The Power of Wind
Prairie project may reshape the renewable fuel landscape

By Todd Nelson

Few places grow more corn, use more fertilizer or are more windswept than Minnesota.

Under a unique plan led by CFANS scientists that could boost both renewable energy and rural development, the state would become the first place in the world to harness some of its wind energy to make fertilizer to help raise future crops.

That’s the aim of a pilot project taking shape at the West Central Research and Outreach Center in Morris, Minn. The first piece – a towering wind turbine that supplies half the electricity used at the nearby University of Minnesota-Morris campus – has been in place since March 2005.

An accompanying facility, now in design, will convert a portion of the turbine’s wind power into hydrogen.

In a subsequent stage, a chemical reaction between the hydrogen and nitrogen drawn from the surrounding air would produce anhydrous ammonia fertilizer, which would in turn be applied to crops in order to raise yields and provide more corn for the state’s feedlots and ethanol plants, which turn grain and cornstalks into fuel. Construction is to begin this fall, with the system to go online next summer.

“It will be the only wind-to-hydrogen-to-ammonia system in the world,” says Michael Reese, renewable-energy director at WCROC, who’s credited with envisioning the new use for what happens to be decades-old technology.

In offering a renewable alternative, the WCROC system could help replace some of the $300 million in imported anhydrous ammonia that Minnesota farmers use each year, Reese says. Much of that ammonia comes from other countries and is derived from natural gas, a fossil fuel that emits greenhouse gases and likely will continue to rise in price as wind energy costs decrease.

The irony, Reese says, is that imports of fossil-fuel-based fertilizer have increased as Minnesota has ramped up production of ethanol, a locally produced biofuel, in an effort to move away from using imported fossil fuels.

The new system could propel Minnesota, a leader in producing wind energy and ethanol, to the forefront of the hydrogen economy, Reese says. A growing commercial market for hydrogen could spur development in much the same way as the state’s ethanol production has drawn manufacturing and technology companies and jobs to the state.

Michael Reese leads the project at Morris.

“We really view this as a model similar to the ethanol plants, where locally owned systems provide economic development and job opportunities for rural Minnesota and rural portions of the Midwest,” Reese says. With this approach, the hydrogen-derived fertilizer becomes a value-added product for use in rural areas where it is produced, which will help make greater use of the state’s vast wind energy potential, Reese says.

That also eliminates the challenge of moving wind energy through a highly con-strained transmission system to get it to distant markets such as the Twin Cities.