I do not assume that. I assume it can already displace SOME fossil power now and in the case of SUGAR CANE based alcohol, that renewable energy is already about 40% CHEAPER than the fossil fuel it replaces (gasoline) and it can replace 100% of it, not only economically but with significant saving for the population. (More mass transit, more working from home, smaller cars, etc. and more tropical land growing cane are also required.) Wind energy is competitive too in some locations for electric power generation, but as ElectricFetus notes in post 120, it needs the currently fossil power grid to solve the storage problem so cannot economically make 1/3 of the electric power needed even in strong wind locations. (Non-grid storage for worst calm period cost all the time even if used only once per year.) Globally, I doubt wind power can provide even 20% of the power required economically. (I.e. no subsidies. - They can let Alaska grow oranges, but are always a net needless lowering of living standards.) Properly done nuclear power can provide 100% of the power man requires at less than half the current cost. France gets 80% of its power from nuclear and exports a lot to Germany, as it is cheaper to buy than burn coal. Germany is the sad victim of the green movement’s stupidity and political power. To reduce coal burning, ONLY nuclear power can be brought on line as fast as energy demand is growing. Consider just China and India’s growing populations and their growing per capita demand. It is little wonder that China is now building new power plants at the rate of one every 8 or 9 days! (Most of them are still coal fired, but they are switching to super critical steam which is 44% efficient, not the typical 33% or less.) Neither, I nor anyone else, knows how close we are to flipping Earth into the hot stable state. It is not actually “stable” as eventually the oceans will boil away and then Earth will begin to cool back down, but that will take a long time. No multi-cellular life will survive to even see the first bubble of ocean boiling steam. Nuclear power may be the only way to avoid this fate for the Earth, short of some terrible plague or most dying in atomic war etc. Energy demand is simply growing too fast for renewable to even keep up with it. The real choice mankind has is coal or nuclear – which is better is obvious (assuming you do not want a drastic limit, much lower than current, on human populations). BTW: Because of the need for non-grid economical storage I support the super flywheel approach where pumped hydro and or compressed air in caverns storage is not feasible.* I also strongly support solar thermal power as it can be economically competitive in many locations too as economical, non-grid, storage is possible. In fact long ago, I solved its fundamental problem, which is that Carnot law requires high absorber temperature for good conversion efficiency but then the re-radiation losses are large. See my long expired US patent, 4033118. That patent also includes a non-thermal chemical storage system. -------- *I have even pointed out that very large super conductive magnetic storage may be economical as the cost is proportional to the coil diameter (circumference) but the energy stored to the cube of the diameter as the energy is stored in the 3D field, not the 1D coil.
Billy T, so you may be right. As I said in a previous post, since my bold prediction is only about three and a half years away, it won't be long before we know whether I am. I'm an incurable optimist, but I am also a well-reasoned optimist. You can try to cure me, but again, I said I'm an incurable optimist. There can also coexist well-reasoned pessimists. Time will tell. What chaps mine is when either one is poorly reasoned. You definitely DO NOT fit in THAT category. P.S. Thanks for the editing tip. I hadn't noticed. Nice feature. BTW, did you follow the link to the ITDAFC site?
