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Manitoba farmers Curtis and Tracy Hiebert, like many Prairie producers, rely on anhydrous ammonia for much of their fertilizer needs. Squeezed by ongoing price hikes and supply shortages in the anhydrous ammonia market, they decided to try something new — to produce it themselves, right on their own farm.
That’s possible, thanks to some cutting-edge ag tech being installed on their 11,000-acre grain farm situated near Sperling, Man.
“As (the cost of) anhydrous was climbing, we wanted to manage not only the price but the supply of anhydrous,” says Curtis Hiebert.
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Hiebert says he always has an ear out for upcoming technologies, and something that leapt out at him was a new invention from FuelPositive, a Canadian echnology company focused on sustainable, carbon-free green ammonia production.
After learning the company was looking for a site to install and pilot its first on-farm ammonia production plant, the Hieberts offered up their own farm.
FuelPositive was happy to oblige.
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“The Hieberts came to us through a number of different channels. They had also reached out to us quite early,” says the company’s board chair and CEO, Ian Clifford. “They are what I would consider a very high-tech farm. They’re looking at new technologies all the time.
“We were looking for an ambassador farm for the first system, because very soon after it’s installed on their farm, people are going to want to talk to the Hieberts about it,” he adds.
“We want potential customers to talk to our existing customers. That’s an important part of the sales process for us.”
Before going to Manitoba, the on-farm demonstration plant is undergoing final testing as FuelPositive continues to ramp up production a its manufacturing facility in Waterloo, Ont.
Clifford says installation on the Hiebert farm will take place as soon as the system is fully optimized and factory acceptance testing is completed.
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“We want to make sure that the system works properly at scale and that our operating and capital cost expectations are accurate. So far, they are. In fact, it’s performing better than we had anticipated, which is great,” he says.
That’s encouraging news for Hiebert.
“It sounds like the ammonia manufacturing process is very seamless and works well,” he says. “I’m excited to see it on my farm.”
The Manitoba project is intended to be proof of concept for the unit, which FuelPositive hopes to eventually export globally.
The idea is to see how the plant performs over a year of operation on the Hiebert farm and to optimize the system as FuelPositive learns more about how it responds to the dramatic weather changes in Manitoba.
What makes FuelPositive’s system green is that powercomes from renewable or carbon-free sources, eliminating the need for fossil fuels in the production of ammonia.
For the plant in Manitoba, for instance, electricity will come from two sources: the province’s electrical grid that’s almost all hydro power and a 200-kilowatt solar panel array the Hieberts use on their farm.
“In places where the grid is not green, this is where we can help the end-users, our customers, put in wind or solar or geothermal (power) or a combination of renewables on farm to produce green ammonia on-site,” says Clifford.
Testing being performed at the FuelPositive lab at Waterloo, Ont. photo: FuelPositive
Disruptive technology
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Clifford sees FuelPositive’s on-farm ammonia production plant as “highly disruptive” to the fertilizer industry.
“It turns the traditional ammonia industry on its head completely. It creates a technological environment for the end-user, so in this case the Hieberts and farmers like them can produce their own green ammoia on-site, which gives them control over both supply and cost, which are two of the biggest issues related to that input,” says Clifford.
“The disruptive nature is … we’re eliminating the supply chain and we’re creating a direct to end-user business model.”
Clifford says the system going to the Hiebert farm is the FP300 model, FuelPositive’s first version of the ammonia production plant, which can produce 100 tonnes of green anhydrous ammonia per year.
Earlier this year, the company announced plans to launch a second model, the FP1500, capable of producing 500 tonnes of anhydrous ammonia per year.
According to Clifford, the FP300 system is based on a 20-foot shipping container footprint, making it easier to ship to locations not just in Canada but around the world.
On the Hiebert farm, the plant will consist of three containers — one containing an electrolyzer that separates hydrogen and oxygen in water, a second with a nitrogen generator that draws nitrogen out of the air, and athird containing a patent-pending synthesis converter that combines nitrogen and oxygen to produce NO3 or anhydrous ammonia.
Clifford notes the system is engineered to last decades with periodic upgrades. “It’s a very high-quality piece of equipment with very low maintenance.”
