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Environmental advocates say new rules announced Thursday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency should close a loophole that has helped power plant operators skirt responsibility for toxic coal ash pollution at scores of sites nationwide.
Two rules — part of a suite of new regulations on fossil fuel power plants that also include the first-ever carbon emissions limits — may offer the broadest tools yet for forcing cleanup of hundreds of ponds, landfills, and impoundments known to be holding coal ash, a byproduct of burning coal.
Coal ash has been piling up for more than a century wherever coal has been burned as an energy source. Some has wound up in landfills. Some has been repurposed as construction fill. Some still sits in unlined ponds or piles next to power plants. It was mostly unregulated until recent years as its danger to public health became better known.
The initial attempts to regulate coal ash were incomplete. The U.S. EPA’s 2015 coal ash rules covered only active repositories — exempting about half of all known dump sites including landfills, ponds closed before 2015, and sites where ash was scattered or dumped. Advocates have fought to expand the rules ever since.
The new, finalized Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) rule essentially prohibits any pollution of groundwater or water bodies by coal plant sites, regardless of the exact source.
Meanwhile the new Effluent Limitation Guidelines (ELGs) address wastewater released from power plants, including water used to clean bottom ash out of boilers. The effluent rules, proposed last spring, represent the first-ever regulations on coal plant wastewater, which includes contaminated water that has seeped through coal ash, and water drained from coal ash impoundments in preparation for closing.
Companies have been able to avoid cleaning up even regulated coal ash ponds that were leaking, by blaming groundwater contamination on nearby unregulated coal ash sources, environmental attorneys have long argued.
“So there’s a huge loophole that we will hopefully be closing,” said Environmental Integrity Project senior attorney Abel Russ during one of two online press conferences held by environmental attorneys and advocates before the rules’ release. “What EPA proposed would require basically sitewide corrective action and cleanup, whatever the source is, and owners will no longer be able to point to an unregulated unit and avoid a cleanup. This will also lead to clean up plans that are actually going to do what they’re supposed to do, which is restore groundwater quality.”
“We’ll finally eliminate the shell game of ‘Oh contamination came from that pile, not this pile,’” added Frank Holleman, coordinator of the Southern Environmental Law Center’s regional coal ash initiative. “The utilities will finally step up to the plate and be law-abiding citizens, and clean up this historic mess that the utilities are well capable of cleaning up and which should have been cleaned up years and years ago.”
The new rule will also for the first time regulate “historic” coal ash that has been scattered and dumped around coal plant sites and even in surrounding communities, often without records even being kept.
“It may be underlying buildings, it may be underlying playgrounds, it’s basically everywhere,” said Sierra Club staff attorney Megan Wachspress. “The first step under the rule is for coal plant operators to actually figure out and delineate where this stuff is. When we talk about implementation, that’s making sure all of this dumped ash actually becomes accounted for.”
Earthjustice senior attorney Lisa Evans praised the new rules, but noted that change depends on meaningful enforcement. Indeed, the 2015 federal rules were barely enforced until 2022, when the Biden administration’s EPA began issuing denials of cleanup extension requests and violation notices to coal ash site operators.
Attorneys said the coal ash and ELG rules work in tandem, with the coal ash rules covering groundwater near coal ash impoundments, and the ELG rules addressing surface water near power plants — both coal and new gas plants.
“The two rules are necessary and complementary to each other and point in the same direction, which is that they are contaminating groundwater, they’re contaminating the surface waters that run alongside them,” said Earthjustice attorney Thom Cmar. “Both standards work in complementary ways to set a high bar that points toward cleanup and environmental protection to make sure these dangerous sites are fully cleaned up.”
Holleman said that for decades, the powerful coal industry has avoided taking seemingly obvious precautionary measures.
“If you have solid waste with toxic substances in it, you can’t dump it in an unlined pit below the water table sitting next to a river, you’ve got to put it in a modern landfill,” said Holleman. “That’s true even with kitchen garbage in America. And secondly, if you discharge water containing toxic substances like arsenic, mercury, you’ve got to treat it before you discharge it in the river. That is the sum total, in many ways, of these two rules. That is not cutting edge. That’s just the basic, environmentally responsible — and I’d say humanely moral — thing to do.”
While advocates said they are pleased with the attention the Biden administration and specifically EPA Administrator Michael Regan have paid to coal ash, they worry gains could be precarious.
