Clean tech developer FuelPositive Corp., Toronto, on Dec. 14 announced that it has been approved to receive C$300,000 through the Canadian Agricultural Partnership (CAP) towards building the first of its three at-scale containerized green ammonia production demonstration systems.
The company has partnered with Tracy and Curtis Hiebert to pilot all three versions of the FuelPositive demo systems on their 11,000-acre crop farm, southwest of Winnipeg, Manitoba. The system will produce green anhydrous ammonia from water and air using sustainable electricity from Manitoba’s low-cost renewable electrical grid.
The green ammonia will be used as fertilizer on the farm in the spring of 2023. Ultimately, it will also be used as a clean fossil fuel replacement for farm machinery, heating, and grain drying.
Once on the Hiebert’s farm, the first demo system will be heavily monitored for a full year, which will provide results under dramatically different operational and weather conditions – from the frigid temperatures of the winter, through the potentially heavy floods of spring, to the blistering heat of the summer. Those ongoing results will shape future systems being built concurrently with the initial demonstration system.
FuelPositive, which began taking pre-sale orders for its system earlier this year (GM Sept. 23, p. 27), said its base system produces 100 mt/y of green ammonia and has a price tag of approximately C$950,000. Once it is produced at scale efficiency, the company said it will be able to offer greater savings.
The demo system will be housed in three 20-foot containers and will require a bulk ammonia storage tank, as well as a safety system of barriers, fencing, lighting, and surveillance cameras. Training will be delivered for the safe handling of ammonia, system operation, and system maintenance, all following the standard code of practice for anhydrous ammonia as published by Fertilizer Canada. Municipal approval for the on-farm system has already been secured.
CAP is a five-year, C$3 billion commitment by Canada’s federal, provincial, and territorial governments that supports Canada’s agri-food and agri-products sectors.