Nitrogen Summer Institute 2024: Video Highlights
June 13 - 14, 2024. Baltimore, MD
About the Institute
The inaugural NICCEE Nitrogen Summer Institute gathered more than 50 experts from academia, government agencies, industry, farming and non-profit organizations to explore advancements and collaborative efforts for nitrogen management in agriculture, food and energy systems. The first day of the event offered a particular focus on the opportunities and challenges presented by ‘green ammonia,’ while the second day addressed nitrogen management and sustainability more broadly.
Green ammonia, or ammonia (NH3) made using renewable energy, has gained worldwide attention for its potential to transform agriculture via decentralized fertilizer production and decarbonize marine shipping. The 2024 Nitrogen Summer Institute discussed the many opportunities and challenges surrounding this emerging technology and employed NICCEE’s use-inspired and data-driven approach to explore sustainable nitrogen management and research.
Opening remarks and plenary speakers
Video highlights from the Institute opening and plenary remarks.
NICCEE director Xin Zhang commences the Summer Institute, welcomes attendees, and introduces the opening speakers. At 3:15, UMCES IMET Executive Director and Professor Russell Hill welcomes attendees to the University System of Maryland. At 6:55, UMCES Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development Michele Masucci invites collaborative innovation and introduces Secretary Atticks.
Kevin M. Atticks, DCD, Maryland Secretary of Agriculture welcomes science and policy that support regional agricultural sector retention and productivity alongside the thriving Chesapeake ecosystem and watershed.
“How can we grow and make and produce and store and distribute more food here, while at the same time doing it in a way that has a lighter touch on the land?“
NICCEE director and USA-lead Xin Zhang provides an overview of NICCEE and its activities, followed by UK-lead Adie Collins at 18:27 and Canada-lead Claudia Wagner-Riddle at 29.35.
Slides available here.
“Nitrogen is essential for life in plants, animals, and humans, yet we are facing a nitrogen paradox of ‘too much, too little,’ where we have too much nitrogen loaded into the environment, while leaving too little nitrogen on the plate for those people who are in need. Both technological and socioeconomic innovations are necessary to address this paradox.“
Panel sessions
SESSION 1
The State of Green Ammonia Technology:
Opportunities and Challenges Around the World
A discussion of the current state of green ammonia technology, sharing remarks from green ammonia production efforts around the world. This session addressed what green ammonia is and the first and second generation of green ammonia technology (Zhang), followed by a discussion of green ammonia in the net-zero energy transition in Canada (Layzell) and its use and potential regulation in marine shipping (Gilliam). This session concluded with perspectives on ongoing green ammonia production in Canada (Clifford), Morocco (Gerard), Kenya (Monadjem), South America (Caceres), and India (Yadav).
Moderator: Matt Houser
Discussant: Corey Park
Panelists: Zhenhuan (Bruce) Zhao, David Layzell , Lucy Gilliam, Ian Clifford (remote), Bruno Gerard (remote), Vahid Monadjem (remote), Nicolas Caceres, Deepak Yadav (remote)
BREAKOUT SUMMARY
Discussion prompt 1:
Economic and environmental opportunities and challenges for on-farm use of green ammonia
Environmental opportunities: climate mitigation potential due to reduced emissions during ammonia production; decrease fertilizer transport
Environmental challenges: risks of fertilizer over-application and pollution; increased NOx and N2O emissions, increased reactive nitrogen deposition on oceans; ammonia slippage; health and toxicity risks; high water consumption; need for regulations
Economic opportunities: strengthening local food systems; expected long-term cost benefits; farmer protection from fluctuations in market prices; potential further uses for oxygen byproducts
Economic challenges: high initial capital and operational expenditures; high renewable energy consumption; need for regulations
Discussion prompt 2:
Opportunities and challenges for green ammonia in the energy sector, shipping, and beyond
Energy opportunities: NICCEE to compile list of worldwide green ammonia production efforts; green ammonia as fuel storage for other renewable energies; long-term cost benefits; collaboration with green H2 efforts; green ammonia as a model for scaling up other green energy technologies
Energy challenges: health and toxicity risks; need for regulations; high water and renewable energy consumption; compatibility with existing fuel systems
Shipping opportunities: fuel storage for other renewable energies; decarbonization of marine shipping
Shipping challenges: health and toxicity risks; space to store fuel on ships; compatibility with existing fuel systems; potential monopolies by major shipping alliances; environmental risks including eutrophication, acidification and air pollution; supply chain leakages; nitrous oxide emissions
Discussion prompt 3:
Green ammonia and competition between agriculture, energy, shipping and other sectors
Opportunities: synergies in sectors to improve sustainability and efficiency; potential to shift from competition to collaboration; develop comprehensive data (efficiency, emissions, cost/benefit analyses, farm-level metadata, field measurements)
Challenges: market dynamics and competition may decrease affordability and lead to increases in food prices with significant global consequences; limited production capacity and availability of green ammonia; potential illicit trade of grey ammonia due to cost competitiveness.
