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Using ammonia as a shipping fuel could disturb the nitrogen cycle

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

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

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

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

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Acknowledgements

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

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Paul Wolfram, Page Kyle & Steven Smith

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

    Xin Zhang

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

    Savvas Gkantonas

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

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

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

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