Adressing the major issues and objections to ammonia as an energy carrier I just went back and read some of the earliest posts in responsed to Billy T's question about the viability of using ammonia as a hydrogen carrier, which hydrogen is in turn an energy carrier. Most of the objections are way off base in the context of current developments, many of which have already been discussed in this thread. Intermediate Temperature Direct Ammonia Fuel Cells (ITDAFCs) inherently crack NH(3) to release the hydrogen without any external cracking, hence the term "direct ammonia fuel cell". Please follow this link for more information: http://www.energy.iastate.edu/renewable/ammonia/ammonia/2006/HowardUniv2.pdf Here is a quote from an article on a superior catalyst for the Haber-Bosch ammonia production process. There are two angles to this approach, the vastly improved catalyst and the process itself, known as the Kellogg Advanced Ammonia Process (KAAP). The full article is available gratis at http://www.owlnet.rice.edu/~ceng403/nh3syn97.html#catalyst Here's the quote: "The proposed system utilizes a promoted ruthenium catalyst deposited on thermally modified active carbon, forming porous cylindrical pellets about 0.8 mm in diameter and 3-5 mm long, which has been available to industry relatively recently.(4) This catalyst is up to twenty times more active than fused iron catalyst at relatively high conversion degrees. More importantly, although temperature variations have similar effects on the two catalysts, the effects of ammonia concentration are significantly different. Iron-based catalyst activity depends strongly on PNH3 (partial pressure of ammonia). As PNH3 increases from 1 mol% to 10 mol% the rate of the process decreases 10 to 25-fold. In contrast, the activity of ruthenium-based catalysts is only slightly affected by changes in PNH3, as well as changes in total pressure. Promoted ruthenium catalyst deposited on active graphite therefore has been found to have excellent low pressure and low temperature performance.(5) This is of great importance to industrial practice, taking into account contemporary tendencies to lower the applied pressure and thus reduce energy consumption. "Further benefits of using the ruthenium-based catalyst are found in capital cost savings. As lower pressures are used in the process, there is greater flexibility in process compressor driver selection. Thinner-walled and lighter vessels, piping, and fittings can be employed safely, all of which are equipment more commonly fabricated world-wide and therefore cheaper. This new catalyst opens a world of possibilities for industrial ammonia synthesis optimization, maintaining high ammonia conversion and safety standards at significantly reduced costs and increased profit." It should be noted that although the process described here refers to hydrogen from the steam reformation of fossil fuels, it can be used with hydrogen from any source, including renewables. Another even more promising and very elegant approach is still in the research stage, however. It is from ETH Zurich Institute of Energy Technology in Switzerland. The technology is described in English complete with schematics at: http://www.pre.ethz.ch/research/projects/?id=ammonia Here is a quote of the most significant part: "The proposed 2-step process offers the following four-fold advantages: 1. it eliminates the need for high pressure, minimizing costs and safety concerns; 2. it eliminates the need for catalysts; minimizing costs associated with their production and recycling; 3. it eliminates the need for hydrogen as feedstock, reducing energy consumption and associated CO2 emissions. 4. It eliminates concomitant CO2 emissions derived from fossil-fueled endothermic processes." This is an especially elegant solution if and when it reaches commercial use. The hydrogen source is the steam used in the second stage of the process, so no electrolysis is required. It also appears that this process could conceivably store solar energy as well, since the exothermic process is effectively giving back stored solar energy. It consequently seems possible that this could either be used to increase the efficiency of the first stage by feeding some heat back into it or to supply energy for heat or other energy needs as a co-production strategy. Some combination of these approaches, including the MIT electrolysis breakthrough, the Amminex ammonia storage technology, and the ITDAFC seems destined to eliminate all the obstacles to a hydrogen economy, namely hydrogen generation, storage, distribution, and direct conversion to electrical energy without burning. It seems even possible that both burning and electrolysis are potentially unnecessary in the final analysis.
It smells awful? So what? If it has enough good properties, what's really wrong with a "stinky" fuel? I used to live out in the country, as a child, among the farms, and the stench of farmers' manure would often waft in through the open summertime windows. I don't think anybody cared, because that's just the natural smells of the countryside, so easy to get used to. Of course ammonia may not smell so "natural" or be so easy to get used to, so try not to get too much a whiff of it while refueling, or just think how much money you are saving, refueling with ammonia, if they ever figure out how to make it a good fuel for cars? It could be a good idea, as hydrogen just doesn't at all appear practical for cars, and the enviro-radicals won't let us drill our own oil. There are other chemical formulations that might work okay or better for high energy-density, portable, stable fuels. People in India and China are getting cars, and so far, nothing works so well as gasoline. Might it be smart to stop talking all the "green" propaganda, and get busy and find some REAL ALTERNATIVE fuels? And there may be cheap ways to get it to burn cleaner?