SESSION 2
Addressing Concerns and Advancing Green Ammonia
Technology Through Modeling and Data Curation
A discussion of what data and models can support stakeholders and how data translates into decisions and policy making. This session was reflective of NICCEE Information team and addressed modeling efforts, including using the Global Change Assessment Model (GCAM) to assess green ammonia impacts (Niazi) and the Catchment Systems Model (CSM) as a decision support tool (Collins), as well as current data challenges in green ammonia (Liang). This session also discussed green ammonia effects on oceanic nitrogen deposition (Liu), cost-competitiveness of decentralized ammonia production (Rosa), and how to connect science with industry practice and policy making (Trask).
Moderator & Discussant: Claudia Wagner-Riddle
Panelists: Hassan Niazi, Xuejun Liu, Lorenzo Rosa, Adrian Collins, Dong Liang, Beth Trask
BREAKOUT SUMMARY
What modeling, data and tools are needed to address challenges and opportunities
offered by green ammonia for each of the following stakeholders:
Discussion prompt 1:
Needs from a farming and/or agriculture perspective
Environmental benefits tracking; to determine minimum feasible scale for on-farm production; cost estimates for deployment and future operations; to address safety issues; to address the discrepancy between available green ammonia products and typical fertilizers used by farmers; updated nitrogen demand forecasts; regulation; unit standardization
Discussion prompt 2:
Needs from a policymaking perspective
To develop accurate emissions factors that can support policy (e.g., the Paris Agreement); for policymakers to be aware of the available data (and its scale); communication across political and sector boundaries; to create a data infrastructure spanning various sectors and scales (local to national to global); to make relevant data publicly available; to fill data gaps particularly in marine shipping; port regulation
Discussion prompt 3:
Needs from an industry and/or production sector perspective
Key data needs: leakage, costs, equipment lifespan, efficiency; to track the distribution and impact of green ammonia systems; to include water demand and market structure in modeling scenarios; unit standardization; data disclosure by farmers and private industry
Discussion prompt 4:
Needs from an academic research perspective (e.g., integrated assessment modeling)
Better parameterization of on-farm fertilizer use (e.g., what kind of nitrogen, application rates and methods, irrigation) and how much on-farm electricity is produced using renewables; improve data accessibility, including data standardization and access to trade data that is typically paywalled; to consider input from farmers (e.g., how/why farmers choose to invest in their farms, openness to new technology, will their children inherit the farm); to investigate atmospheric loss rates for green ammonia as shipping fuel (does loss scale linearly with volume produced?); to consider farm economics (operations, maintenance, construction, environmental costs relative to the establishment of a factory)
SESSION 3
Opportunities and Challenges for Nitrogen Innovation
A comprehensive, broad discussion about nitrogen innovation beyond green ammonia. This session addressed challenges in nitrogen management in the European Union (Lassaletta) and the Canadian Living Laboratories Initiative’s approach to nitrogen innovation (Joosse). This session also discussed shifting agriculture’s nitrogen economy using a ‘Nitrogen 2.0’ approach (Davidson), including the ‘Manureshed’ initiative advancing nutrient recycling in US agriculture (Spiegal), and other ways to change farmer behavior and improve on-farm nitrogen management (Houser).
Moderator: Tom Bruulsema
Discussant: Kate Congreves
Panelists: Eric Davidson, Luis Lassaletta, Sheri Spiegal (remote), Pamela Joosse (remote), Matt Houser
BREAKOUT SUMMARY
What are the next steps for nitrogen innovation and management?
What are future priorities and pathways for the next year? The next five years (and beyond)?
