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Using ammonia as a shipping fuel could disturb the nitrogen cycle

Nature Energy volume 7, pages 1112–1114 (2022)Cite this article

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An Author Correction to this article was published on 14 March 2023

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Ammonia has been proposed as a shipping fuel, yet potential adverse side-effects are poorly understood. We argue that if nitrogen releases from ammonia are not tightly controlled, the scale of the demands of maritime transport are such that the global nitrogen cycle could be substantially altered.

Human activities have caused warming of Earth’s surface temperature by more than 1°C relative to pre–industrial levels through emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs)1. In an effort to reduce CO2 emissions, electricity and hydrogen are seen as potentially valuable energy carriers, as they are carbon–free and can be produced from a variety of low–emissions technologies. However, both options do have technical and economic challenges, particularly for long–term energy storage as well as for mobile applications with large on–board fuel storage requirements. The latter is required for maritime shipping, which is responsible for 2.9% of global energy–related CO2 emissions2. One solution that has been proposed to address these challenges is to use ammonia (NH3) (made from renewable energy) as a shipping fuel source3. While studies address various benefits and costs of this technological strategy4,5,6, none have assessed it in the context of the global nitrogen (N) cycle.

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Fig. 1: Global anthropogenic reactive nitrogen production by source, 2000–2015.

Change history

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Acknowledgements

In the course of our research, we reached out to a large network of scientists specializing in a variety of relevant fields, including nitrogen cycling, energy modeling, emissions estimation, and combustion physics. Their contributions were essential for this Comment. We wish to thank especially Felix Leach, Jasper Verschuur, Rene Banares (Oxford Uni), Martin Haigh (Shell), Epaminondas Mastorakos, Pedro M. de Oliveira (Cambridge Uni), David McCollum (ORNL), Matteo Craglia, Luis Martinez (ITF/OECD), Christopher Ramig (US EPA), Jackson Bryan (Uni Georgia), Bryan Comer, Dan Rutherford (ICCT), Maridee Weber, Haewon McJeon, Jay Fuhrman, and Patrick O’Rourke (JGCRI).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Joint Global Change Research Institute, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, MD, USA

    Paul Wolfram, Page Kyle & Steven Smith

  2. Appalachian Laboratory, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, Frostburg, MD, USA

    Xin Zhang

  3. Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

    Savvas Gkantonas

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  1. Paul Wolfram
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  2. Page Kyle
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  4. Savvas Gkantonas
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Correspondence to Paul Wolfram.

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Nature Energy thanks Eiko Nemitz, Agustin Valera-Medina and Elizabeth Lindstad for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Wolfram, P., Kyle, P., Zhang, X. et al. Using ammonia as a shipping fuel could disturb the nitrogen cycle. Nat Energy 7, 1112–1114 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-022-01124-4

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