Morris, Minn.-Skeptics who doubt the economics of converting wind energy into hydrogen to produce anhydrous ammonia for fertilizer aren’t seeing the whole picture, according to researchers at the University of Minnesota’s West Central Research and Outreach Center. “There are other dynamics at work here that the critics may not be taking into consideration,” Mike Reese, a spokesman for the center, told Green Markets. “A system in which farmers can join together in an LLC or co-op to produce their own fertilizer at a moderate price for a 20-30 year period while developing a profitable wind enterprise certainly has potential.” Reese said the wind-to-hydrogen-to-ammonia project is in the pre-design stage, but could be producing ammonia in fall 2007. Greg Cuomo, another official with the center, said the project got a boost with a $2.5 million bonding bill approved this year by the state legislature and funding from the Renewable Energy and the Environment initiative. Reese explained that hydrogen is produced through electrolysis. Hydrogen and oxygen will be separated from water and wind electrical energy in an electrolyzer by a series of cells with special membranes under charge. In a different process, nitrogen will be separated from air via a molecular sieve. Then, under the appropriate pressure and temperature, hydrogen and nitrogen will be introduced together into a reactor and passed through a catalyst bed. A portion of the hydrogen and nitrogen will form NH3 in a modified Haber Bosch high pressure process.
Transparency Across the Fertilizer Value-Chain