A spark of hydrogen could make ammonia a clean fuel for ships — an idea last tried on wartime buses

When diesel ran out during the Second World War, Belgian bus drivers kept their routes running on ammonia — a fuel that burns without carbon but is stubbornly hard to ignite. Eighty years later, that same stubbornness is the problem NTNU marine technologist David Emberson's team in Norway is solving, this time for shipping. In work published in Energy & Fuels, the researchers used a tiny jet of hydrogen to reliably spark lean ammonia combustion inside an experimental engine chamber. Ships move about 90 percent of world trade and are hard to electrify; a carbon-free fuel that existing engine thinking can adapt to would be a genuine way out.

SDG 7 · Affordable and clean energy — Mechanism: tech innovation