What?! Pronatalist, you can apparently write, so I assume you can also read. Why has it not reached the inside of your head that we are NOT talking here about BURNING ammonia? We ARE talking about: 1) storing ammonia safely in pellets of metal hydride at densities that exceed that of liquid hydrogen, but at room temperature and normal atmospheric pressure. 2) There ALREADY EXIST fuel cells called Intermediate Temperature Direct Ammonia Fuel Cells (ITDAFCs) that can convert ammonia directly into nitrogen, water, and electricity. (Follow the first link in my previous post for more information.) 3) There very likely exist processes that can produce ammonia from renewable resources efficiently and at competitive cost in the not very distant future if we have the guts to go in that direction. We're already getting close without any huge government subsidies. 4) There is even a very real possibility that we can produce ammonia directly from solar heat without electrolysis and even use the waste heat and syngas output for energy co-production in the bargain. (See the last link in my previous post for more information.) None of these processes produces nitrous oxide, and your attempt at making that point duplicates earlier posts here that have already been more than adequately addressed. Regarding this quote from your post, "Might it be smart to stop talking all the "green" propaganda, and get busy and find some REAL ALTERNATIVE fuels?" You don't seem to think there are any "REAL ALTERNATIVE fuels" judging from your insistence on simply finding cleaner ways to burn gasoline and your rhetoric above about "green propanda". Who do you work for, anyway? If you really do have a problem with any of the technologies we're referring to in our posts here, why don't you state them? That's what most of us here have been doing. Simply ranting about a dogmatic perspective you hold and seem to be trying to sell us doesn't provide you with a very convincing resume on salesmanship, much less on sensible debating skills, or even an ability to reason, which you don't even attempt to do at all in your post. You simply make dogmatic statements that are, to put it politely, quite ill-informed. Some semblance of gentility might help, too. If you really think all this is just "green propaganda", you must think peak oil is s hoax and that domestic oil production will be a significant contributor to our energy economy for more than a very brief time if at all. Either belief represents an uncanny ability to overlook the obvious. Ask yourself these questions: 1) Why did the oil companies justify their huge profits during the last hefty price surge with a need to invest in further exploration and technologies for extracting the last ounce of oil from older fields, when in fact they didn't do that at all? 2) Why did they instead actually invest almost none of it in exploration or advanced extraction technologies, but invested the huge bulk of it in buying back their own shares from stockholders? 3) Why would they want to suck up their own shares from their stockholders if they didn't know better than anyone about the reality of peak oil and are therefore jockeying for position so they will own most of it themselves when the price goes through the ceiling? 3) Why are you such a fan of domestic oil production in our few remaining natural habitats when all you have to do is look at the numbers to notice how pitifully small and ultimately much worse than useless considering the costs to the environment such contributions would be? 4) Why do you think those oil companies that are lobbying so hard for the rights to drill in these areas are not big oil, but relatively small oil companies for whom these rights would be a significant windfall while doing virtually nothing to ease energy costs? So the bottom line is that is totally unhelpful to repeat dogma again and again without addressing what we have said. If you differ, then why not state WHY you differ with some supporting evidence and a coherent and logically valid line of reasoning. So please, if you find anything wrong with points I or anyone else here has made, 1) State each point with which you disagree. 2) Cite valid evidence that you believe contradicts each point. 3) Use valid reasoning processes based on this evidence to refute each point. If you're not capable of doing this, I would like to request that you retire from the discussion. Ranting about dogmatic viewpoints that simply contradict what we've said without supporting your points or refuting ours by citing facts we can investigate and reasoning we can inspect for ourselves just muddies the waters. This is not a snowball fight or a yelling contest.
