FuelPositive receives questions every day from interested customers, investors, and stakeholders. In the interest of providing as much transparency as possible, we have compiled and curated our answers, organized by subject. These FAQs are regularly updated and added to as we learn more and receive additional questions.
Investment Details
You will need a broker or online brokerage account to buy our stock.
FuelPositive is traded in Canada on the TSXV under the trading symbol NHHH
In the U.S. FuelPositive is traded on the OTCQB under the trading symbol NHHHF
The most recent Annual General Meeting was held on July 12, 2023. You can find a link to a video of the management presentation and a downloadable PDF of the presentation here
The benefits of the technology accrue solely to FuelPositive and its shareholders. There are no other organizations involved at this time. If we take on any partnerships that would result in royalties or fees, we will make that public. Right now, we have no plans to do that.
We don’t publish our shareholder lists unless required under regulatory policies. It’s up to the individual investor if they want their positions to be known publicly.
We have just under 50 million warrants in our warrant registry. Many of them are well in the money and we expect that warrant holders will exercise those warrants at opportune times in the future. We also have a significant number of warrants that expire over the next 24 months, so again, if we continue along a successful path, we expect that many, if not all of those warrants will be exercised within that timeframe.
Business Model
Our business model is outlined here: https://fuelpositive.com/business-model/
Additional details about our containerized modular, scalable, green ammonia production system for onsite applications can be found here: https://fuelpositive.com/green-ammonia-system
Our sales webpage can be found here: https://fuelpositive.com/sales/
We plan to build as many systems as we can sell, and we expect demand to be high.
Demand will be the primary driver of our manufacturing capacity and pre-sales, which opened up August 10, 2022, will be the best indicator of demand. If demand is high – even right from the beginning – we will scale up quickly. Our team members are highly experienced with scaling up manufacturing and distribution. We expect our manufacturing growth to be steep and we will do what it takes to meet demand. The key is to plan for it – and that is what we are doing.
The other significant driver of our manufacturing capacity is funding. When demand takes off, we will have a number of different options to ensure we can afford to do what we need to do. We will have deposits from customers to work with, we will have government support, and we will explore the need for other forms of non-dilutive measures, such as debt and equipment financing. We will look for the most non-dilutive financing options available to us. We will also have revenue from carbon credits.
We are exceedingly aware that the world needs our technology as soon as possible and in order to really affect climate change, we need lots of systems in the field, not just a few.
Our focus on Canada makes sense for us in this early stage, but setting up manufacturing in other countries is likely in our future. One of the key manufacturing drivers for us is the ability to source both materials and suppliers locally to support our production. So, as we look at other geographic areas for manufacturing, we will use a similar scorecard to evaluate any manufacturing challenges and base our decisions in that context.
We are selling our units. That’s because at this point in our development, we want to build up our working capital. The prices we are considering are well within the range that is considered affordable by the agricultural sector – especially the larger producers that use large quantities of anhydrous ammonia. We see a sales approach as realistic, and it would help us expand the company as rapidly as possible and serve as many customers as possible. Outright sales would be in our best interest, and we have brought in highly experienced people to lead these activities.
The agriculture sector buys 80 per cent of the traditional ammonia produced today. Individual farmers will be our first customers, using our Green Ammonia as fertilizer and fuel for farm equipment, including tractors, grain dryers and generators. We are starting with agriculture because of the urgent need to clean up that sector’s emissions, the worldwide shortage of fertilizer that is threatening global food security, and the comfort that farmers already have with ammonia. They’ve been working with it for years, but until now, they’ve had no alternatives to grey ammonia. As a result, they have been held hostage by wildly fluctuating prices and availability because of an unreliable supply chain. Our onsite, containerized Green Ammonia production systems will give farmers control over supply, timing and pricing, for the first time ever.
We developed a costing model based on a case study of an 1,800-acre farm in Manitoba, Canada, in 2021. The cost of production (operating expenditure or OPEX) for the case study was calculated at approximately CA$560 per metric tonne (based on a hydrogen production efficiency rate of 65%), compared to the current average cost of CA$900 per metric tonne of grey ammonia at the time of the study (the average cost of CA$900 in 2021 is dramatically lower than current prices). We are forecasting under CA$500 per metric tonne for future systems as production efficiencies improve and installation of on-site renewables increase. One dramatic aspect to consider when onsite renewables are in place is that the end user has the potential to lock in both supply and cost of anhydrous ammonia for decades to come! This is a paradigm shift in how farmers source and price these inputs today!
You can see a news release about our costing model here: https://fuelpositive.com/november-2021-corporate-update/
We have set CA$950,000 as the price for pre-sales that opened on August 10, 2022.
