacker group that goes by the name “Anonymous.” Days after the war in Ukraine began, Bramson said the group announced it had “declared war” on Russia. Anonymous is not based in Ukraine or affiliated with the country in any known way, it simply decided to take a stand against Russia in response to the country’s aggression. While that in itself doesn’t seem to pose a great threat to U.S. systems, it increases cyber activity overall and could presumably encourage pro-Russian hackers to seek revenge, taking aim at Western targets in response. Furthermore, Bramson suggested much of the cyber activity that’s being undertaken by Russia and its supporters is politically motivated. Attacks are one way, for example, that Russia could try to fight back against sanctions enacted by European countries and the U.S. without firing missiles and starting a physical war with the West. “All that is increasing the pace of attack. So, I think it absolutely is increasing the threat environment for anyone here,” Bramson said. “And it brings that battle—that war—into our systems, into our devices, into our operations of our power and energy plants. That’s where a lot of these conflicts are going to be playing out and that’s what we have to be on guard for.”

Uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems are often installed to protect critical equipment and loads from power outages, and other voltage and current problems. Many UPS systems continuously regulate the input power, thereby maintaining a constant and uniform supply of electricity. UPS systems are typically used on computer hardware or other equipment where an unexpected power disruption could cause fatalities, serious business disruption, or data loss, such as at data centers, telecommunication facilities, hospitals, and power plants. While UPS systems have batteries and obviously store energy, they are not synonymous with standard battery energy storage systems that are commonly being added to the power grid these days. In fact, UPS systems are often not allowed to export power to the grid. However, that doesn’t mean they can’t serve a useful purpose in lowering energy bills and providing a return on investment to owners. “Historically, UPSs are sitting there waiting for something bad to happen—they were kind of insurance devices,” Yaron Binder, vice president of Product Management with SolarEdge Critical Power, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “But I think there’s a growing understanding that these could also double as an energy storage system, and actually create some kind of benefit, let’s say, revenue for the customer, apart from just sitting there waiting for the power to go out.” In the past, many UPS systems used lead-acid batteries, which were not a good fit for cycling operations. Today, however, many UPSs have lithium-ion batteries, which are much better suited to regular cycling. Therefore, there is less downside to using a UPS for more than just emergencies. Binder said there are many clever ways to utilize UPSs. “One of the things you can do, for example, is use the UPS as a demand response component,” he said. Although, as previously mentioned, owners may not be able to export power directly to the grid, they can reduce their power demand when electricity prices spike by using their UPS to power in-house needs. This will save money when prices are high and the UPS can be recharged when power prices have returned to a lower rate. Of course, a minimum charge level must be maintained to support the UPSs main function, which is to provide power to critical equipment during an emergency. Another innovative solution that can save owners money is to basically levelize power demand spikes using the UPS. “Sometimes you can use that battery to defer an increase in the site infrastructure,” Binder said. He referenced a hospital that he worked with where this was done. The hospital had two medical scanners that consumed a lot of energy when they were powered up. However, the demand was much lower while patients were actually being tested by the machines. “We had a case where putting in those two scanners was drawing more power than what the distribution panel was able to do, but upgrading that distribution panel was very, very expensive,” explained Binder. To solve the problem, the UPS was used during startup, and then as the load lessened during the test, the UPS returned to its normal standby role. “That way, we were able to use that battery and defer that infrastructure upgrade. So, that was another nice use for a UPS,” said Binder.

Hydrogen is widely seen as a vital component in efforts to decarbonize the world’s power supply. One example of this is a strategy being piloted by at least a couple of major gas turbine manufacturers, which involves storing “green hydrogen” produced through electrolysis using excess wind or solar power when renewable energy supplies exceed grid demand. Then, when the tables turn and demand exceeds renewable energy supplies, the carbon-free green hydrogen is burned in combustion turbines to provide sustainable clean energy to the grid. It’s not a perfectly efficient energy conversion, but it is a method that can be used essentially as a renewable energy storage mechanism, reducing demand for fossil fuels. The movement of hydrogen is not so simple though. Today, hydrogen is transported from the point of production to the point of use via pipeline and over the road in cryogenic liquid tanker trucks or gaseous tube trailers. Because hydrogen has a relatively low volumetric energy density, its transportation, storage, and final delivery to the point of use comprise a significant cost and result in some of the energy inefficiencies associated with using it as an energy carrier. However, ammonia offers one possible solution for the hydrogen transport problem. The chemical formula for ammonia is NH3. Like hydrogen, ammonia can be combusted in gas turbines and reciprocating engines. Unlike hydrogen, however, ammonia can be more easily transported and stored in liquid form, something fertilizer companies have been doing for decades. “Hydrogen is really being looked at as a key means of transporting energy around the world and fueling the world in an environment where carbon emissions aren’t acceptable,” Erik Mayer, vice president of Clean Energy Solutions with CF Industries, said as a guest on The POWER Podcast. “We convert large quantities of hydrogen into ammonia, currently for the fertilizer market but ultimately that same ammonia molecule is being looked at as an efficient way of being able to move hydrogen molecules around the world, whether they’re sourced from natural gas or whether they’re sourced from electrolysis.” Mayer said the advantage ammonia offers over hydrogen is that it is a liquid at moderately low temperatures and can be stored as liquid under relatively low pressure, similar to how liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) is stored. Concerning how the ammonia is used, Mayer said there are two possible ways: ammonia can be burned directly or it can be “cracked,” that is, decomposed over a catalyst, back to hydrogen. Because there are no carbon atoms in ammonia, there is no CO2 released when it is burned in either case. A downside of burning ammonia is that it produces relatively high NOx emissions. Mayer said those can be somewhat managed through combustion controls, but ultimately, there are proven technologies such as selective catalytic reduction (SCR) systems that can be used to keep NOx emissions within required limits. One big application that CF Industries sees as a growth opportunity for ammonia is as a marine fuel. “The marine industry uses large quantities of bunker fuel to do these transoceanic voyages, and the amount of energy required makes it impossible for them to convert to something like batteries,” Mayer said. “Some of the larger marine engine manufacturers are planning to be able to inject ammonia in replacement of carbon-based fuels, almost to 100%, and they think that technology will be fully developed in the next couple of years.”