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Minnesota grain dryer experiment will put 'green ammonia' to the test
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Seamus Kane discusses the potential
for farm uses of ammonia at the Midwest Farm Energy Conference on June
15 in Morris, Minnesota. Jeff Beach / Agweek 6/27/22
MORRIS, Minn. — Can “green ammonia'' be
an efficient fuel for drying down grain?
Seamus Kane is working to prove that it
can be.
Kane is a University of Minnesota
researcher who is about to wrap up three years of work by testing out
an ammonia-fueled grain dryer at the West Central Research and
Outreach Center in Morris.
Kane
said the test will be fairly small, “just to prove the concept. We
don’t want to go too big, too quickly.” But it’s part of a bigger
picture, where he sees the potential for wind or solar energy to power
an ammonia plant in Minnesota to create a more local source of fuel
and fertilizer that is more friendly to the environment and makes
economic sense.
“We have the energy, we have the
technology, we just don’t have the plant,” Kane said.
Inflation in the fuel sector may provide
the financial incentive to change that.
“Ammonia is so incredibly expensive right
now from natural gas that I think it’s starting to look very
financially feasible to start putting up green ammonia plants,” Kane
said.
Mike Reese, the renewable energy director
at West Central Research and Outreach Center, said during a June 15
talk at the Midwest Farm Energy Conference in Morris, that the
potential to make “green ammonia” using renewable energy could be
“transformative” for agriculture.
Using figures developed at the center, by
substituting green ammonia for nitrogen fertilizer, the fossil energy
footprint of corn production could be reduced by 36%.
“It’s a drop in, you don’t have to make
any changes at the farm level,” Reese said of green ammonia.
If green ammonia is used for drying
grain, that could drop the corn fossil footprint another 42%
“So if you are able to convert your
natural gas propane dryer to green ammonia, you can reduce your fossil
energy footprint close to 80%,” Reese said. “To me, that’s
transformative.”
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For the grain dryer test, they will use a
GT industries 245XL grain dryer that’s been converted from propane to
ammonia.
The burner ring had to be replaced to
account for ammonia being more corrosive and differences in the way
ammonia behaves compared to propane.
Kane said his research so far indicates
an ammonia fueled grain dryer should be able to operate with almost no
emissions.
This is not Kane’s first ammonia research
project. He worked on a similar project to design an ammonia-powered
tractor. But those results were not very encouraging.
Kane learned that one drawback to ammonia
as a fuel is that it didn't work very well when the tractor had to
idle. While it will burn without emitting carbon dioxide, it will emit
other greenhouse gasses.
But where it performs very well is when
the need for energy is constant — like a grain dryer.
But for the grain dryer, he said the
university is working on patents and with its commercialization office
to bring a product to market.
“We see a lot of promise and so does our
commercialization office,” Kane said.
Kane is working on other projects looking
at ammonia as a fuel source and ammonia in general is getting more
attention.
“The U.S. is a couple years behind the
ammonia energy trend,” Kane said, with Europe, Japan and Australia all
being farther along. “But we’re really accelerating.”
Green Play Ammonia™, Yielder® NFuel Energy.
Spokane, Washington. 99212
www.exactrix.com
509 995 1879 cell, Pacific.
exactrix@exactrix.com
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