You can see more information here: https://fuelpositive.com/sales/
We will actively help our customers maximize their return on investment, and that we believe the return on investment will be consistent with typical large agriculture sector purchases.
But calculating ROI isn’t that simple for us because our systems are purchased for internal consumption and not to sell the output as a commodity, so the return on investment is primarily calculated based on the price difference between the cost of producing our Green Ammonia and the cost of buying commodity-priced grey ammonia.
In other words, our system is a machine that is being compared to the price of buying an input. There’s no easy model for that.
What we will continually do is gather data from sales and real-world experience to calculate a payback period that will be meaningful to our customers. However, this will always be unique to each particular farmer’s situation. Collectively, we will assess their anticipated local retail market price of grey ammonia, as delivered to their farm, cost of renewable electricity, investment financing strategy and eligibility for tax incentives. Our pricing will support returns that are within a reasonable range for our target customers.
We expect that will happen after we’ve scaled up and are implementing serial or assembly-line manufacturing.
We have been and continue to speak with various levels of government to capitalize on clean tech adoption programs, which includes accelerating depreciation and other tax incentives – at least in Canada. These programs dramatically improve farmers’ return on investment timeframes. We are also forming strategic partnerships with financial institutions to help them understand the nature of our technology to get them ready to help farmers finance their system purchases.
Additionally, we are working hard to develop an international standard of accreditation and guidelines for working with green ammonia. These standards will have a significant impact on the value of carbon credits around the world and will also help farmers to influence local governments to reward the use of green ammonia in their operations.
We plan to build as many systems as we can sell.
Demand will be the primary driver of our manufacturing capacity and pre-sales orders will be our best indicator of demand. If demand is high – even right from the beginning – we will scale up quickly. Our team members know how to do it and have done it before. We expect our manufacturing growth to be steep and we will do what it takes to meet demand. The key is to plan for it – and that is what we are doing.
The other significant driver of our manufacturing capacity is funding. When demand takes off, we will have a number of different options to ensure we can afford to do what we need to do. We will have deposits from customers to work with, we will have government support, and we will explore the need for other forms of non-dilutive measures, such as debt and equipment financing. We will look for the most non-dilutive financing options available to us. We will also have revenue from carbon credits.
We are exceedingly aware that the world needs our technology as soon as possible and in order to really affect climate change, we need lots of systems in the field, not just a few.
We addressed scaling up in detail in our August 9 2022 webinar, which can be found here: https://share.hsforms.com/1FZ5IDpFIRR2sEYU53HuW_g4h2fj
Our Operations team members have extensive experience in scaling up. Our timing will be dictated by pre-sales which are the best indicator of demand. That’s why we launched our pre-sales webpage on August 10, 2022. Scaling up is a combination of planning in advance to have the necessary premises in place, to have the people already hired (and to have an HR team that can quickly hire more), to have suppliers who have been validated to ensure they can scale up with us so we aren’t always sourcing new suppliers as we go forward, to be building the machinery and robotics we need to automate before we even break ground, etc. We have been planning to scale up since the beginning.
Not surprisingly, we are deeply committed to our vision, mission and values and as such, we are not interested in being acquired or taken over. There is huge potential for FuelPositive in the clean energy and sustainability space and we do not want to step away or see our vision and mission compromised. What we are doing is too important to put at such risk.
In the event that there is a hostile takeover bid initiated, the company has in place a Shareholders Rights Plan that will ensure that the Board and all shareholders have adequate time to pause and analyze the bid and respond accordingly.
We’re always open to evaluating other possible avenues that make sense for the company, our shareholders and our commitment to continually make a positive impact on climate change.
We have been approached by a number of large companies, but we do not see ourselves working with them at this time. We are focused on Green Ammonia, while the larger fuel producers are looking at other models, including blue ammonia with carbon capture. That simply isn’t of interest to us. We are also focused on our decentralized model which is not attractive to large fertilizer and fuel producers. They just don’t work that way.
We have enormous respect for John Deere. But not surprisingly, we are deeply committed to our vision, mission and values and as such, we are not interested in being acquired or taken over. There is huge potential for FuelPositive in the clean energy, sustainability, and global food security space and we don’t want to step away or see our vision and mission compromised. What we are doing is too important to the quality of life on the planet to put at such risk.
In the event that there is a hostile takeover bid initiated, the company has in place a Shareholders Rights Plan that will ensure that the Board and all shareholders have adequate time to pause and analyze the bid and respond accordingly.