Oh! Oh, OK. Got it! I was raised in a fundamentalist environment, so I'm intimately familiar with the mindset: All dogma and no observation or reasoning that would contradict the dogma, resulting in eternal blind spots, omnipotent irrationality, and omnipresent inconsistency with observation. : )
Green NH3 is ammonia only not from carbon. There is a group in Canada using green NH3 made from wind electric presently. They say zero emissions.They make their own fuel cheaper than fossil at refuel locations rather than transport it in large tankers. decentralize To me that is safer, though ammonia is not explosive but at least they save the cost of transport. This fuel looks like it will probably be the one to take over from oil. They have every size vehicle and tractors running clean. They are having some trouble with canada government not allowing it. Canada government still in bed with big oil like our last one. Maybe if someone knows how to get thru government we could grab it for our side. They are GreenNH3.com We looked at hydrogen,, too much problems storage, safety, sitting on 10,000 psi tank hoping if it ruptures there will be no spark in the neighborhood. Big trucks , no way. Biofuels, now 10 guys are bidding on every deepfryer waste in town, Still makes carbon ect. competes with food. Need 10 trillion acres crops to supply enough to replace oil. ethanol . there are 100 plants for sale dosent work even with subsidies competes with food. cellulose may work but lots of chemistry problems. electric. maybe for small cars around town < 100 miles . Big trucks noway. One company betterplace.com raised 200 million to set up battery system,,,change batteries on the interstate, you pull in and change batteries then go another so far, you dont own the battery, they rent it to you,,and you thought Bernie Madoff was a good talker.
Fantastic first post Rogerg. Welcome. Thanks for the very interesting and important link to work at Un. of Michigan on the NH3 power IC engine. Here are a few quotes from your link and its sub links and some comments on them in a footnote: " ...During the NH3 car’s trip across America, gasoline was more than $2.25/gallon and Ammonia was approximately $450/ton. This scenario represented a cost savings over operating on straight gasoline.* The test vehicle can be run either on 100% gasoline or on an 80% ammonia/20% gasoline mixture, and can be switched from one to the other at any time. … A new on-board tank holds liquid ammonia at only about 150 PSI. Regulators, valves and an electronic control system meter the flow of ammonia to the engine as needed after the engine is started and warmed up on gasoline, ethanol etc. A small amount of gasoline is used to idle the engine, then as the load is increased the additional energy is provided by adding ammonia. This is all handled automatically by the engine control electronic module. Ammonia when liquefied contains roughly half of the energy of gasoline by volume. This means that an ammonia tank the size of your current gas tank will carry you more than 2/3rds of the distance of operating on gasoline alone, between fill ups when the contribution of the gasoline’s energy is considered. ..." ----------------- *The cost of conversion is about $1000 so with present interest rates and these prices, it would probably take the lifetime of the car to break even; however (1) cost of gasoline will be much higher during the car’s life time; (2) the cost of system as original equipment, mass produced would be much smaller – perhaps on $300 more than the gas only car. (3) given the huge role imported oil plays in the US trade deficit (likely to grow greatly as oil prices increase) and the impact lack of a trade balance has on the cost of financing the deficit, the US government could pay all extra costs and save a great deal of money. ---------- ---------- Norway has just launched the world's first floating wind power system. It could have NH3 generation and storage tanks with periodic transfer to small tankers circulating among a field of these units, which either transfer to large tankers for distant shipment or go themselves to nearby ports to discharge the NH3. The only cost of such a fuel system would be the capital, transport and insurance cost as land costs would be zero and no energy is fossil input energy is required. The potential "green fuel" generation capacity staggers the mind: All of the world's annual energy from fossil fuels in a year could be produced in about 3 hours, even during the night! The wind power in the hot desserts alone can supply ~750 more than the annual fossil fuels do: "The hot deserts cover around 36 Million km² (UNEP, 2006) of the 149 Million km² of the earths land surface. The solar energy arriving per 1 year on 1 km² desert is on average 2.2 Terawatt hours (TWh), yielding 80 Terawatt hours/year. This is a factor of 750 more than the fossil energy consumption of 2005 ..." From page 19 of: www.desertec.org/downloads/articles/trec_white_paper.pdf which is collection of chapters by various experts with an introduction by the king of Jordan. (Well worth at least a skim.) ----- ----- One minor correction to Rogerg's comments: Batteries are practical in some special use trucks, like a mail truck in a neighborhood where it makes more about 100s of stops after traveling only a few meters between them - regenerative breaking is very attractive in this case. Are you a student /professor at U of M? What is the empty weight and full weights of the UofM truck (or car) fuel tank? Or how large is the safe 150spi tank when its weight is 81% of the total, if the tank weight used is more than 81% of total? (The solid state storge system has ~9% NH3 by weight - is safer but probably much more costly. See earlier post with photo of had holding NH3 in the solid salt pelets.)
