Ammonia from wind likely to happen in 2010

<i>Originally published in the July 24, 2009, print edition.</i>

By Dick Hagen

At a recent West Central Research & Outreach Center event, WCROC engineer Cory Marquart said their wind-to-hydrogen-to-ammonia project involving their 1.65 mw turbine is being negotiated with a design-build firm in the Twin Cities. Once this agreement is signed, this project officially launches and will likely be closely watched by farmers and agricultural energy investors.

“We’re hoping to start construction this fall,” Marquart said, so ammonia from wind could be happening by next summer’s field day. There are still a few unknowns about this way to put wind power to work, but Marquart said upwards of 1 ton anhydrous ammonia per 24 hour period is doable.

Actual capacity of this turbine would be about 1 1/2 ton per day if wind energy was a constant, but at the Morris location winds are mostly in the 35 to 40 percent efficiency category. Marquart said at this stage it’s not a matter of inventing new technologies but rather putting old technology to work in a different manner.

Most interesting to farmers, of course, is at what price might ammonia from wind cost. That is strictly a matter of the price of natural gas since natural gas is the primary source of anhydrous ammonia today. “So if natural gas is costing you $1,400 to $1,500 per million BTUs then anhydrous ammonia will also likely be costing $1,400 to $1,500 per ton. If natural gas is $7 per ton, ammonia usually costs around $700 to $800 per ton,” Marquart said.

The potential real value of ammonia from wind farms is that it would provide a stabilizing factor in the nitrogen fertilizer market. Also if fertilizer ammonia becomes excessively higher priced, then ammonia from wind becomes even more feasible. He said a ballpark figure for ammonia costs from wind would be in the $1,000 per ton range but that is purely an estimate at this time.

“Farmers like to know what their input costs are ahead of each production year so they can better plan their budgets. So if ammonia from wind becomes a supply factor in the real market, producers would value that opportunity,” Marquart said.

He sees ammonia production facilities being hitched to mega-wind farms of 20, 30 or more wind turbines, justifying storage capacity for several hundred tons of anhydrous ammonia. He also foresees marketing diversity of such wind farms. If the ammonia market is strong, dedicate the wind energy to that product. And when there are seasonal heavy demands for electricity, “then sell electricity instead. Or when fuel cells become a bigger player use that market opportunity for hydrogen production also.”

Marquart suggested that the business plan of community wind projects needs to be diversified in its marketing structure simply because constantly changing energy demands will dictate different forms of energy from any given wind farm. “We already have fuel cells that can run directly on ammonia so if/when fuel cells become economically feasible for the automotive industry the entire structure of our nation’s wind industry might change considerably.”

Even though there have been manufacturing slowdowns within the big wind turbine industry, he doesn’t see this as a lessening of interest in big wind projects. “I think this is a temporary blip because of the struggling world economy. Several big wind farms were in the works prior to the economy going sour. Many of those equity investors needed the passive income tax credits so money for wind was no particular problem. Now these same investors aren’t needing those tax credits and consequently lots of ‘big money’ has disappeared,” he said. He added that once the economy turns around and tax credits become useful to big investors, then big projects would again surface.

There has been much press coverage on vertical axis turbines, a new family of smaller and considerably shorter wind units, but Marquart said he has yet to see a unit that has wind efficiency comparable with the big turbines dominating the high country of western and southwestern Minnesota. Granted, their imprint is smaller, but he questions the efficiency of the vertical axial wind unit as a major electricity producer.

He does, however, see growing interest in the smaller (40 kw and less) units for on-farm power and/or net metering back into the local utility any unused electrical power. “There’s still a large upfront investment for these units venturing from $40,000 to $75,000 depending upon size, but even with today’s relatively modest rural utility rates you’re looking at a 10- to 12-year payback. I think this is an industry just waiting to ramp up,” Marquart said.

He said interest in wind turbines certainly hasn’t slackened. Frequent phone calls and visitors stopping at the WCROC, regardless of intent; invariably people ask about the Morris turbine and the wind-to-ammonia project. He predicts the future of wind energy will basically go two directions: 1) wind for electricity, and 2) wind for hydrogen/fertilizer. “There’s not one ‘silver bullet.’ Instead we’re calling it ‘silver buckshot’ which simply means there could be lots of different uses for wind power down the road.”

There likely will be more big wind in the Morris area. The University of Minnesota, Morris, campus intends to become carbon neutral, the first institution in the nation to achieve that status. Though not yet officially announced, folks at the WCROC are predicting two new turbines, likely 2 mw or larger, and likely adjacent to the existing 1.65 mw turbine that dominates the landscape within a 10- to 15-mile radius of Morris.

A report by the American Wind Energy Association shows Minnesota ranks first in the nation in the percentage of energy it gets from wind power. Minnesota got 7.48 percent of its electricity from wind last year, up from 4.6 percent in 2007.

However, Minnesota is losing ground in the race to wind energy capacity. Texas is tops with 7,118 megawatts. Texas added almost 2,700 megawatts of wind energy capacity last year, more than any other state. Iowa was second, California third. Minnesota ranked fourth, with 1,754 megawatts including 456 megawatts of new wind energy capacity last year.

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