[perihelions]

- "If there were a worrying problem with ammonia, you would already be hearing about it."

We hear about it pretty regularly,

https://www.google.com/search?q=ammonia+spill+site%3Areddit....

Fortunately the main use of anhydrous ammonia (agriculture) is in sparsely populated places, so its impact is limited. I think it's a questionable idea to put it in urban vehicles though.

[ncmncm]

Ammonia will not be used in urban vehicles.

It will be used in farm equipment, and in place of bunker oil in ships, and burned in combined-cycle turbines in times when wind and sun are not providing, and other, cheaper storage has been used up.

[Jistern]

Ammonia seems too dangerous. With cheap electricity from solar and wind, cheap hydrogen seems like a better answer. Sure, it's not a perfect answer, but it seems better because it seems much safer.

As recently as approximately 200 years ago steel was very expensive, as was aluminum. Now both of those materials are cheap and used in a plethora of applications.

Cheap electricity will similarly enable us to cost-effectively do many things that heretofore were prohibitively expensive.

The whole, "Hydrogen is bulky and difficult to store" canard of an argument doesn't sway me... at all. Hydrogen storage could certainly be improved, but even if it never were, for long distance shipping and air travel it's good enough as it is.

"But, but, but... you'd need to build ships and planes 50% larger!!!" Sure. Ok. Yes. The world is not running out of steel.

And, of course, if ships and planes were running on hydrogen instead of gasoline and diesel, a huge amount of research would go into improving hydrogen storage.

The Ford Nucleon (a nuclear-powered concept car) never made it into production, yet we do have nuclear submarines. Choosing the correct fuel for a given application is important.

[ncmncm]

You will see a very great deal of anhydrous ammonia stored, transported, and used, but will not be asked to handle it yourself. Shipmakers are already gearing up to retrofit ships with ammonia tanks, to burn in existing engines. Probably important ports will start to forbid docking of bunker-oil craft.

You probably will not have much contact with hydrogen, either.

[ncmncm]

A safety argument does not favor consumer-level use of hydrogen. Nor, of ammonia.

But synthetic liquified hydrogen, produced at airports from power delivered on transmission lines at times when power is cheapest, and banked, will certainly come to drive aircraft where cost matters.

[Jistern]

I think you are correct; I was very probably wrong. I did some research. NH3 (Ammonia) seems like it will be used, at least, to power large cargo ships in the near future.

I didn't realize that Ammonia is essentially a cheaper and easier way to store hydrogen.

Thanks for enlightening me! I appreciate it.