Yes. We continue to evaluate new technologies, both to make our system more efficient and to bring our system costs down. This is part of our commitment to continuous improvement. Out of the gate, we are hoping to make the cost of our system much lower by developing and using our own technology. There are several technologies that we are currently evaluating, so in parallel with building our current system and staying focused on that commercialization, we are also developing some other technologies to improve our systems for the future.
We believe ammonia is ideal for fuel cells and more practical than hydrogen. It has all of the benefits without the drawbacks. We are fully focused right now on commercializing our onsite, containerized Green Ammonia production systems. But we plan to work with technologies in the fuel cells space that truly utilize Green Ammonia in the most effective way possible.
We’re not sharing this information at this time in order to have flexibility if we need to make changes. We’ve had to change suppliers in a number of cases because of supply chain delays.
We have agreements in place, but we have agreed that we won’t identify them until the validation is complete and published, at which point the validating parties will be identified.
Our relationship with NCA has followed a planned path. We continue to work with NCA on the demonstration system, at the same time we have built and continue to build a team dedicated to the development and manufacture of our systems focused on Green Ammonia. Our ability to respond quickly to demand relies on all of our suppliers and our own team’s ability to perform.
What we have on our website is current. We continue to advance our patented supercapacitor technology. This proprietary technology allows for increases in power and energy densities, scalability, charging speed, longevity, useful life and a lower cost per watt hour stored.
Currently we are working on improvements to this technology with a group associated with NASA and will provide updates as the improvements are independently certified. The team is fully engaged in this project. Updates will be provided as required.
Competition
There is a lot of attention on green ammonia as a potential fossil fuel replacement with research being conducted around the world. But, there aren’t many players in the small containerized market. Our technology is exemplary in the smaller generation space. We are focused on on-site, end-user application. That’s a big differentiator because it gives our customers independence from the traditional supply chains of fertilizers and fuels. The market is massive and there are more opportunities than any one company can take advantage of. Over time, there will be lots of competition, but we believe we will have the first-in-market advantage and we have a tremendous, versatile design and technology. We expect to dominate the market for many years.
There are enough enterprises, provinces, states and countries that are avidly interested in green technology for us to perform extremely well. We believe in decentralization, so extremely large applications are not as interesting to us. We are also looking for solutions that can be implemented now – not 10 years from now because that will be too late. We will focus on partners who share our vision, mission and values. For more details on our Vision, Mission, Values, please click here.
Market Size
This is a complex question to answer. First, it’s important to understand that traditional or grey ammonia production not only produces a tremendous amount of fossil fuel emissions in its manufacturing but, some analysts suggest that the transportation of ammonia makes up nearly 50% of its cost to the end-user! Not to mention adding dramatically to its carbon-intense footprint.
One of the fundamental reasons why we are focussed on a decentralized, modular and scalable business model is to essentially eliminate the unsustainable supply chain associated with both traditional ammonia manufacturing and distribution, but also eliminate the supply chain for fossil fuels, when Green Ammonia is considered as a viable fossil fuel replacement.
This makes our product unique. For a farmer wanting to buy ammonia, they need to change their thinking and understand that by buying our containerized Green Ammonia production system, they will be making their own ammonia for many years. Our technology and model replace the need to buy ammonia. We are finding that change in thinking to be easy for farmers.
At this growth stage of our technology rollout, it is impossible to state with accuracy what the potential market share penetration will be for the company. But suffice to say, when farmers embrace the idea of a green fertilizer, as well as energy and supply chain independence, the potential markets are virtually endless for the company. The concept of locking in a steady price and supply over decades is unprecedented and is extremely exciting for farmers.
We are not concerned about having enough sustainable electricity to produce the volumes that will be needed.
The price of renewables is continually dropping and this will make them preferable to fossil fuels. According to a recent report from the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA): “The decade 2010 to 2020 saw renewable power generation becoming the default economic choice for new capacity. In that period, the competitiveness of solar (concentrating solar power, utility-scale solar photovoltaic) and offshore wind all joined onshore wind in the same range of costs as for new capacity fired by fossil fuels, calculated without financial support. Indeed, the trend is not only one of renewables competing with fossil fuels, but significantly undercutting them, when new electricity generation capacity is required.”
In Canada alone, if only off-peak power from non-polluting electricity generation was used to produce Green Ammonia using FuelPositive’s production systems, 100% of the passenger and freight aviation and rail, passenger bus, freight trucking, freight rail and freight marine shipping in the country could be replaced by our Green Ammonia. This alone would cut Canada’s greenhouse gases by over 15.3% significantly supporting our commitments under the Paris and COP26 agreements! Click here to view the André Mech report.