“If the next administration [has] no interest in enforcement, the public interest community will carry a very heavy burden,” said Evans, citing various measures taken by the Trump administration to weaken the federal coal ash rules and other coal-related protections. If Trump is elected in 2024, she said, “I have no doubt that the administration will either try the same thing again or not enforce the rule, which would be disastrous.”
While the coal ash rule would force the cleanup of coal plant sites even after the plants close, the wastewater rules could force companies to implement expensive pollution controls, or decide to close rather than making the investment.
“It makes a lot of sense for coal plant operators to really take a hard look at the economics of retiring rather than expending additional funds, oftentimes captive ratepayer funds, retrofitting these units,” said Sierra Club senior attorney Joshua Smith.
Activist Dulce Ortiz said the new coal ash rules could help reverse the “painful history” of industrial pollution in her home of Waukegan in northern Illinois, the site of five of Illinois’s 11 Superfund sites. Ortiz and others have been demanding the cleanup of coal ash at a shuttered NRG coal plant on the Lake Michigan shore, with little response.
“Waukegan has dreamed for years and still does dream of revitalizing our lakefront. We have aspirational lakefront plans that have seen little to no success in coming to fruition in part because of the amount of contamination that remains at many of these sites… When we allow companies to pollute our communities and not force them to clean up, we deter future investment in these sites and our communities at large.”
Ortiz, founder of Clean Power Lake County and a Waukegan Township trustee, continued that, “My vision for my family and my community is that I can take my children swimming in Lake Michigan without worrying about toxic pollution, groundwater pollution…A lakefront with open space that respects our environment, where corporate profit does not override the health needs of our families… I want to see a clean energy future for Waukegan and all communities that have borne the brunt of coal ash pollution for decades.”
OVERSIGHT: As Georgia’s regulatory board goes years without elections, a group of Black voters appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to shift from at-large elections to having each commissioner elected by voters in the district where they live. (Grist/WABE)
GRID:
SOLAR:
PIPELINES:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Tesla announces it will lay off 10% of its workforce, including 2,688 employees at its headquarters and flagship factory in Texas. (Houston Chronicle)
NUCLEAR: A nuclear energy company building an advanced fuel facility in Tennessee receives a $148.5 million tax credit from the federal government. (Knoxville News Sentinel)
EMISSIONS: A new report shows the Houston area has the second worst air quality in the country, according to data from the U.S. EPA. (Houston Chronicle)
COMMENTARY:
GRID: Power outages stemming from severe weather across the U.S. have surged 74% in the past decade compared to the decade before, showing another tangible effect of global warming, a climate group’s analysis finds. (Guardian)
ALSO:
OFFSHORE WIND:
ELECTRIC VEHICLES:
AIR QUALITY: Nearly 40% of U.S. residents were exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution last year, an increase from the year before thanks to wildfires and extreme heat. (Guardian)
HYDROGEN: A U.S. Energy Department advisory committee says the clean hydrogen industry isn’t growing fast enough and needs further federal help to meaningfully help the U.S. reach net-zero emissions by 2050. (E&E News)
PUBLIC LANDS: A wave of new federal rules and plans aim to leverage public lands for clean energy development while protecting vulnerable ecosystems. (Canary Media)
SOLAR:
OVERSIGHT: As Georgia’s regulatory board goes years without elections, a group of Black voters appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to shift from at-large elections to having each commissioner elected by voters in the district where they live. (Grist/WABE)
PIPELINES: Environmental groups sue to challenge federal regulators’ approval of an extension for the Mountain Valley Pipeline’s spur into North Carolina, arguing the project has changed so much the pipeline should be required to start the permitting process over. (Cardinal News)
WIND: The Northern Chumash Tribe and wind energy companies agree to a phased establishment of a national marine sanctuary along central California’s coast that would clear the way for offshore wind development while providing protections the tribe seeks. (KCLU)
ALSO: The Biden administration plans to lease up to a dozen new federal offshore wind tracts over the next five years, including ones in California and Hawaii. (Associated Press)
SOLAR:
BATTERIES: Battery storage system output was the largest power source on California’s grid for the first time this week, surpassing natural gas, hydroelectric and wind generation for about two hours. (Renew Economy)
UTILITIES:
POLLUTION: The American Lung Association finds the Los Angeles area continues to be the nation’s smoggiest region, even though air quality has improved significantly over the last three decades. (Los Angeles Times)
HYDROGEN: The nation’s first commercial hydrogen fueling station for big-rig trucks opens at a port in Oakland, California. (Los Angeles Times)
OIL & GAS:
PUBLIC LAND: Western advocates and Republican lawmakers prepare for a legal battle over the Biden administration’s new federal public lands rule aimed at putting conservation on a par with extractive uses. (Utah News Dispatch, Source NM)
CLIMATE: The National Science Foundation awards an Alaska university $20 million to study how climate change could affect the state’s fishing and aquaculture industries. (KTOO)
BIOFUELS: Construction begins on a 13.4 MW power plant in California that will be fueled by wastewater-derived biogas. (Microgrid Knowledge)
Editor’s note: The following story has been updated to include responses from the Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative that were inadvertently overlooked prior to original publication.
