Matt Simmons Saves the World?

Jim Puplava and Matthew Simmons were practically giddy when they spoke a few weeks ago to discuss Simmons’ recent venture into offshore wind and co-generated ammonia.

For anyone who is unaware, energy investment banker Simmons is a senior peak oil guru – an unlikely Cassandra, who for years has been warning the world of the impending energy catastrophe. When I first became aware of the peak oil issue, I found his presentations, interviews and speeches to be the some most terrifying testimony on the energy catastrophe the world faced. So it was interesting to hear him get excited about a new energy prospect, because unlike so many he’s not prone to untested fantasies or into hyping hypothetical solutions that will never come to pass.

In 2007, Simmons founded the Ocean Energy Institute to explore the potential of offshore wind energy. The institute is a member of a consortium of private companies working with the University of Maine that will soon launch a demonstration project.

There are a couple elements that distinguish this project from ordinary wind. First, according to Simmons, these turbines and towers are made from a new composite material developed out of he University of Maine that is, he says, “the lightest and strongest” material every made. The composite allows for the construction of much larger turbines.

The other new idea is to use power from the turbines to use ocean water and electricity to manufacture ammonia (NH3) on site. Many people don’t realize that internal combustion engines can be retrofitted to burn NH3; when burned Simmons points out, it doesn’t contribute carbon to the atmosphere. Simmons now envisions a world of retrofitted automobiles run on liquid ammonia. As an added theoretical benefit, ammonia can be used as nitrogen fertilizer, the chief limiting nutrient in food production.

So what’s the catch? Well, for one thing burning ammonia releases nitrous oxide (N2O, otherwise known as laughing gas) which is, alas, a greenhouse gas (carbon or no). It is also the leading cause of ozone depletion now that CFCs have been eliminated; and it causes acid rain. And nitrogen fertilizers are killing marine life at a horrifying rate and have created a  dead-zone in Mexico.

So what would be the effect of burning 85 million or so barrels of ammonia each day to replace oil? Who knows, but it’s terrifying to contemplate. Is it more terrifying than the collapse of society promised by unmitigated oil depletion, or than the fast burnup  of the rest of the world’s coal? I honestly am not sure, but the heavy cost of these tradeoff seems yet another argument against the endless pursuit of energy growth--and in favor of train-connected car-free eco-cities, pattern languages, permaculture and whatever other whole-system design solutions we can implement to drastically cut rather than grow our overall energy and resource usage.