A typical farm in the Canadian Prairie provinces includes corn, canola, wheat, and beans in their crop rotation. These farms typically apply approximately 80 – 120 pounds of Anhydrous Ammonia per acre. Naturally this amount varies year to year depending on the crop distribution, targeted economic yield and environmental circumstances.
Our sales will be determined by demand. We will scale up in late 2023 to begin serial or assembly-line manufacturing in the facility that will be built for us in Southern Ontario. The size of the facility will be based on demand, although we have stated that we can build up to 140,000 square feet on that site. Our pre-sales opened up August 10, 2022, and will provide the leading indicators necessary to plan our production and deploy our facilities in a manner that’s efficient and optimized to meet the demand.
This depends on demand. Pre-sales will provide the leading indicators necessary to plan our production and deploy our facilities in a manner that’s efficient and optimized to meet the demand.
We are receiving inquiries every day from all over the globe – Canada, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand would be the most interested.
Agriculture is responsible for the use of 80 per cent of traditional ammonia, so it is likely to be the largest. The geographies will depend on the availability of sustainable electricity and the kind of farming done there. But there are so many factors that will influence uptake.
Transportation could be a huge market, but it will take some time to determine whether Green Ammonia will be a transitional tool that is replaced when electric motors take over.
We think there is enormous potential to use Green Ammonia fuel cells in virtually every industry in the future.
Patent Protection
Our flagship technology, a process for producing Green Ammonia, is protected under a non-provisional patent application. The FuelPositive system comprises a nitrogen generator to produce nitrogen from air, a water electrolyser to produce hydrogen from water, and a novel Green Ammonia synthesis converter to produce Green Ammonia from the hydrogen and nitrogen, using only sustainable electricity.
On June 8, 2022 we announced that we have filed a U.S. Non-Provisional Patent Application with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (U.S. non-provisional patent application serial number: 17/826641). The application claims priority out of FuelPositive’s U.S. Provisional Patent Application filed on June 7, 2021 and elaborates upon our inventive concepts.
We have also filed a companion Patent Co-Operation Treaty (“PCT”) Patent Application preserving our right to our proprietary invention in all 156 PCT member states. This PCT Patent Application also claims priority out of our U.S. Provisional Patent Application filed June 7, 2021.
As well, we hold over 12 patents for our composition modified barium titanate energy storage technology.
For more information about our intellectual property protection, please click here: https://fuelpositive.com/intellectual-property/
We filed our non-provisional patent application in June with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The U.S. Non-Provisional Patent Application will be examined over a three-year period following publication. During that time period, we will receive and respond to USPTO Patent Examiner requisitions. We expect the non-provisional patent will be opened by the USPTO for public inspection sometime in December 2022 or 2023. At that point, any member of the public can go to the USPTO gov website, search and view the pending application for free.
The first thing is to commercialize our technology, to make it available to reduce carbon emissions previously associated with the production of ammonia. We intend to continuously improve our technology and update our patents as required.
There are no challenges to our ownership of the intellectual property.
Our Green Ammonia Production System
The first demonstration system is scheduled to be farm-ready and fully validated by March 31st 2024. It will be placed on the farm in Manitoba of Tracy and Curtis Hiebert after that, when they are ready to receive it.
It uses sustainable electricity, water and air to manufacture Green Ammonia in relatively low pressure and low-temperature proprietary process. There is no waste. Sustainable electricity could include hydroelectric, wind, solar, recycled waste biomass and geothermal power. For more details on our green ammonia production system, please click here
Our onsite, containerized Green Ammonia production systems are being met with profoundly positive acceptance. Not only do they eliminate carbon emissions from the manufacturing of the Green Ammonia, but they also eliminate the need for massive refineries, the unreliable supply chain, ammonia/fertilizer shortages and wildly fluctuating prices. Customers will have the means to produce what they need on their own land. This is a deeply liberating concept that will allow customers to truly have cost and supply independence from global systems that have profoundly and negatively affected the environment and economies for over a century.
The first demo system is comprised of three 20-foot containers. It was designed to be convenient for testing, improving and validation. By having three separate sections, we can make sure we can get the scientists and engineers into the operating system safely with their laptops and other equipment to generate tests and validation receipts, etc. Future systems will be designed focusing on miniaturization/optimization. We expect it to get to two 20-foot containers for each system soon.
First, we are focused on decentralizing the system, so traditional models of massive production and distribution applications aren’t of interest to us. Our model produces Green Ammonia onsite, in the quantities needed, where it will be used.
Our initial demonstration systems are being built to be fully modular and scalable, with targeted capacity of up to 300 kg/day of green anhydrous ammonia. Output can absolutely be increased (or decreased) based on the customer’s requirements.