An Illinois bill that started as a protection for solar-powered doorbells has developed into comprehensive proposed legislation to break down the barriers confronting rural electric cooperative members seeking to install solar.
Many residents and solar developers say the measure is sorely needed, since electric cooperative members often face arbitrary and changing interconnection, compensation and liability policies from the cooperatives.
Illinois HB5315, called a “Solar Bill of Rights” and introduced Feb. 29, would require the state’s more than 50 cooperatives and municipal utilities to allow net metering until a certain threshold of solar penetration is met, and develop “shared policy” on solar that must be approved by the Illinois Commerce Commission.
The bill would prohibit problematic requirements often reported by electric cooperative members, including complicated insurance requirements, lengthy interconnection processes and restrictions on system size, solar leases and power purchase agreements. People with solar would also continue under the same billing terms for 25 years after installing systems.
“Customers of municipal electric utility systems and rural electric cooperatives often do not have the same opportunities as customers of investor-owned utilities” to get solar, says the bill.
Scott Allen, renewable energy policy coordinator for the Citizens Utility Board, said the organization tends to get more calls about solar problems from electric cooperative members than customers of the two investor-owned-utilities that serve the majority of the state’s population.
“Members aren’t satisfied with their rates of compensation, the cost of engineering studies, and the fact that policies can change with little or no notice,” Allen said. “Many people invest in solar, and sign net metering agreements with a pretty good idea of how long it will take to recover their costs, then the policy changes, and their financial outlook changes dramatically. Members don’t have a clear understanding of how, or to whom they address their concerns. Often, the rules about addressing the [electric cooperative] board are unclear, and in some cases, it can take months to get a few minutes on the agenda.”
Mike Wilson, vice president of member and community relations for Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative, said the utility has heard concerns about difficulties installing solar at its board meetings, and in one recent such case, “the board listened intently to the concerns expressed and engaged in discussion with the member to address them.”
The 2021 Climate & Equitable Jobs Act (CEJA) required electric cooperatives to interconnect rooftop solar installations, but the cooperatives still institute size limits, requirements for expensive liability insurance and other barriers, critics say.
Electric cooperatives and municipal utilities are not regulated by the Illinois Commerce Commission in the same way it oversees investor-owned utilities ComEd and Ameren. The cooperatives were started as ways for rural residents to run their own electric systems democratically. But critics say the boards that administer the cooperatives often lack meaningful public input procedures, and have not made adequate efforts to embrace the clean energy economy. Proponents of cooperatives and municipal utilities meanwhile note that they offer citizens more direct control, at least theoretically, than investor-owned utilities, without a profit motive.
“Ultimately, we have concerns about any legislation that removes local governance from cooperatives, since that is one of our core principles,” Wilson said.
Allen emphasized the bill “is not about removing local control from any units of local government, it’s about making sure consumers are protected.”
“We’re trying to adopt a universal or semi universal standard for everybody across the state, where we have 30-plus municipal utilities, 25-26 distribution cooperatives, and they each have different policies, different ways they compensate their customers, and these policies can change whenever the board or city council wants to make that change,” he said. “It’s caused a lot of problems for individuals who got their system sized and financed based on one set of information, and the next year that information changes.”
The Association of Illinois Electric Cooperatives did not respond to requests for comment. Especially given potential pushback from electric cooperative interests, the bill may be unlikely to pass during the legislative session that ends May 24, in which case it would likely be reintroduced next year.
