The Alaska Renewable-Source Ammonia Fuel Pilot Plant: Village Energy Independence, Firming Storage and Renewables Export

摘要

Alaska village survival is threatened by the high cost of imported fuels for heating, electricity generation, and vehicles. During Winter 2007-8, the price per gallon of heating oil and diesel generation fuel exceeded $8 in many villages. Many villagers were forced to move to Anchorage or Fairbanks. Although indigenous renewable energy (RE) resources may be adequate to supply a community’s total annual energy needs, the innate intermittent and seasonal output of the renewables – except geothermal, where available, which may be considered “baseload”--requires large-scale, low-cost energy storage to provide an annually-firm energy supply. Anhydrous ammonia, NH3, is the most attractive, carbon-free fuel for this purpose at Alaska village scale, because of its 17.8% mass hydrogen content and its high energy density as a lowpressure liquid, suitable for storage in inexpensive mild steel tanks. NH3 may be synthesized directly from renewable-source electricity, water, and atmospheric nitrogen (N2) via solid state ammonia synthesis (SSAS), a new process to be pioneered in Alaska.