We have had some interest from people who want extremely small systems – to power a boat or a single-family home, for example. Providing smaller green ammonia systems, for homes as an example, would be a natural progression for us once we have developed our system, miniaturized it and commercialized it. The modular design we are implementing can be scaled down. The idea is to make it as cost effective as possible over time. The natural progression would be to offer it for homes at some point in the future, for now, we are pretty singularly focused on the agriculture sector.
Our technology is extremely flexible, and we do plan in the future to develop systems allowing individual end-users to benefit. Access to FuelPositive solutions should be universal.
The short answer is “yes”. As electricity is the primary input on our systems, the cost of electricity has a direct effect on the cost to operate our onsite, containerized Green Ammonia production systems. With the combination of sustainable sources of electricity becoming more and more cost effective and the ability for many end users of ammonia to produce their own sustainable electricity, the cost will only decrease in time. Additionally, carbon credits, which have never been available for traditional ammonia manufacturing, will potentially play a significant role in the end cost of our Green Ammonia production.
From an environmental perspective, if the power company’s source of electricity is sustainable, then you will be able to produce our Green Ammonia. Sustainable electricity includes hydroelectric, wind, solar, waste biomass and geothermal power.
From a carbon emissions perspective, if the source of the electricity isn’t carbon-free, then the resultant ammonia is not carbon-free. So, a sustainable carbon-free source of electricity is a fundamental requirement.
For information about our costing model, please click here: https://fuelpositive.com/business-model/.
It was essential for us to save ammonia users money, so we’ve created a costing model that ensures they will pay less for our system than to continue to buy ammonia from suppliers.
Keep in mind though, that they are producing an entirely carbon-free form of ammonia, on site where they need it, without any of the supply chain issues that exist with traditional ammonia. So, there are considerable benefits to our customers, beyond the money they will be saving. They will no longer be held hostage by an unreliable supply chain.
The system will require filtered water. For instance, if you were planning on using a municipal water supply, the chlorine would have to be filtered out first.
Our systems are modular and can be reconfigured with a seawater treatment process. There would be no complications and the cost would only reflect the upgrade to pre-treat seawater.
Our system will output a liquid form of Green Anhydrous Ammonia (pure ammonia), which farmers will use as fertilizer by injecting it deeply into the soil. Deep injection of liquid ammonia is already a common farming practice.
The specs for our system can be seen on our sales webpage here: https://fuelpositive.com/sales/.
The specs for our system can be seen on our sales webpage here: https://fuelpositive.com/sales/.
It will be stored in horizontal tanks made of carbon steel specifically for the storage of ammonia.
This depends on how you define the Haber-Bosch process. The original 1916 Haber patent is quite broad, basically saying that you add heat and pressure to nitrogen and hydrogen to produce ammonia. However, if you speak to global experts in the field, including the inventors of the patent-pending FuelPositive technology, our process is not Haber-Bosch.
The current method of producing traditional ammonia used by refineries around the world, is widely recognized as the Haber-Bosch process. It uses massive amounts of fossil fuels to provide the heat and pressure required to make ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen, and it is well known to be one of the most polluting industrial processes on earth. The grey ammonia produced is made in huge refineries and transported to end users via a vast transportation infrastructure and supply chain that spans the world. Another key characteristic of the Haber-Bosch system used in refineries is that it’s a continuous process and is extremely slow to ramp up.
FuelPositive’s technology is different in three distinct ways. First, the Green Ammonia we produce is done without using fossil fuels and produces no carbon emissions. Second, it is being done on a smaller scale using a containerized, modular, scalable system that produces the green ammonia on the site where the customer requires it. Third, our process is easily set up, stopped and restarted on demand, which is crucial when you deal with intermittent renewable energy sources.
The FuelPositive system comprises a nitrogen generator to produce nitrogen from air, a water electrolyser to produce hydrogen from water, and a proprietary green ammonia synthesis converter to produce ammonia from the hydrogen and nitrogen. In that way, it can be likened to the Haber-Bosch process. But the scale, easy start-and-stop of the FuelPositive system and the lack of pollution in the production and the resulting Green Ammonia distinguishes the FuelPositive system from traditional Haber-Bosch production. Moreover, the scientists who invented the FuelPositive system and who are recognized as experts, advise us that the FuelPositive system is not Haber-Bosch.
We have a specific program to validate the volume, energy consumption and purity of our product. Every validation is performed following a standard gage repeatability and reproducibility (gage R&R) process involving three different tests performed by three different sources. Sources are FuelPositive, an independent institution such as a university and an independent private professionally accredited lab.
