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Re:We're going to need a lot of solar panels by Kim_Bruning on Saturday July 23, 2022 @10:00AM (#32203410)
https://www.oxfordenergy.org/wpcms/wp-content/uploads/2020/1...

Pure hydrogen has some handling difficulties which might be solved by binding it to carbon (eg in Methane: CH_4), or to nitrogen (eg in Ammonia: NH_3).

Ammonia production has as an advantage that nitrogen is available in large quantities in the earth's atmosphere (78%), and ammonia production and usage can therefore _theoretically_ be carbon-neutral (and in fact not involve carbon at all, ideally)

Methane production has as an advantage that you can produce it using atmospheric carbon capture (pulling CO_2 from the air), which means it could theoretically contribute to reduction of greenhouse gasses. A downside of atmospheric carbon capture is that earth atmosphere CO_2 is fairly low (0.04%) .

(note: Atmospheric CO_2 capture is also proposed for Mars ISRU (In-Situ resource utilization), which is one reason why SpaceX is using methane engines for its upcoming generation of (mars) rockets. There's some synergies / extra investments to be had in working on CO2 capture technologies)

(note 2: Current modern methane and ammonia production/delivery tend to use fossil hydrocarbons as the hydrogen donor, rather than water electrolysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_production#Modern_ammo... )

Re:We're going to need a lot of solar panels by pcdoodle on Saturday July 23, 2022 @03:14PM (#32206606)
This seems like a gold mine! thanks for the info.
Re:We're going to need a lot of solar panels by konschubert on Sunday July 24, 2022 @01:55PM (#32215907)
One thing to note: CH_4 burns cleaner than NH_3.
Re:We're going to need a lot of solar panels by ncmncm on Monday July 25, 2022 @02:02PM (#32228410)
Not unless you are burning it with pure oxygen.

Ammonia is injected into NG in gas turbines to scavenge N to stop NOx production: N is better at binding to N than to O. So, you just burn your NH3 slightly rich.