He says once at the Hiebert farm, the plant will require about 150 kilowatts of electricity at full demand, and then substantially less than that when it is in a continual operating state.
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Tracy and Curtis Hiebert. photo: FuelPositive
The cost to operate the ammonia production system will depend on what users pay for electricity. Clifford says the longer renewable energy costs can be locked in, the bigger the financial benefit.
“The operating cost really comes down to the cost of energy, and that’s why there’s a lot of interest in using renewables like solar and wind, which could drive the cost per kilowatt-hour down dramatically,” he says.
“If you’re looking at, say, two cents a kilowatt-hou for solar, you could lock in the cost at around $200 or $300 per tonne, and you could do that for decades.”
If carbon credit programs are available, this could potentially help defray operating costs for producers, Clifford says. He adds FuelPositive is pushing hard for programming to help Canadian farmers buy this type of technology.
“Decarbonizing and reducing agricultural emissions are an important part of our mission and values, so everything that we can do to help that is part of our direction as a company,” he says.
The FP300 has a base price of $950,000. Clifford says the unit can be customized to meet the different requirements of end-users, which will affect the final sales price.
Clifford acknowledges the price tag in the range of a million dollars “is a significant purchase, and any of our potential customers are spending a lot of time in their due diligence and consideration. That’s why having a really good, high-profile starting place (like the Hiebert farm) for our erly systems is a real benefit to the company.”
Field tours are planned at Hiebert Farm for this reason, once the plant is in operation.
“That wasn’t a contract condition either,” says Clifford. “They said, ‘We’d love to bring people in and talk to them about it.’”
It’s not only farmers who are enquiring about FuelPositive’s ammonia production systems.
“We’re getting a lot of interest from sectors like water purification and chemical processing and other applications for green ammonia,” says Clifford.
He says pre-sales have started for the FP300 plant and there has been healthy interest so far.
“Our pipeline now is over 300 systems, so we’ve got this huge amount of interest building and we haven’t even started marketing yet,” he says. “That’s a really good indicator of what the future could look like.”
FuelPositive uses shipping containers to house the different parts of its green ammonia production system. photo: FuelPositive
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Greenhouse gas mitigation
That futurewill involve prominent soil scientist Mario Tenuta, who in late 2022 was named by FuelPositive as the company’s agricultural greenhouse gas mitigation adviser.
Tenuta teaches applied soil ecology and is also the Senior Industrial Research Chair in 4R Nutrient Stewardship at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.
“We approached Mario because of his work in nitrogen mitigation and reduction,” says Clifford. “His centre at the university is very much focused on that, so it’s a really good fit for us in terms of developing new intellectual property and best practices and that sort of thing.”
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Tenuta says he was pleased to take on the role.
“I’m a nitrogen researcher, and, of course, the idea of being able to produce your own nitrogen on farm is something that tickles my fancy immensely,” he says.
“For some farmers who use quite a bit of nitrogen — large producers — it could become economically advantageous to produce your own nitrogen and not have to pay a manufacturer(or) to pay for shipping.”
Tenuta adds using anhydrous ammonia produced on farm as fertilizer would be a “no-brainer,” but he says he believes there could be other potential uses in the future, such as a fuel source for tractors, grain dryers or other agricultural equipment.
He notes green ammonia is generating a lot of buzz in research circles these days, adding the project complements his work aimed at developing practices that help farmers reduce nitrous oxide emissions and ammonia losses from cropland.
“Part of the appeal of a green ammonia production system like this is it can help reduce carbon emissions associated with the production of traditional ammonia,” he says.
In October, FuelPositive announced it is receiving $1.9 million in funding from the federal government’s Research and Innovation Stream of the Agriculture Clean Technology Program, which is administered by Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.
READ MORE: Green ammonia gets funding boost
According to a FuelPositivepress release, the funding will support the commercialization of the FP300 green ammonia system. The money will be used to help gather information the company needs to continue to adapt its technology to the commercial needs of farmers.
“There was a lot of diligence involved in that funding process, so we saw it as a huge vote of confidence for the technology,” says Clifford. “This is a really important milestone for us.”