Once our system is safely in place and operating on the farm, we will set up tours. We expect a great deal of interest from both the farming and investment communities. Tracy and Curtis Hiebert, our partners who own and work the farm, want to help us get the story out.
Our non-provisional patent applies to the ammonia converter, that takes the hydrogen produced by our electrolyser and the nitrogen produced by the generator to combine them in our unique converter, resulting in Green Ammonia.
For now, we have purchased an electrolyser from a European manufacturer that has built it to our unique design and strict specifications. The first electrolyser has been validated for rate of production and purity and the results exceed our expectations.
Our non-provisional patent application refers to the system as a: “Modular Transportable Clean Hydrogen-Ammonia Maker”, because it extracts hydrogen from water using an electrolyser as part of the ammonia-making technology.
That means carbon-free hydrogen will also be available for onsite consumption. We plan to develop our electrolyser as a stand-alone system for customers who want to produce both hydrogen and ammonia – or even if they are only interested in producing green hydrogen.
As a matter of fact, our system already produces the hydrogen, and an option could be purchased to directly access the hydrogen for fuel cell or other consumption if the customer required it.
Hydrogen can be produced at a higher rate at a lower purity. The purity of the hydrogen will have a direct correspondence to the conversion rate at the ammonia synthesis system and its ability to convert ammonia over time. Impure hydrogen will degrade the process over time, thus reducing the conversion rates and efficiencies as time goes by. Our team is dedicated to ensuring our system doesn’t just perform initially but performs over the long life of the system.
The rate of production and purity of the hydrogen and nitrogen our system is producing exceed our expectations. That is why we were confident we could open for pre-sales earlier than expected.
Green Ammonia Applications - General
It will be liquid anhydrous ammonia. Other derivatives are under study.
We are first targeting the agriculture sector to fill its fertilizer and fuel needs to realize the greatest and most immediate environmental impact. That just makes sense since 80% of ammonia today is used in that sector. Farmers who use anhydrous ammonia today already know how to handle ammonia. We expect quick sales there, as well as income derived from the sale of carbon credits.
We are actively planning with farming partners who are deeply compelled by the potential of having FuelPositive containerized Green Ammonia production systems on their farms, allowing them to produce all of the Green Ammonia they need for fertilizing, drying crops and operating their generators, farming equipment and other engines and machinery. The advantage to them is to be fertilizer, energy- and supply chain-independent, while significantly reducing their carbon footprint. For more details on our farming applications, please click here.
We have received a great deal of interest from all around the world in using our Green Ammonia as a fossil fuel replacement in internal combustion engines, and that makes sense to us, since farmers want to use our system to produce fuel for their farm machinery and systems. We are also exploring relationships for decentralized grid storage and enabling the hydrogen economy because that makes perfect sense. Finally, the industrial ammonia users, which purchase 20% of traditional ammonia today are expected to switch to Green Ammonia in the near future as the need for greenhouse gas reductions becomes mandatory.
We see Green Ammonia as a critical material to rapidly facilitate change as countries all around the globe seek to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions. The growth potential is massive, but for FuelPositive today, our greatest challenge is to stay focused. We need to ensure our first market entry is successful. While we do that, we are keeping an eye on other sectors, the green technology that is gaining a foothold in each sector, and the opportunities that are evolving. As each month goes by, there are new developments that we spend time to understand and evaluate. Once we are well established in the agriculture sector, with a strong revenue stream, we will be able to quickly determine the other markets and applications for us to grow into.
We are considering that, but we can’t say yet if it will be included in the next two demonstration projects. Those details haven’t been determined yet. It partly depends on the farmers we choose to be our partners.
We are considering that.
At this early growth phase, FuelPositive is focused on the manufacturing of systems that will be suitable for larger operations, such as farms. However, the technology is extremely flexible. Providing smaller Green Ammonia systems for homes or small businesses would be a natural progression for us once we have developed our system, miniaturized it and commercialized it. The modular design we are implementing can be scaled down. The idea is to make it as cost effective as possible over time. The natural progression would be to offer it for small applications at some point in the future, but for now, we are pretty singularly focused on the agriculture sector.
We will be looking seriously at ammonia fuel cell technology over the next year. There’s no need for converting to hydrogen; the ammonia will be utilized directly in an ammonia fuel cell converting NH3 to electricity. We will share more in the coming year.
Transportation
Interestingly, ammonia has been used historically as a fossil fuel replacement. During World War II, when access to fossil fuels was scarce, the conversion of existing internal combustion engines to run on ammonia was not uncommon. As well, NASA’s X-15 aircraft, which set speed and altitude records in the 1950s, was fueled by ammonia.
