Note: While the Great Lakes and Great Plains are different, they are both "Great" in their own way. This is a tale about how some of the least expensive electricity in the USA is NOT put to work in a way that would create jobs and decrease our addiction to imported ammonia and imported gasoline, and make the world a better place. You decide, but the present course of (in)action may be leading to evil things...NYPA stands for the "New York Power Authority" (http://www.nypa.gov), in theory owned by the State of New York, and hence the "Peoples Power Company" of NY. In theory.....

Here is a bit of a primer on "clean hydrogen"; remember, as the
European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) put it so nicely, "H2 is only
as clean as is the energy used to make this H2". H2 is both an energy
carrier and a chemical reagent, and more energy is used to manufacture
it than is available from it (which is just basic Thermodynamics).

H2 is also a pain to store and transport. Over 30% of the chemical
energy stored in H2 must be used to convert it into liquid H2 (from
room temperature gas at atmospheric pressure). It has special dangers,
too, as it is so cold that liquid O2 (LOX) can condense on uninsulated
transfer piping, and LOX has all kinds of dangers with regards to
increasing the limits of flammability, or forming explosive peroxides.
H2 may also be a factor in ozone (O3) destruction in the stratosphere,
as H2 will oxidize in the presence of hard core ultraviolet photons
(present at this layer of the atmosphere, the 200 nm variety) to form
water/which forms ice crystals, in a region of the atmosphere that ice
crystals should not be in to any great extent. The ice crystal
surfaces help catalyze the UV induced decomposition of O3, whether by
nitrogen oxides or by trace halogens (except fluorine), including
naturally occurring ones, like methyl chloride, methyl bromide and
methyl iodide. So keeping as much H2 out of the stratosphere as
possible would be a good thing (such as via leakage from millions of
H2 storage tanks in cars.....). H2 also converts maleable iron and
steel into forms as brittle as cast iron (called H2 embrittlement), so
storing and transporting high pressure H2 can get expensive - that's
why refineries use stainless steel reactors for their high pressure
hydrogenation or hydrogen generating reactions, despite the higher
capital costs versus regular steels.

However, in the US, about 2.5 to 3 million tons/yr of H2 are
manufactured and used, mostly in the upgrading of crude oil/oil
products, ammonia production, nylon production (caprolactam,
cyclohexane), and in a host of specialty chemical applications. Most
of this is made by either frying certain hydrocarbons like ethane over
catalysts (olefin manufacture) in this case to make ethylene (used for
polyethylene, among other items), by the partial oxidation of either
methane (natural gas) or coal in the presence of water vapor. These
latter two processes are known as the water shift reaction, and
methane is presently the most commonly used for this, which "strip
mines" the four hydrogen atoms from the carbon atom in methane (CH4),
producing CO2 pollution as a byproduct. Since natural gas is now
getting quite expensive (tripling in price every 5 years), coal will
be making a resurgence in the water shift processes, although this
makes MORE CO2 pollution per unit of H2 made than when CH4 is used.

There are two major chemicals made by hydrogenation - methanol and
ammonia. To make methanol (CH3OH), the water shift reaction mixture
(CO2, H2, H2O, CO - also known as Syngas) is dried and passed over
catalysts to make methanol; the basic reaction is actually the
hydrogenation of carbon dioxide. Keep that in mind, as CO2 can also be
reacted with clean H2 to make methanol, and a host of other
fuels/chemicals. To make ammonia, the H2 made in these syngas mixes is
purified and then reacted with nitrogen (obtained by distilling air)
under pressure and heated to about 650 to 750 F, then passed over
catalysts. This reaction is called the Haber-Bosch reaction, and it
allowed ammonia to be mass produced. About half of the protein in all
humans is derived from synthetic ammonia, or, to put it another way,
half of all humans owe their very existence to synthetic ammonia.
Plants and bacteria/algae/yeast convert this into amino acids, which
are the basic building blocks for life on this planet. The preferred
forms of input for these organisms are either nitrate (made by
oxidizing ammonia or amino acids) or ammonium ions, and there are
bacteria which both oxidize ammonia to nitrate (for energy) and which
also take nitrate and reduce it to nitrogen as their oxygen source.
That is the nitrogen cycle - fix N2 into NH3, oxidize it to NO3, and
then reduce it to N2. At present, about half of all ammonia made on
the planet is made by bacteria or cyanobacteria (special algae).
Plants such as beans and alfalfa set up a symbiotic relationship
between certain bacteria, where the plants supply sugars to the
bacteria, and the bacteria supply ammonia to the plant - a very fair
trade. Until, the early 1900's, almost all ammonia made in our
bioshpere was made via bacteria, but that has changed in the last
century - humans now supply the other half of the ammonia, either as
ammonia, ammonium salts, nitrate salts or as urea, which gets
converted to ammonia very easily.

So what does this have to do with electricity, and especially NYPA?
Well, it turns out that H2 can also be made with water and
electricity. And if that electricity is made in a non-polluting manner
(for example, with wind turbines and/or hydroelectricity), this is
"clean H2". In fact, making pure H2 is very easy electrolytically,
either as a by-product of chloralkali production (salt (sodium
chloride) water + electricity gives sodium hydroxide, chlorine and
hydrogen), or deliberately from water when potassium hydroxide is used
as the "salt"/electrolyte, and in this case the products are H2 and
oxygen. In Niagara Falls, about 2 tons of pure H2 are made every hour,
and almost all of this is used as boiler fuel. But, in the 1920's and
probably through WW2, that H2 was also used to make NH3, as it was in
Trail, British Columbia, Norway, eventually Iceland and in a couple of
places in Africa. But after WW2, natural gas became very cheap, and by
1990, most of the hydroelectric based plants had been converted over
to natural gas. Anyway, if there is spare electricity, converting it
to H2 and then into NH3 can not only produce jobs but it also
displaces fossil fuel consumption, which is a good thing both
economically AND environmentally. But the clean H2 has to compete with
fossil fuel derived H2, economically speaking.

