Clean Hydrogen, Ammonia-powered Ships, Genetically Engineered Trees, and Sunscreen for the Planet
Hi, and welcome to the latest edition of the Green Innovations Newsletter! First, I'd like to address the ๐ in the room; we're a week late. Life and things happened, and while we can't promise it won't happen again, we'll try our hardest always to keep the last-Thursday-of-the-month cadence. ๐
Carrying on! In this issue, we're excited to bring you a fascinating look at the cutting-edge developments in sustainable technologies. Get ready to discover the potential of using fertiliser as fuel for ships, examine the alleged "green" credentials of hydrogen, and learn about new ways to speed up nature's direct air carbon capture. We'll even explore the concept of applying sunscreen to the planet!
So, buckle up and prepare to push the boundaries of your imagination as we delve into the latest advancements in sustainable innovation.
Ammonia: The New Fuel for Shipping?
Did you know that ammonia could power ships? Yeah, me neither. A company called Amogy is working towards exactly that. Letโs rewind a little.
Ammonia, a chemical compound that is typically associated with agriculture for producing fertilisers, might now revolutionise the maritime industry. As staggering 176 million tons of ammonia are produced each year, with 80% of it going to farming. But, it can also be โcrackedโ - which generates hydrogen, which in turn can be converted to energy
Amogy, a company in alternative energy sources, has developed a unique system that could potentially transform the shipping industry by using the by-products of ammonia as energy. The primary method they use is what they call 'ammonia cracking,' which generates hydrogen as a by-product. Hydrogen can then be used as the fuel source.
Theyโve built a system where they have a reactor to crack the ammonia and a fuel cell to convert the hydrogen into energy. Just like with hydrogen cars, only water is emitted. They proved the concept by installing their reactor and fuel cell on a tractor, and on a semi-truck - scaling the energy output up to 300kW.
This 13min explainer video is worth the watch.
Cargo ships need about 10MW to operate, so this technology needs to scale quite a lot still. Amogy is currently working on a 1MW barge, so theyโre getting there!
Check out this deep dive into their technology.
Is Hydrogen Really Green?
I thought hydrogen was a green fuel; the greenest. After all, hydrogen produces water on combustion. But No! Turns out that how green hydrogen is depends on how the hydrogen is produced, captured and stored. And 95% of the hydrogen produced today is actually quite dirty - gray hydrogen1.
The most common process of producing hydrogen today is Steam Methane Reforming (SMR). It involves reacting steam with natural gas at high temperatures to produce hydrogen and carbon monoxide. The carbon monoxide is reacted with additional steam to produce more hydrogen and COโ. Each kg of hydrogen produced through SMR produces 9.3 kgs of COโ. In comparison, one gallon of petrol produces 9.1 kgs of CO2. No wonder hydrogen contributes to 2.2% of global COโ emissions.
This is unfortunate as hydrogen will be a key source of zero-carbon fuel for steelmaking, cement production, industrial processes and even aviation. So how do we go from gray hydrogen to green hydrogen? There are several promising approaches being explored.
Hydrogen reserves are naturally found beneath the earthโs surface, like natural gas or oil. These reserves are not only clean, but also renewable. Unlike fossil fuels that are produced over millions of years, natural hydrogen is produced continuously when underground water reacts with iron minerals at high temperatures and pressures. Companies like Gold Hydrogen are tapping into these natural reserves to provide clean hydrogen.
Another approach is to split water into pure hydrogen and oxygen through a process called electrolysis. This requires high temperatures; temperatures that can be easily provided by nuclear reactors continuously. The US Department of Energy (DoE) has already teamed up with 4 different nuclear power plants to produce clean hydrogen.
A third approach is to use electricity from renewable sources like solar, wind and hydro to power electorlyzers (devices that split water into hydrogen and oxyen) for producing clean hydrogen. Startups like Electric Hydrogen are building plants that could produce clean hydrogen at scale.
While itโs still early days for clean hydrogen production, a breakthrough in this area could unlock a limitless supply of clean energy to power a sustainable future.
Speeding up Natureโs own Direct Air Capture
Direct air capture (DAC) has been gaining attention as a means to capture and remove COโ directly from the atmosphere. Startups like Travertine, Heirloom and Climeworks have been exploring innovative approaches of DAC.
Nature has its own technologies to capture excess COโ from the atmosphere. Photosynthesis is one. Now, what if we can enhance photosynthesis to capture and store more COโ than what nature typically does? That's the question that researchers at Living Carbon have been exploring and the outcome shows promise.
Living Carbon is a startup that has developed a hybrid poplar tree that can absorb ~27% more COโ than its unmodified cousin. The hybrid tree was developed by genetically modifying the DNA sequence of the tree so that it can
capture more carbon from the atmosphere via efficient photosynthesis, and
store more carbon as biomass through decay-resistent wood, which slows the release of carbon through decomposition.
These hybrid trees have just graduated from the lab and entered trial phase in the real world. I can only imagine how greener the world would be as more and more trees become "greener".
For a summary of the research check out this post. If that made you curious and you are hungry for more details, you can find the whitepaper here.
Sunscreen for the planet
How can we cool down a planet that is beginning to feel uncomfortably warm? By replacing CO2-emitting fossil fuels with clean energy sources like solar, wind, hydrogen, nuclear, etc., and by removing CO2 already in the atmosphere. Why? Because CO2 (and its equivalents like Methane) traps the heat from sunlight, heating up the Earth's atmosphere.
Now, what if we can prevent some of the sunlight from entering the Earth's atmosphere in the first place? Like applying sunscreen for the whole planet. In theory, this is indeed possible and is referred to as solar geoengineering. There are multiple approaches to do this, and one that is gaining attention is spraying the stratosphere with sulfur particles that reflect sunlight back. This occurs naturally during large volcanic eruptions which have in turn led to global temperature drops.
Can we artificially induce such cooling? Perhaps, and several experiments are already underway to find out. Make Sunset is a startup that's experimenting with sending balloons filled with sulfur particles into the stratosphere, where the particles will be released. A team of researchers in the UK launched a high altitude weather balloon filled with sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere.
Is it safe? Does it have any adverse side effects? Unfortunately, we do not fully know what negative impact such artificial cooling will have on our ecosystem. Nor do we know if it will work at scale in practice. Some researchers and scientists believe it could have dangerous side effects and that the impact could be worse in some regions than in others. There is, in fact, a growing voice against the use of solar geoengineering.
Is it a boon that will save the planet from a climate disaster, or a bane that hastens towards the disaster? Looks like only further research and experiments will tell.
Checkout this article for an update on the current state of solar geoengineering.
Next time onโฆ
Next month, weโll continue our deep dive into battery technology. We covered a bunch of them in โBeyond Lithium-Ion: A Look at Alternative Battery Technologies,โ - but there are so, so many more different types of batteries. See you next month!
Tell a friend & Feedback
If you like this newsletter, do us a favor and share it with a friend!
If you have any feedback (or found a typo!) for us, simply hit reply. ๐
Hydrogen Rainbow: Hydrogen is classified into different colors based on how it is produces, captured and stored.
Gray: Made using fossil fuels which release COโ.
Blue: Made using fossil fuels but the COโ released is captured and sequestered.
Green: Made using renewable electricity through a process called electrolysis that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Gold: Sourced from natural subsurface reserves.