Discussion prompt 1:
Technological innovations, opportunities & challenges
Technological opportunities: improve current production efficiency (e.g., improvements to fertilizer forms, microbial solutions such as gene editing, increasing livestock production efficiency, improved manure handling to reduce losses); use remote sensing to measure and monitor NOx and N2O; improve data collection; leverage cell phones to allow farmers to share data and contribute to national inventory estimates
Technological challenges: spatial variability/heterogeneity; unanticipated environmental consequences of new technology development; technological innovations not universally applicable across varying scales, limitations in data availability and emission factors; timely solutions needed, but solutions take time
Discussion prompt 2:
Socioeconomic innovations, opportunities & challenges
Next steps: to continue to actively cultivate of a diverse community with a wide range of disciplines, stakeholders, identities and methodologies; NICCEE as a facilitator that can coordinate communication and research across groups
Priorities: to integrate research and initiatives across scales; to form transdisciplinary working groups; to standardize language and relevant jargon; to intentionally build community spaces that foster equitable conversations and collaboration
Next 5 years: to implement iterative processes for research products and outcomes, connecting fieldwork with policy planning; to address opportunity costs and create career pathways for non-traditional approaches and research; to promote publications in interdisciplinary journals and leverage untapped resources
Discussion prompt 3:
Farm-scale innovations,
opportunities & challenges
Farm-scale opportunities: establish baseline farm data ranging from fertilizer use to socioeconomic factors; develop user-friendly support tools for farmers; AI integration; enhance the circularity of nitrogen flow between crop and livestock systems
Farm-scale challenges: potential skepticism of AI; when establishing baseline data, avoid penalizing early adopters of technology for their initial research efforts; cost analysis nitrogen inhibitor use to determine where losses for farmers occur; investigate affordable technologies to reduce volatile nitrogen in Manureshed project (P:N is too high)
Discussion prompt 4:
Regional-scale innovations, opportunities & challenges
Regional-scale opportunities: leverage GCAM, CHANCE and other models to push comparative regional scale analyses; ensure regional comparisons cross equity and availability boundaries; explore recycling from manure and circular nitrogen systems (e.g., Nitrogen 2.0); integrate additional parameters into modeling approaches (e.g., modern diet shifts, carbon taxes, transportation networks); life cycle analyses of green ammonia
Regional-scale challenges: determine amount of nitrogen needed after documenting in-system availability and how to meet those needs; restaurants and food waste
SESSION 4
Next Steps: Green Ammonia, NICCEE and Beyond
Reflections on the Nitrogen Summer Institute and the state of green ammonia technology and research from Canada (Wagner-Riddle), UK (Cardenas), US (Zhang), and Morocco (Gerard). This session discussed future opportunities for NICCEE and nitrogen management worldwide.
Moderator: Sarah Garvey
Discussant: Samuel Njoroge
Panelists: Claudia Wagner-Riddle, Laura Cardenas, Bruno Gerard (remote), Xin Zhang
BREAKOUT SUMMARY
Discussion prompt 1:
What kinds of working groups are needed to support the first generation of NICCEE products (e.g., papers, experiments, communication materials, policy briefs)?
Considerations for papers: interest in developing a perspective paper highlighting the challenges and opportunities of green ammonia across scales while; keen to avoiding making definitive judgments about green ammonia’s ultimate role; an understanding that future agrifood system will likely continue to need ammonia in some form; leverage NICCEE’s multinational, multidisciplinary, multiscale approach
Other communication materials: develop 1-2 page policy briefs to inform international, non-academic stakeholders on green ammonia (e.g., definition, implementation potential, current state, and major challenges and opportunities); communication materials for farmers to raise awareness about on-farm ammonia production
Discussion prompt 2:
What is needed for NICCEE in the long-term (e.g., funding, collaborations, communication, outreach, center development)?
Funding: potential future funding sources could include ClimateWorks Foundation, Bezos Earth Fund, Sloan Foundation, Gates Foundation, Ford Foundation and other international NGOs; leverage existing relationships; importance of maintaining neutrality
Collaborations, communications, outreach: press releases following research publications; update website and integrate with social media platforms; perhaps a dedicated person for social media, website and press communication
Center development: need for sustainability and funding plans beyond initial 5-year NSF funding
Discussion prompt 3:
What big questions about green ammonia do you feel were answered during the Summer Institute? What big questions about green ammonia remain?
- Is it realistic to expect green ammonia to have a significant impact on food security, and what kind of impact would that be?
- What policies and government incentives would support safe, climate- and nitrogen-smart green ammonia uptake? How limiting will access to renewable energy be to adoption?
- How can we sustainably use water to fit production demand for green ammonia?
- How will macroeconomic factors, like trade, influence the adoption and impact of green ammonia?
- What are the anticipated socioeconomic impacts of green ammonia adoption on farmers locally and worldwide? What about the economic impacts of green ammonia in shipping?
- How will green ammonia influence on-farm best management practices (BMPs) regarding safety, production and fertilizer application?
- How can green ammonia be leveraged to transform food production into a circular system?
- How to more clearly define relevant terms and jargon surrounding green ammonia?
- What is the anticipated scale of future green ammonia demand?
- How can we leverage case studies, such as Chile’s Green Hydrogen Action Plan, to demonstrate nitrogen-smart paths forward toward net-zero climate goals?
Closing remarks
Video highlights from the Institute closing remarks.
NICCEE director Xin Zhang provides an overview of NICCEE milestones since its launch and offers closing remarks for the Nitrogen Summer Institute. At 9:35, NICCEE Program Manager Sarah Garvey shares highlights from the Institute.
NICCEE Leadership:
Xin Zhang, NICCEE Director; Professor, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
Claudia Wagner-Riddle, NICCEE Canada-Lead; Professor, University of Guelph
Adrian Collins, NICCEE UK-Lead; Science Director, Rothamsted Research
Meeting Organization:
Sarah Garvey, NICCEE Program Manager; Assistant Research Scientist, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science