Addis Energy aims to decarbonize ammonia

Ammonia production via the Haber-Bosch process is the chemical industry’s greatest source of greenhouse gas emissions and accounts for 2% of global energy consumption. Now, a Boston-based start-up says it can make ammonia cleanly, cheaply, and quickly by injecting nitrate-containing water into iron-rich rock and letting the Earth do the rest. Addis Energy, which launched in April but revealed its technology just last month, has raised $8.75 million to date from the US Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy and three venture capital firms. The start-up’s process, which has been demonstrated in the lab but not yet in a natural setting, was devised at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. When the process is practiced in the field, water will be mixed with a source of nitrogen and particles of a metal catalyst and then injected into iron-rich subsurface rock. The water will react with the iron to generate hydrogen,