After Meredith Barnes and her husband purchased a home and started a lavender farm in central Illinois, they hoped to install solar. The Eastern Illini Electric Cooperative closed its net metering program in July 2020 after solar reached 5% of its load, with 430 households out of about 13,500 having solar.
“EIEC has developed local policies that seek to balance our ability to provide safe electric service that equitably recovers fixed costs, while also maintaining grid reliability and ensuring fairness to all members when providing credit for excess renewable generation,” Wilson said.
Barnes and her husband — who installed their array last year — receive only a low flat rate known as “excess electricity value” for power they send back to the grid.
Barnes noted that the flat rate is set annually, so households with solar don’t benefit if electricity prices rise, theoretically making solar more valuable. And the rate is much lower than the retail rate that cooperative members with net metering would get.
The bill would allow cooperatives to cap net metering at a set threshold, but the Illinois Commerce Commission would approve a “fair value of solar” that cooperatives and municipal utilities would be expected to offer through other billing structures.
“The equitable value of solar is definitely not what they’re paying us,” Barnes said. “They say [the flat rate] will go up, but when? There should be a minimum standard [paid for solar] across the state.”
Barnes said she’s had difficulty communicating with cooperative board members and understanding how the flat rate is set. Such lack of transparency is a common complaint among electric cooperatives, consumer and solar advocates say.
“The flat rate is very muddy. It’s just weird,” Barnes said. “The cooperative doesn’t like when you try to talk to them about it.”
Barnes tries to use as much of the electricity from her array as possible. “Since I have a farm and work from home, I can do laundry during the day, I can run the dishwasher during the day,” she said. “For someone who works at an office from 8 to 5, that’s not possible.”
Buying a battery to store their own energy was too expensive, she added.
“What we did is bought an electric vehicle and we only charge it when it’s sunny. It’s like our battery, I’m not sending as much back to the grid because I’m going to store it in my vehicle.”
The Solar Bill of Rights legislation does not address net metering or other policies for the state’s two investor-owned utilities, ComEd and Ameren, whose rates are determined in proceedings before the Illinois Commerce Commission. These utilities will end net metering in 2025, replacing it with a rebate for solar systems.
“We don’t want to compare investor-owned utilities to cooperatives,” said Allen. “There is an argument to be made that Ameren and ComEd have quite a bit more solar installed in their territories, they’ve kind of reached a decent threshold, whereas municipal utilities and cooperatives are lagging behind.”
When state Rep. Daniel Didech (D-59) and supporters began drafting the bill, it was meant to make sure that municipalities and counties couldn’t ban small solar collectors on the fronts of homes meant to power smart doorbells or other appliances. That language, still in the bill, expanded to ensure that these government bodies can’t ban solar arrays more generally. (The bill does not apply to shared roofs or buildings over 60 feet tall.)
A state law already bans homeowners associations from restricting solar for aesthetic or other reasons. But some Illinoisans still face restrictions from local government agencies. That was the case in the Chicago suburb of Sugar Grove until a village board meeting on April 16. There, board members overturned a ban on solar on front-facing rooftops, thanks to an energetic campaign by homeowners Becky Brocker and Mike Rayburn.
Advocates and solar developers say municipal restrictions like Sugar Grove had are actually rare. The only other well-known case is Kildeer, Illinois, which removed a total ban on solar in February and still prohibits front-facing arrays. But, advocates said, it’s still important to codify the right to solar statewide, especially as official opposition may arise more frequently as more and more people install solar.
“When [Didech] expanded the bill, he was thinking ahead that these sorts of covenants exist in places we don’t know about yet, just trying to get out ahead of any units of local government that might catch on to, ‘Hey, we can restrict solar for whatever reason we want to,’” said Allen.
John Delurey, deputy program director of the organization Vote Solar, noted that more than 75,000 small solar arrays have been installed statewide since the 2017 Future Energy Jobs Act created incentives. But preventing any future barriers to solar, and smoothing the way in electric cooperative territory, is crucial to make sure that growth continues, he said.
“In rural areas, counties may be the bodies with jurisdiction. I’m sure there are still people in Illinois having trouble because one person on a zoning committee doesn’t like solar,” said Delurey. “It drains everybody’s resources to roam around and play whack-a-mole with all these different rules.”
Electric vehicle factories are booming in the Southeast. Soon, unions could be too.