The fundamental reason that ammonia has not been adopted as a viable fossil fuel replacement is that the way traditional ammonia is produced has such a significant greenhouse gas footprint that the environmental benefit of converting internal combustion engines to run on ammonia just wasn’t there. However, now that we can produce carbon-free, green ammonia at an economical cost, we can safely say that green ammonia has the potential to become an ideal fossil fuel replacement – it burns carbon-free and there are 100 years of experience related to the safe handling of ammonia.
For more details on Fuel, please click here. For more information on the safety of ammonia, please click here.
Switching from fossil fuels to green ammonia offers an ideal transition strategy for Canada’s transportation sector as we adopt new practices to address climate change. Click here to read the André Mech report “Can Carbon-Free Ammonia (NH3) Derived from Green Power Sources Cover Transportation Fuel Needs in Canada?”
The conversion of internal combustion engines to run on alternative fuels is a well-established industry and technology. Think of all the propane and natural gas conversions that have taken place over the decades and continue to take place today. The conversion of an internal combustion engine to run on green ammonia is similar and well understood in the sector.
We are talking to a number of groups who specialize in alternative fuel conversion kits for internal combustion engines today and we expect there will be many low-cost, industry-endorsed solutions in the near future.
We are starting off focusing on agriculture, because that is where 80% of traditional ammonia is used now. However, all of the transportation sector is interesting to us. Rail, aviation and marine transportation are all areas where green ammonia could make a significant impact.
Converting a diesel tractor to use green ammonia will require a kit, which will make the conversion straightforward.
We are talking to a number of groups who specialize in alternative fuel conversion kits for internal combustion engines today and we expect there will be many low-cost, industry-endorsed solutions in the near future.
We are heavily focused on agriculture now, but we are being approached by virtually every sector that uses fossil fuel, plus the refrigeration sector that is interested in green refrigerants. It’s a really broad world out there in terms of potential for us.
Right now, our greatest challenge is to stay focused. We need to ensure our first market entry is successful. While we do that, we are investigating other sectors, the green technology that is gaining a foothold in each sector, and the opportunities that are evolving. As each month goes by, there are new developments that we spend time understanding and evaluating. Once we are well established in the agriculture sector, with a strong revenue stream, we will be able to quickly determine the other markets and applications for us to grow into.
Safety & Emissions
Anhydrous Ammonia is well known to pose a risk to human health via direct contact and inhalation. However, it has been determined that ammonia is far safer than highly flammable fossil fuels, and considerably more stable than hydrogen. Ammonia is less likely to ignite than fossil fuels because it requires an extremely high temperature to ignite (651C). In the case of a leak, ammonia is lighter than air and rises when released, reducing the risk to people on the ground. It also has an acutely detectable smell at very low concentrations that alerts people to evacuate an area and go upwind.
With 200 million metric tonnes of ammonia used per year, primarily in agriculture, the regulations and practices already exist for safe and extensive use of ammonia. This is one of the reasons why we have chosen to make agriculture our first market. The farmers that work with ammonia are trained and certified to ensure they handle it safely.
Our technology eliminates the carbon emissions traditionally associated with the production of ammonia, which is an important health and safety factor to consider.
When used properly as a fossil fuel replacement, the only discernable emissions will be water vapor. Nitrous Oxide (NOx) emissions, associated with traditional ammonia, will be avoided by using a modified engine and emissions control system.
NOx emissions will continue to be an issue when ammonia is used as fertilizer. NOx emissions are greenhouse gases emitted by all types of nitrogen fertilizers (organic and synthetic/mineral) – whether or not the nitrogen comes from animal manure or from manufactured ammonia produced using a carbon-free process. However, we believe deep injection of Green Anhydrous Ammonia provides the most efficient transfer of nitrogen into the soil with the least impact from NOx emissions.
We are working with a number of advisors who are experts in this area. Our intention on our demonstration sites is to have parallel studies in place to develop best practices related to mitigating nitrogen-related emissions on farms. These projects are in development now and we’ll talk more about them in the coming months.
For our part, we believe our system, of eliminating the carbon emissions associated with the production of ammonia used for fertilizer, is an ideal first step and will make a considerable difference to overall emissions. Regarding NOx emissions, we understand that current best practises of deep injection of green anhydrous ammonia provides the most efficient transfer of nitrogen into the soil, with the least impact from NOx emissions. If our anhydrous ammonia is applied correctly, we believe that our product may be the best option over other nitrogen fertilizer options.
See our statement on Our Next Challenge with Ammonia here.