Burning ammonia, especially mixed with other fuels, better if second-generation biofuels, is a good interim or transition technology. As some have already pointed out, it's going to be a while before combustion engines disappear. However, I believe that once we have a truly viable vehicle that converts ammonia directly to electricity to drive a fully electric vehicle, it won't be very long at all before combustion engines are gone, kaput, caduco, doomed as a popular mode of transportation. Horses still haven't disappeared, but how long did horse and buggy transportation last once the automobile appeared? It didn't take very long at all. Let's not forget that once a truly superior technology comes online, it replaces its predecessors pretty darn fast. How many prop planes, excluding prop jets and helicopters, are flying commercially now? How long did that transition take? I was born way before that one happened, and from my perspective, it hardly took three blinks from when I first saw a friend board a Boeing 707 as we stared at it and later watched in wondrous awe as it took off to when we just didn't see anything else around and took commercial jets completely for granted.
just a thought ammonia is super easy to produce, all you need is biomass/organic material of a suitably predigested nature and bacteria....just ask anyone who has ever owned an aquarium, they typically have more than they can handle. so why do people keep going on and on about how difficult it is to procure ammonia from fossil fuels?:shrug: i imagine that a well fed colony of bacteria would be just about the most efficient NH3 production method out there... ***i did just see trippys post regarding the production of ammonia from nitrates...however i still feel like using NATURALLY occurring bacteria for fuel production is a major selling point for NH3 based fuel not often discussed
>:}, are you recommending getting ammonia from fossil fuels? Sounds like you want to get it from biomass, which is, of course, renewable. If so, great! However, in one sentence you talk about others complaining about how hard it is to get it from fossil fuels, which would defeat the entire purpose of this discussion. Did you check out my posts about the aluminum oxide/nitrogen/ammonia cycle using direct solar energy? It consists of an endothermic and an exothermic stage. In the first stage, two reactions are concurrent. The reaction sequence follows: 1st stage: 1a. Al2O3 + 3C + N2 → 2AlN + 3CO 1b. Al2O3 + 3CH4 + N2 → 2AlN + 6H2+ 3CO 2nd stage: 2. 2AlN + 3H2O → Al2O3 + 2NH3 So you get ammonia and aluminum oxide out. The Al2O3 is then recycled to the first step. Source: http://www.pre.ethz.ch/research/projects/?id=ammonia This looks very enticing to me. It simultaneously solves the problem of solar energy storage and the problem otherwise arising from intermittent supply while also solving the problem of a safe, dense hydrogen carrier that can be absorbed by porous metal hydride pellets and released by the heat from a intermediate temperature direct ammonia fuel cell (ITDAFC) that cracks the ammonia internally without a separate stage. The storage density in hydride pellets is greater than liquid hydrogen and is stable at room temperature. Sources: http://www.amminex.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=61&Itemid=132 http://www.energy.iastate.edu/Renewable/ammonia/ammonia/2006/HowardUniv2.pdf
I just ran into this: http://www.energy.iastate.edu/Renewable/ammonia/ammonia/2007/SSAS_Oct2007_Final.pdf SSAS means Solid State Ammonia Synthesis and looks very interesting. It also seems to be closer commercial implementation that the research I pointed to in my previous post. The following is from Longshot City: "It’s basically an ammonia-powered fuel cell driven in reverse. Nitrogen + water + electricity in –> Ammonia and Oxygen out. "This is a big deal for many reasons: "R1: It uses about 40% less electricity than an electrically-driven Haber-Bosch process (look up Haber-Bosch in Wikipedia). Quoted/estimated numbers are about 60% efficient when compared to the (unattainable) ideal, which is great