Chattanooga, Tennessee’s Volkswagen plant made history last week when 73% of its workers voted to join the United Auto Workers. It’s a big victory for the UAW in the historically hard-to-organize Southeast, and a win for two top Biden administration priorities: increasing union labor and domestic EV manufacturing.
“The union has broken the glass ceiling that unions could not organize in the South,” Harley Shaiken, a professor emeritus who studies labor issues at the University of California, Berkeley, told E&E News. “This could become a forerunner for the role that the UAW and unions will play in the transition to EVs.”
The UAW last year secured higher wages and other worker benefits from the Big Three automakers, and after that set its sights on EV makers that have started popping up in the South. Next up, the UAW will push for a union at an Alabama Mercedes-Benz factory that recently started making EVs, as well as a nearby EV battery plant. The UAW says so far, a “supermajority” of workers at those plants back a union.
John Logan, labor professor at San Francisco State University, told Reuters that Mercedes is fighting the union effort far more aggressively than VW did. But if the UAW succeeds at unionizing Mercedes, “I wouldn’t be surprised to see elections at Hyundai, Honda and Toyota over the next several months,” he said.
Tesla, BMW, and Nissan plants are also targeted as part of the union’s $40 million organizing campaign. And while E&E News notes the UAW doesn’t have plans to unionize any standalone battery plants yet, they could be next.
— Kathryn Krawczyk
☀️ Solar for all: The U.S. EPA announces $7 billion in grants for the first 60 projects in its Solar for All program, which aim to expand solar power access in low- and middle-income communities. (Associated Press)
🚘 Chargers take charge: The U.S. now has a fast charging station for every 15 gas stations after adding 600 new stations so far this year, as Tesla continues to build out its network and federal funding helps patch charging deserts. (Bloomberg)
🏭 Power plant rule change: Hydrogen industry leaders and environmentalists expect the U.S. EPA to exclude hydrogen from its final power plant emissions rule, leaving carbon capture as the only option for gas plants looking to reduce emissions to meet the regulation. (E&E News)
🕳️ Shortchanged on fossil fuel cleanup: The federal Bureau of Land Management’s newly calculated oil and gas reclamation bonds are based on faulty calculations, and won’t charge fossil fuel companies enough to cover eventual well cleanup costs. (Capital & Main/ProPublica)
⚡️ Rethinking the grid: Virtual power plants, dynamic line ratings, and other advanced grid technologies could open up space on the grid for more electricity while staving off the need for costly, time-consuming transmission construction, a new U.S. Energy Department roadmap finds. (Canary Media)
🌎 Climate action is cheaper: Unmitigated climate change and continued burning of fossil fuels would cost the world an estimated $38 trillion in damages by 2050, six times the cost of transitioning to clean energy and curbing warming, according to a peer-reviewed study. (Axios)
👷 Climate workers wanted: The White House launches a website that lists openings and accepts applications for the Climate Corps jobs and training program. (NPR)
🌊 Big turbines, big problems: GE Vernova’s cancellation of its plans to build one of the biggest wind turbines ever designed is one reason New York rejected several previously authorized offshore wind projects. (E&E News, Politico)
💧 Waste not: Improving wastewater treatment processes could save the U.S. $15.6 billion, reduce energy costs and slash the sector’s greenhouse gas emissions, a peer-reviewed study finds. (The Hill)
POLICY: Several environmental organizations sue two Maine state agencies for failing to protect residents from climate change, citing a lack of compliance with greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets and the recent failure of new clean car rules. (Portland Press Herald, Bangor Daily News)
ALSO: Connecticut’s legislature is considering four major climate bills right now, but observers say not all will make it to a vote. (CT Mirror)
SOLAR:
HYDROPOWER: A developer argues in court that Maine didn’t explain well enough why it rejected a permit needed for federal regulators to relicense a Kennebec River hydroelectric dam. (E&E News, subscription)
OFFSHORE WIND:
GRID: While construction continues on the $6 billion Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line, slated to bring 1.25 GW of hydropower from Canada to New York City, some groups still hold concern for the impact on Native lands. (Business Insider)
FOSSIL FUELS:
TRANSIT:
BUILDINGS: Efficiency Vermont creates a new calculator to show state residents all the incentives, rebates, programs and offers available for them to make green home upgrades. (WCAX)
ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Global electric vehicle sales will hit a new record this year, and prices will be comparable to gasoline-powered cars by 2030, the International Energy Agency predicts. (Guardian)
ALSO: The United Auto Workers’ win at a Tennessee Volkswagen factory sets up another push next month at an Alabama Mercedes-Benz factory — and from there to auto factories in Georgia and South Carolina. (Politico; AL.com; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, subscription)
CLIMATE:
SOLAR:
NUCLEAR: A new report questions whether increasingly extreme weather could threaten the safety or viability of aging nuclear power plants. (Yale Environment 360)
PIPELINES:
GRID:
INDUSTRY: A Minnesota startup company wants to help customers convert diesel engines to burn ammonia, a potential climate solution whose benefits hinge on how the chemical is produced. (Energy News Network)
CLIMATE: California Gov. Gavin Newsom unveils a climate plan that would see the state leverage more than 50 million acres of its land to optimize carbon absorption and reduce wildfire risk. (Los Angeles Times)
ALSO: A Wyoming city and tribal nation seek federal greenhouse gas emissions-reduction funds for solar projects, microgrids and electric vehicles after the state refused to apply for the grants. (Inside Climate News)
UTILITIES: California lawmakers kill legislation that would have tightened regulations prohibiting utilities from spending ratepayer funds on advertising or lobbying. (Associated Press)
SOLAR:
WIND: The federal Bureau of Land Management extends the public scoping period for the proposed 600 MW Jackalope wind facility in Wyoming. (Cheyenne Post)
EFFICIENCY: Honolulu officials plan to extend efficiency measures to 80 additional facilities after they saved the city $2.7 million in utility costs last year. (KHON)
CLEAN ENERGY: Utah cities scramble to find clean energy sources after Rocky Mountain Power decided to postpone its planned coal-generation phaseout. (Salt Lake Tribune)
TRANSPORTATION:
WIND: The federal Bureau of Land Management extends the public scoping period for the proposed 600 MW Jackalope wind facility in Wyoming. (Cheyenne Post)
BATTERIES: Colorado’s economic development commission approves $1.1 million in incentives for a proposed sodium-ion battery manufacturing facility in the northeastern part of the state. (Greeley Tribune)
LITHIUM: California advocates file a lawsuit challenging a proposed direct lithium extraction operation at the Salton Sea, saying the county’s review downplays the project’s water use and other environmental impacts. (inewsource)
COAL: Federal regulators indicate they will nullify a new Montana law loosening water quality standards for coal mines because it is weaker than federal rules. (Montana Free Press)
OIL & GAS: The federal Bureau of Land Management seeks public input on a proposal to revoke oil and gas leases on 6,000 acres in the Permian Basin that are the target of an environmentalists’ lawsuit. (KRQE)
A Minnesota company is among a growing number of startups nationwide hoping to help customers replace diesel and natural gas with ammonia in industrial applications.
“It’s not as big of a leap as you might think to retool and change an engine from running diesel to ammonia,” said Aza Power co-founder and CEO Seamus Kane. The company is developing conversion kits that allow diesel engine owners to switch their energy source to ammonia and reduce their carbon emissions.
Ammonia is a pairing of hydrogen and nitrogen, which means it doesn’t emit carbon when burned. Its production is typically very carbon intensive, however, accounting for about 2% of the world’s total carbon emissions, according to the International Energy Agency.
More than 70% of ammonia produced today ends up as liquified gas in nitrogen fertilizer that farmers inject into soil. Other major uses for ammonia include as a refrigerant and cleaning solution. The chemical has a long history as an experimental transportation fuel, having been a base for a NASA and Air Force jet, the X-15, that set a speed record in the 1960s that has not been matched.
Today, startups are also testing ammonia as a combustion fuel and as a medium for transporting hydrogen, another potential clean energy source in which the federal government is investing billions of dollars.
In the last few years, several countries have begun producing “green” ammonia using renewable electricity. China, India and Australia are building green ammonia plants to mainly serve hydrogen fuel cell vehicles.
Aza Power is a spinoff of research at the University of Minnesota Morris, where a facility uses wind power to produce green ammonia and hydrogen. Will Northrop, director of the University of Minnesota’s Thomas E. Murphy Engine Laboratory in Minneapolis, has been studying and testing the idea of replacing diesel with ammonia in tractors and other engines since 2016. A few years ago he received $12.5 million from the Legislature to study ammonia as an energy carrier.