FuelPositive takes emissions at every point along the lifecycle seriously. We’re approaching everything we can from a cradle-to-cradle perspective. While our system takes care of carbon emissions related to the production of ammonia, we’re acutely aware of the on-farm emissions related to the use of nitrogen as a fertilizer.
For our part, we believe our system, of eliminating the carbon emissions associated with the production of ammonia used for fertilizer, is an ideal first step and will make a considerable difference to overall emissions. Regarding NOx emissions, we understand that current best practises of deep injection of green anhydrous ammonia provides the most efficient transfer of nitrogen into the soil, with the least impact from NOx emissions. If our anhydrous ammonia is applied correctly, we believe that our product may be the best option over other nitrogen fertilizer options.
But we are embarking on research to determine if we are right and if there are other measures that should be taken to minimize NOx emissions. And when you consider the agriculture sector advisors we are working with, you’ll see we are making a significant commitment to helping farmers mitigate on-farm emissions in every way possible. Our intention on our demonstration sites is to have parallel studies in place to develop best practises related to mitigating nitrogen-related emissions on farms. These projects are in development now and we’ll talk more about them in the coming months.
We’re validating purity, energy consumption, rate of production and safety protocols. We follow a standard six sigma gage repeatability and reproducibility process. Because we’re a new company, every piece of equipment we purchase needs to be validated, internal processes need to be developed, the facility must be capable and comply with regulations and staff have to receive appropriate safety training.
It’s important to note that existing regulations pertain to the storage of anhydrous ammonia and not to the production of anhydrous ammonia. The regulations that pertain to the FuelPositive system fall under standard machine safety specifications with which we have decades of experience. The regulations that pertain to the storage are not new. They are fairly straightforward, but demand a thorough due diligence process.
We are guiding our customers as they select and set up each system site. Each site must satisfy the setback regulations for the storage of anhydrous ammonia. Site preparation includes grading, evaluating the foundation for the containers for ammonia production, along with the required stable foundation and barriers for the storage tank.
Each site will be secured with perimeter fencing to control access, and collision barriers will be installed to protect the storage tanks.
Safety and security is our priority and signage will be installed to heighten awareness of safe practices along with surveillance systems. Each site will also be illuminated with appropriate lighting to enable safe operation at night.
As we prepare for system commissioning, training will be delivered for safe handling of ammonia, system operation, as well as system maintenance, all following the standard code of practice for anhydrous ammonia as published by Fertilizer Canada.
Our customers’ current safety training will be evaluated, and additional training will be supplied and certified by a third party to safely transfer their stored anhydrous ammonia from the storage tank to the nurse tanks that will actually go into the field to apply the fertilizer.
There will also be commissioning and site acceptance testing before the system can be turned on. As well, we’ll provide training for the operation of our system, but that training is minimal since the system will be extensively monitored and adjusted remotely by us.
We’ve been studying this closely and have made a submission to the federal government in response to its call for input. The federal government announced its intention to reduce NOx emissions from fertilizer by 30 per cent in 2030. The target is voluntary, and we understand the intention is to improve nutrient management and reduce emissions while maintaining and improving the quality and yield Canadian agriculture is known for around the world.
With our own product – an onsite, containerized Green Ammonia production system – we reduce emissions through the clean production of the ammonia. No fossil fuels are used in our Green Ammonia manufacturing process, so there are no carbon emissions. We recognize this does not eliminate NOx emissions, but it is a good start and good for the planet.
But our onsite system does more to reduce emissions because it supports farmers in using their fertilizer more wisely, since they have absolute control over supply and timing. The unreliable supply chain of the past often caused farmers to apply too much (or too little) fertilizer at times that were not ideal. Our system puts an end that. It will result in optimal amounts of fertilizer being used – it will be the right amount at the right time.
For our part, we believe our system, of eliminating the carbon emissions associated with the production of ammonia used for fertilizer, is an ideal first step and will make a considerable difference to overall emissions. Regarding NOx emissions, we understand that current best practices of deep injection of green anhydrous ammonia provides the most efficient transfer of nitrogen into the soil, with the least impact from NOx emissions. If our anhydrous ammonia is applied correctly, we believe that our product may be the best option over other nitrogen fertilizer options.
We are actively taking on the NOx reduction challenge, as a company, as part of our cradle-to-cradle commitment. When you consider the agriculture sector advisors we are working with, you’ll see we are making a significant commitment to helping farmers mitigate on-farm emissions in every way possible. Our intention on our demonstration sites is to have parallel studies in place to develop best practices relating to mitigating nitrogen-related emissions associated with our product. These projects are in development now and we’ll talk about them more in the coming months.
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