However, in 2001, the US natural gas production peaked, and it has
been quite a struggle maintaining output close to that level. And the
world has apparently peaked in oil production in the 2005 to 2008 time
period. The combination of these two events has resulted in
significantly higher prices, with more of the same in store unless
demand can be drastically lowered; prices of both have tripled in the
last 5 years. Over half of the US ammonia production capability has
been shutdown recently, unable to stay as profitable as overseas
production sites, especially those in Trinidad, which used to have a
natural gas resource of about 20 trillion standard cubic feet (down to
around 17 trillion, and dropping by 1 trillion cubic feet per year),
and very few people on the islands to use it. Large quantities of NH3
and its derivative, urea, are made using Russian or Central Asian gas,
and also in the Middle East (Kuwait, Qatar, Saudia Arabia, etc). India
and China are also both large producers abut even bigger consumers,
and much of theirs is made using coal derived H2.

Anyway, lets say there was 120 MW of spare electricity made at a cost
of less than 0.5 c/kw-hr, and available at a delivered price of 2
c/kw-hr. Since it takes 22.4 kw-hr to make a pound of H2 using the
most efficient electrolysis cells, H2 could be made for about 44.8
cents/lb. But to make it simple, let's say 50 c/lb, with the N2
available at essentially no cost in comparison to the H2. To make 17
bs of NH3, 3 lbs of H2 are required, giving a raw material cost of
about $177/ton for NH3; add in $60/ton for other costs (industry
norms) and a production cost for Niagara Frontier NH3 would be around
$237/ton. With current boatload prices for imported NH3 going for at
least $650/ton, that leaves up to $413/ton for profit, right now.
Ammonia prices are on a steep upwards curve (also helping to raise the
price of food, far more than ethanol production will ever do), and
have tripled in the last 6 years. Since natural gas and ammonia are
tightly linked, as the price of natural gas rises, so will ammonia
prices. Furthermore, ammonia prices are also being set by demand to
the tune of at least another $200/ton above the production cost/normal
profit; after all, you would pay a lot to have at least some food,
especially if the food gets a bit scarce, in a world of 6.5 billion
people, roughly 3 billion above the "no synthetic ammonia" carrying
capacity of the planet for humans....

It turns out that 1 MW will make about 960 tons/yr of NH3. So that 120
MW of unused NYPA power could make 114,000 tons/yr of NH3. It turns
out that since an average acre of US cropland for corn could make 156
bushels, and requires 136 lbs of NH3 per acre of corn grown, the 120
MW could produce 262 million bushels/yr on 1.68 million acres (or 7.32
million tons/yr of corn) of cropland. Even if this was converted into
792 million gallons/yr of ethanol, that would still leave 2.64 million
tons/yr of high protein food concentrate (all of the proteins,
vitamins, minerals, oils and fiber in corn are unaffected by
fermentation, and often enhanced by it). Similar values could be
achieved by using this NH3 for wheat, barley, oats, rice, oilseeds,
sugar beets and other crops.

Of course, foods by themselves mean nothing in our modern world, even
when food riots (or riots caused by the lack of affordable food) seem
to be commonplace in other countries these days. Only money seems to
matter at least to the so-called decision makers and "powers that be".
So this 120 MW of electricity, with a value of 2 c/kw-hr, is worth
about $21 million/yr. But, sold as NH3, it's presently worth $79
million/yr. And sold as corn at $5/bushel, its worth $1.32 billion/yr
(you can't make corn at 156 bushels/acre without the NH3...although
you could make corn at a rate of 25 bushesl/acre with no NH3 added).
If converted to ethanol and DDGS (protein concentrate), its worth
$1.98 billion (EtOH at $2.5/gal) and $370 million (DDGS at $150/ton),
for a total of $2.35 billion. And that's just at today's
wholesale/bulk prices - since ethanol's price is determined by the
price of gasoline...well, that makes such numbers quite conservative.
And then there's the benefits that come from not sending $79
million/yr overseas to buy imported NH3, the ~ 3500 farms that are
freed from a major hydrocarbon addiction, and all the jobs that get
made along the way. Or the replacement of $2.5 billion of imported
gasoline (at todays low prices, too), or the equivalent crude oil made
into gasoline. It seems that NH3 can catalyze more than just the high
yield growth of plants, (but really the growth of plants with protein
in them).

As some would say, food for thought. And if there was more clean
renewable electricity (wind and hydro, not "clean coal", natural gas
and nukes) available, the CO2 byproduct from the fermentation of the
starches in corn could get converted to methanol, which could be used
to make biodiesel from vegetable/plant oils, like corn oil.

Or, we could just keep on using that electricity to make H2 for boiler
fuel, an absolutely minimal value added proposition, but one that at
least does not involve the expenditure of capital for capital
improvements by the two multinational companies making this H2 in
Niagara Falls. Heaven forbid that! Or that electricity at 2 c/kw-hr
could be tossed down a proverbial black hole for use to light up
incandescent light bulbs, and for those big screen TVs in air
conditioned rooms, possibly watching "American Idol", a show which
was recently given the award of "The Root of All Evil", beating out
High School for that coveted title (Lewis Black, so it must be true - see http://www.comedycentral.com/videos/index.jhtml?videoId=166444&title=ame...).

So, what's it going to be, replacing some of our fossil fuel
consumption and creating some manufacturing and farming jobs or
vegetating out in a bizarre Rapture of Evil? Enquiring minds want to
know.