Ammonia versus hydrogen for internal combustion engines [Alternative energy]

It's a battle royale! Who will come out on top? Will it be hydrogen or ammonia for alternative energy supremacy! Join alternative energy expert Greg Vezina to find out.

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Hey there and welcome back to Eggs. Today's guest is Ammonia and Alternative energy expert Greg Vezina.

This episode is a unique one for us in that it is a match that was totally inspired by the Eggs community. In recent months we have featured other alternative Energy Experts on the podcast including Andrew Murphey and Dr. Amit Roy to name a couple. Due to an outsized and unexpected reaction to those particular episodes by our community we've received a number of emails with more questions about the future of energy.

One such email came from listener Karim who sent this message, in part:

"Dear Eggs, My name is Karim and I have a question: What do you think of ammonia cars? Because there's a Youtube video about a 1981 Chevrolet Impala that had its V8 engine converted to run on ammonia, which is a mix of hydrogen with a little nitrogen, which makes the exhaust pipe cleaner and it's far cheaper than gasoline?"

The video he's referring to, as he continued in his note, was created in 2006 by CBC News in Canada and was later run internationally on CNN, featuring today's guest showcasing his then cutting edge technology. Indulge us for a second while we run the tape...

As you can see, even then, today's guest lived on the vanguard of Ammonia technology and the future of energy and is still a prominent leader in the space.

Thank you Karim for your note, and thanks to the community for making this connection happen. Joining us today for a lively discussion about Ammonia, hydrogen, and our world's energy future, please join us in welcoming to the show, Greg Vezina.

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Our Guest:
Greg Vezina

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[markbarber]

Like locomotives. Toyota recently spoke of a ratio 1:6:30 meaning of every EV battery you could make 6 plug in hybrids or 30 regular hybrid

[darldemon]

he's right, but the problem is making ammonia ("reverse cracking"), which is not easy to do with renewables.

[corbinschad]

Agreed. Only difference is I would use capacitors for a buffer instead of batteries.

[dougriedweg]

Spot on. A Canadian fella years ago ran his car on straight ammonia he couldn’t find interest. Farmers inject ammonia into soil as fertilizer. Edison motors is proving a generator with an electric drive works for heavy hauling. Even with a diesel generator they calculate double the fuel mileage. Rock on keep up the good work

[TravisTellsTruths]

This is exactly the type of stuff I've been thinking of. We're really into it. There's more.

[nolan]

This is essentially the same fuel model as a plug-in/range-extended hybrid electric vehicle, where you have a fuel available to power a generator when the moderate-sized battery needs additional energy to power the drive-train. The only thing I would note is that using a combustion engine for your generator will likely be less efficient than a fuel cell for turning that fuel back into electricity.

[eaglechawks]

I think what you have here is the prescription for hybrid 18-wheelers for long haul applications. You could also combine this tech with the direct ammonia to hydrogen for fuel cells tech to give your 18 wheeler its own charge station while the driver sleeps his mandated hours.

[glike]

Great for cold climates, old long range big trucks.

[ml.]

Ammonia has some big challenges to overcome first, but it does hold great promise.

Ammonia engine N2O tailpipe emissions as low as 20ppm are equivalent to a gasoline engine greenhouse gases from CO2. N2O is 300x worse of a greenhouse gas than CO2.

That's just one issue. Ammonia is also a pretty dangerous chemical to human health, has a slow flame propagation and very high ignition temperature. It really isn't suited to cars but would be better in big marine applications.

[pastmasterdan]

When he talks about “cracking” the ammonia, the point is, gasoline is not cracked or it would be and actual “gas” and not a liquid. I had read there was an Canadian who claimed to “crack” gasoline but I’ve never seen a follow up. That was over 15 years ago. Cracking hydrocarbons is difficult.

[chrismuir]

While it is technically possible to run an internal combustion engine on hydrogen or ammonia, it's a really bad idea. Using the difficult to store and expensive hydrogen fuel in an inherently inefficient internal combustion engine vehicle results in absurdly short driving ranges and insanely high fuel costs. Hydrogen fuel cell cars are more efficient so get reasonable ranges, but still have high fuel costs.

The advantage of ammonia is it is much easier to store as it liquifies under pressure, so it can achieve reasonable driving ranges with IC engines. Leak detection is very easy due to its distinctive odor. Unfortunately, it's even more expensive than hydrogen as a fuel, and produces extremely high NOx emissions.

[Mike-hrjz]

Capacitors in series we already have them they work like a battery for the lag.

[kiyosenl.]

This man could use a lesson on thermodynamics, theres a reason why hybrid cars use both a combustion engine and electric motor to power the vehicle and don't only use the gasoline motor to power it, that being every time you change the state of that electricity it wastes some as heat, combustion engines aren't very efficient as is, but using them to power an electric motor thats 99% efficient doesn't make the engine any more efficient, in fact it's less efficient to convert that kinetic energy into DC electricity, then to chemical energy, then partially back to DC electricity and partially putting it through a converter into AC then into an electric motor, every step of that loses energy, thing is combustion engines are really inefficient when changing speed and gears often, cause you are never in that sweet spot rpm, so we collect energy from the engine at times when its not needed as much and put it into a battery so we can use an electric motor to drive the car at times that would normally cause your rpm in the engine to be all over the place, that being mostly low speed driving, and we use it to assist the car when it's deemed more efficient to do so, that way when we have stable rpms it relies primarily on the gas engine which is working very efficiently, if you just use the engine to provide power for the batteries to then power a motor you will find it to be much less efficient because that conversion has to be used for every drop of power, and you will need a larger/less efficient engine to compensate which will use more fuel

[josemathew]

Sodium pellets to be wrapped in Aluminum foils. Pellets to be admitted to closed chamber. Spray water in . Hydrogen will evolve for Engines and fuel cells. Effluent, Sdium Hydroxide can be electrolised to recover Sodium. Sodium is suitable as energy carrier as its storage and weight favourable.

[philipfreeman]

Anyone who has used a cutting torch knows oxygen is necesary . HHO & lean burn diesel works .

[Kenny-O-creates]

Trains are electric with diesel powered generators very efficient

[lowrangeinnovascotia]

So have electric motors to drive the vehicle and a zero emission ice running on hydrogen or ammonia to power the electric motors.
So a 50hp engine/generator powering a small battery pack which is driving the electric motors. Of course it would work and be quite simple, if…IF it is profitable to do so. And I mean profitable to car and fuel companies. I prefer gas/diesel and love the sound of open headers, but I recognize the quiet pleasures of an electric trolling motor on my boat.

[COM]

Very interesting, it’s difficult to listen to someone shouting at you for longer periods though.

[rdeizer]

So wich is the most efficient, easy and chep to crack the ammonia to produce hydrogen

[B-rad]

Does this dry out the piston rings like alcohol?