because I was hand-waving/hoping for 50% efficient above. This savings mostly has to do with the fact that SSAS doesn’t make hydrogen gas as an intermediate step. That’s good, because otherwise, in Haber-Bosch, the reaction of Hydrogen and Nitrogen to make Ammonia is a [sic] exothermic one, thus blowing some of the energy it took to make that pure Hydrogen gas in the first place. "From what some experts have estimated, 2 cent/kilowatt-hour electricity feeding SSAS would produce ammonia at about $220/ton = $1.75/equivalent gallon as a motor fuel, which would rock the house!" Source: http://longshotcity.com/2008/11/11/armageddon-calculation-revised/
I agree. It is done at 550C temperature and 15 atmosphere pressure, which sounds reasonable, but do you know what pure H2O/ steam temperature is for 15 atmosphere? Should not be hard to find, but I am lazy and don't search much. (That data is called "steam tables" I think.) Also as they want the N2 and produce O2, why can they not just feed in air? I.e. just pass thru some O2 and take out more? They show a ASU (air separation unit, I assue) that takes power so must be a simple answer to this question. Perhaps it is cheaper to separate than to compress ~20% more gas? Perhaps because the N2 stays on the NH3 side of some divider and they don't want O2 in the output? Again I'm to lazy to work thru the details. I assume the O2 they do produce is at 15 bar also. If they feed thru some them perhaps need to do "pressure recovery" (motor / pump) also? Your thoughts (or facts?) If a feasible small unit were reversible (Nh3 generator & fuel cell) that would permit regenerative braking. (Needs reversible motor / generators too.) Maybe for busses and trucks at least. I really wish them well.
Critical temperature of water is 374 C, Billy T, so no matter what the pressure, it remains a gas at 550 C. It's not clear from the SSAS Primary Components schematic on page 8 how the O2/H2O Mix and the NH3/N2 Mix remain separate, since they're both shown as coming out of the same Tube Module, which is of necessity physically integrated with the furnace as shown in the Tubular Geometry graphic on page 11. As you can see, the chemical conduits alternate with the furnace tubes. Obviously, at least some of the steam (H2O) and N2 streams have to come into contact within the reverse cell to produce NH3, so the internal structure of the reverse fuel cell and its electrodes are the natural and only means to explain their separation at the output of the SSAS Tube Module. This all implies to me that a normal atmospheric mixture of oxygen and nitrogen at the N2 input would compromise the inputs to the SSAS Module sufficiently to degrade its function. I can see no other reason for the ASU, which is, as you assume, an Air Separation Unit.
Efficiency is also clearly at a premium in any approach, as in this one. With the careful attention to heat recovery at every possible opportunity here, I cannot imagine that energy would be wasted in an ASU if it were not essential to the overall function. That would be a pretty darn obvious oversight in the context of the care taken in every other respect.
better later than neverPlease Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Not so, photosynthesis traps (very roughly) 0.5 % of sun' energy, unknown % of sun' energy is being transformed into work of erosion, animal movement, etc. Note, modern agrarians—along with engineers, foresters and consumers—directly control 23.8 percent of all the world's photosynthesis, according to a new analysis (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=humans-gobble-one-quarter-of-food-chain-foundation). That's WAY WAY WAY more a single specie could use without major global repercussions. Essentially, humans starve non humans, keep that in mind when you are filling your car with alcohol. We could only guess about biosphere breaking point. Mankind should drastically decrease consumption of biosynthetic forms of energy to give biosphere a chance. Developing bio fuels to power suicidal global economy of absurd is a crime against future generations (if any).
