Midwestern farmers seeking fertilizer security are now looking to ammonia as a way to make fertilizer and fuel.

As we all know, farmers are very practical. What works, works.

What they have figured out is a quicker way to get to the hydrogen economy. (See a brief discussion of the hydrogen economy here.) Ammonia is the short cut they have discovered. To farmers, ammonia is the practical person’s hydrogen.

Ammonia can be made from geothermal and it is a dual-use product. It’s commonly used for nitrogen fertilizer, and it can be used for fuel in internal combustion engines (diesel as well as gas). Ammonia was used to power the rocket powered X-15 aircraft a long time ago. Maybe it can be used as jet fuel, too? Here is a link to the Ammonia Fuel Network.

The problem with straight hydrogen (H2) is that the molecule is so tiny it leaks all over the place. So in a hydrogen economy, our whole infrastructure, from gas cans on up, would need to be retrofitted. Ammonia (NH3) is a larger molecule and can work with present propane containers and pipelines. And because ammonia is more efficient as a carrier of hydrogen than is straight hydrogen, it is cheaper to move around.

It can be made from many renewable energy sources at many locations. It can be made using unused geothermal energy, and then stored for later use. This makes geothermal power even more valuable.

Farmers use ammonia all the time when planting their crops, so they are familiar and comfortable with its uses.

It’s not a done deal and there are limitations – such as that ammonia has half the energy of gas. So a car with a 20-gallon tank would need a 40-gallon tank to travel the same distance.

But what I’m doing is raising the question. I’m saying: Since ammonia is a thinking person’s hydrogen, instead of having to change every single car and every single service station, why not use it until we figure out something better? At this point, it actually seems doable.

It could be created using the off-peak geothermal energy the utility does not use. That makes it cheap.

Geothermal is a great Hawaiian resource. We are having discussions about it with the community right now. Decisions about increasing our use of geothermal need to come from the bottom up and not the top down. I need to repeat this: “It needs to come from the bottom up. Not the top down!”