A new technology that turns air, renewable energy and water into nitrogen fertilizer could reduce global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and provide farmers with consistent local access to a nutrient that’s proving to be better for crops.
“We use the same fundamental process as a lightning storm,” says Nicolas Pinkowski, co-founder and CEO of Nitricity Inc. In nature, lightning releases nitrogen from the air, and rain carries it to plants.
Instead of using the atmospheric discharge of electricity, the company creates “containerized lightning” using solar power. It extracts the nitrogen, adds it to irrigation water to produce nitric acid and neutralizes that with either limestone or potassium hydroxide to make fertilizer which is added to a high-frequency drip irrigation system.
“We started looking at these technologies as Stanford University students,” says Pinkowski, who holds a PhD in mechanical engineering, specializing in thermosciences. “Ultimately, we were looking for a way to reduce GHG emissions.”
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He says that he took a class in which teams of students were investigating different technologies, and his team was looking at creating ammonia out of air, water and electricity. By the time San Francisco-based was founded in September 2018, the team had pivoted to making nitrate-based fertilizer.
Saving the environment
“Our business objective is to reduce GHG emissions from production of fertilizer, but also from soil-based nitrous oxide, which is primarily produced by nitrification,” Pinkowski says, adding that he and his colleagues found that on most farms fertilizers are not optimized for what’s best for the soil. “We think that the fertilizers can be improved using electricity.”
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Currently, fertilizer production is fuelled by either natural gas or coal — and a lot of it — and that means a lot of emissions. A report from Cornell University and the Environmental Defense Fund in 2019 said that methane emissions from fertilizer plants were 100 times higher than the industry reported.
Besides the environmental damage from fertilizer production, costs have skyrocketed, especially during 2021 when China and Russia were restricting exports and Europe was cutting back production due to the high cost of natural gas. Hurricane Ida idled major fertilizer plants in Louisiana, and the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted supply chains throughout the industry.
In October 2021, using data from the USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service, University of Illinois agricultural economists reported that the average price of anhydrous ammonia was $1,135 per ton, up by $278 from two weeks earlier, the highest-ever increase.
Financing research
So far, Nitricity has performed trials on tomatoes, broccoli and yellow bell peppers, as well as initial trials on wheat.
“We are as scientific as possible about our research — conducting soil sampling, petiole analysis and Brix testing on the crop,” Pinkowski says, adding that they will also be working at a fertilizer laboratory, measuring GHG emissions and soil nitrate leaching.
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Results of a trial on tomatoes at the Center for Irrigation and Technology in Fresno, California, have been published in a report titled Solar on-farm fertilizer production for subsurface-irrigated tomatoes. Even though the Nitricity system got a late start and only produced 70 pounds of N per acre compared to the 200 pounds of traditional N per acre added to the control crop, yields and quality were similar.
Pinkowski and his team entered several pitch competitions for financing, and while they didn’t succeed the first time around, they did in subsequent years.
“These pitch competitions really help you grow — even when you fail — you watch other pitches and learn from them, and the feedback from the judges is great for the long term,” he says, adding that they competed in events put on by Stanford, CalTech and MIT, and won all of them.
The MIT Clean Energy Prize was lucrative — Nitricity won $100,000 that was used to finance its first commercial project.
“You have to put yourself out there — it shows that you’re competitive, and it really helps when you want to recruit investors,” Pinkowski says.
As of November, Nitricity had raised $7.5 million, of which $5 million came from a recent Series Seed investment round led by Energy Impact Partners, an investment platform that funds projects aimed at creating a new low-carbon economy.
“We’re well-capitalized,” Pinkowski says, adding that there has been quite a bit of interest in his company due to the crisis in the fertilizer industry.
The future
Pinkowski says the path hasn’t always been smooth. The production process was a challenge and field testing during California summers sometimes meant working at 110 F. Farm owners could be enthusiastic about the technology’s potential but farm managers and irrigation specialists were less convinced, and he had to learn how to explain the potential advantages of the Nitricity system. Rather than the traditional method of fertilizing at set times through the year, the Nitricity model involves more frequent application, which Pinkowski says is more efficient and reduces nitrate runoff and GHG emissions.
In 2022 the company will test production on 75 acres at Terra Nova Ranch in the central San Joaquin Valley of California, using the Nitricity system on 25 of those acres.
Pinkowski acknowledges the system can’t compete right away with traditional fertilizers, and will initially take on premium calcium nitrate fertilizers used mainly in greenhouses. But the recent increase in conventional N prices has increased interest.
“A lot of farmers are innovative and cutting edge and they really like us — right now, we just can’t compete on price. We will push towards eventually taking on the cheaper fertilizers — that’s the goal.”