Irrelevant, humans need certain amount of energy to run things, 7 billions of them. Wavelength tweaking is helpful but ultimately irrelevant. Humans may consume energy equivalent 1% and up of Sun' energy in 100 years. Let's assume it's all solar at the optimal wavelengths. Some of that energy will be wasted/used as heat. OK, let's wait 20 years longer to get 1% of Sun' energy transformed into work (or things that release energy back over long, long time). According to modern level of knowledge, 1% of Sun' energy fluctuation = major climatic changes. The point is - humans should not mess with the Energy Balances until they will come up with Warp Drives to spread and screw up other Planets. It's just common sense. Practically speaking, mankind keep on burning things and playing Russian Roulette. However, why would I care, hmmm..., I'll be dead before reckoning days. Of course, my ignorance regarding nuts and bolts of solar energy and NH3 is undeniable. However, I'm writing from standpoint of common sense and not as an amateur solar expert. Common sense suggests that it does not matter how you run exponentially growing things, fossils or solar, you'll hit "the wall". Thus, if "the wall" is inevitable, why keep on tweaking the engine of a car racing towards the wall? Much, much greater. OK, let's get numerical. US weight limit for tractor-trailer 80,000lbs (let it be roughly 40 tonnes), on the average empty tractor trailer weighs 32,000lbs (let it be 16 tonnes). Average mpg - 5 miles/gallon. Maximum legal payload 24 tonnes. Let's say distance is 10 miles = 2 gallons of diesel=76 MJ OR 3167 J/kg. It's much harder to make a learned guess for a rickshaw. Let's be nice to a poor guy. Let's assume he's taking a fat arsed American tourist weighing 300lbs (I guess, it should be manageable, but I'm not sure). Let's assume rickshaw contraption weighs 100 lbs and rickshaw himself is 200 lbs (a big strong rickshaw). Total 600 lbs, "payload" 300lbs. Let's assume a rickshaw spent 20% of daily human energy consumption on this 10 mile trip, roughly 1 MJ (just a guess). 10e6/150= 6667 J/kg. Let's not forget about energy spent to manufacture tractor/trailer, diesels, oils, etc., which is not a small number as well as deadhead empty miles to a pick up point. Since calculations are rough I would assume that rickshaw and max loaded truck spend commensurable amount of energy per kg of payload. A train is 4 times more energy efficient than a truck, therefore it would beats rickshaw in joule/kg game. Just for a reference, a modest car weighs 4000 lbs, let's be generous with mpg, 40 miles/gallon. 0.25 gallons per 10 mile trip, 9 MJ roughly or, for 300lbs guy, 60000 J/kg, roughly 10 times of that for rickshaw and probably 20 times for self-rickshaws. So, you are correct about max payload transportation. However, that was not my point. I did not claim that universal substitution of engines for muscle power would result in universal energy savings. Muscle power in many cases is more efficient, but muscle power is limited in more than one way, it's the limitation of the muscle power were the source of low energy consumption of Indians, not overall superb efficiency of it. Muscle powered society cannot (physically) run like highly industrialized ones. Muscle power deficiencies limit energy appetites.
I don't know if it has been pointed out already, but burning NH[sub]3[/sub] results in nitrous oxide (N[sub]2[/sub]O). Nitrous oxide is a major greenhouse gas!
The thread isn't discussing the direct combustion of Ammonia for energy, but as a method for storing Hydrogen in a readily extractable way, at a useful density.