The company sells conversion hardware allowing clients to switch from fossil fuels to ammonia and offers a maintenance agreement to provide any required service after installation. Kane, the co-founder, said that any machine with a piston engine is a prospect for conversion.
The company’s core technology replaces diesel fuel injector components in common diesel engines used in trucks, earthmovers, tractors, generators and other products.
“We would be able to package the technology so that it can go for a bunch of different engines,” he said.
The company recently received support and funding from the clean energy incubator Grid Catalyst and from Minnesota Energy Alley, a new program managed by Clean Energy Economy Minnesota.
Ammonia has potential advantages as a clean fuel. One is that it’s already one of the most commonly produced chemicals in the world. A global distribution network exists for producing, storing and transporting about 175 million tons annually.
In addition to use as a combustion fuel in certain engines, ammonia could serve as a safe and efficient way to transport hydrogen. Its production can be reversed, splitting off the hydrogen in a process known as “cracking.” Ammonia’s ability to store energy is eight to 12 times higher than the best performing lithium-ion batteries based on measures such as kilowatt hours per kilogram, Kane said.
“Ammonia is just a liquid in a tank,” he said, requiring no wires or cases that batteries require.
Tim Krebs, Aza Power’s chief financial officer, serves on the boards of other ammonia startups and comes from an oil and gas background. After lithium-ion and hydrogen, ammonia will become “the next complement for decarbonizing the world and as a way to move hydrogen around the planet,” Krebs said.
He lists off the potential market: Offroad tractors, mining equipment, bulldozers, locomotives, mining equipment, tractors, backhoes and maritime fleets, especially ferries and tugboats. These kinds of engines can be converted to burn ammonia without great expense, he said.
A variety of market reports are available on the growth of green ammonia and green transportation. ChemAnalyst, which studies industries involved in chemical commodities, suggests in a report that ammonia fuel demand will grow more than 14% annually for use in transportation, power generation and industrial feedstock.
Mike Reese, renewable energy director at the outreach center, believes ammonia could be one of the solutions for fueling machinery and storing energy. Ammonia “is well understood and financeable” compared to other competing technologies such as fuel cells, he said.
Reese said the cost of ammonia needs to decline to be competitive, but it may still cost less than lithium-ion battery technologies.
“Batteries have proven to be very expensive at scale and less is known about the performance,” he said. “I think it’s reasonable to move towards power generation using ammonia in internal combustion engines.”
The size of the entire market remains hard to gauge but Kane provides a glimpse of the generator marketplace. In working with Grid Catalyst, Aza Power has been developing technology to replace diesel in electric generators. That market alone is a “$35 billion to $40 billion globally,” Kane said.
Kane said Aza Power and other startups still need green ammonia from renewable energy to grow significantly from its tiny market share. Even green ammonia, though, creates some emissions. When burned to produce energy, green ammonia can emit nitrogen oxides (NOX) and nitrous oxides (N2O), which have a “global warming potential” 300 times greater than carbon emissions. Improved combustion technologies could help reduce emissions dramatically, he said.
Kane said Aza Power meets NOX emissions set by the EPA for by using mature catalytic formulations. The N20 emissions occur in any fuel combustion but Aza Power’s conversion technology reduced greenhouse gas emissions, including N20, by 80% to 90% over diesel engines, he said. He’s “confident” the number will rise to 98% next year.
Trevor Brown, executive director of the 262-member Ammonia Energy Association, said Aza Power is exploring a potentially lucrative market of industries that will need to decarbonize vehicles and engines. Achieving net-zero emissions will require a portfolio of technologies and ammonia’s global reach and transportability make it a potential solution, he argued. The industry needs policy support to compete with fossil fuels, though.
“There’s no cheaper solution than fossil fuels,” Brown conceded.
Aza Power’s main U.S. competitor is Amogy, a startup with nearly $200 million in venture capital primarily from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund. Amogy combines ammonia with fuel cell technology for decarbonizing the transportation sector and has developed an ammonia-powered tractor.
After the Grid Catalyst engagement ends, Aza Power wants to raise seed capital for an 18 month development time to scale their generation technology to bigger engines. It is eyeing other markets, namely locomotives running on diesel, and has a partner with expertise in converting trains to run on alternative fuels.
Kane also sees the mining industry, an important player in Minnesota, as another market.
“Those applications in mining that use big engines where we’re looking at scaling up our conversion technologies,” he said.
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