Global Nitrogen Innovation Center for Clean Energy and the Environment (NICCEE)

利用可再生能源生产氨的技术创新，被称为“绿色氨”，提供了变革的机会和破坏性的危险。在农业部门，绿色氨技术可能导致化肥生产的分散化，这与目前使用的集中式碳密集型生产方法形成鲜明对比。在氮肥供应有限的国家，这一转变可以增加肥料的使用，促进粮食生产，从而提高作物产量、经济繁荣、营养和粮食安全。它还可以使工业化国家的农民改善施肥的时机和剂量，以更好地满足作物需求，从而减少氮的损失。另一方面，廉价而丰富的氮肥也可能加剧目前因氮肥使用过度或低效而导致的氮向空气和水中流失的严重环境问题。这种技术变革似乎近在咫尺。然而，我们才刚刚开始考虑可能随之而来的广泛后果，有好有坏。在澳大利亚、南非和美国，一些绿色氨工厂已经计划或正在建设中，年产能从几百吨到100万吨不等。我们认为有必要探索绿色氨对农业的未来影响，以提高粮食生产和农业-食品-能源（AFE）系统中氮的有效利用。我们在各国之间建立了伙伴关系，不仅提供了互补的专业知识，还展示了绿色氨技术的各种潜在用户组合，以及该中心提供的网络基础设施和创新平台。NICCEE中心的总体目标是通过使用启发和数据驱动的方法，实现和加速可持续和气候智能型氮管理的社会经济和技术变革。该中心特别关注的一项技术进步是新兴的绿色氨的生产和使用，用于清洁能源和作为食品生产的肥料来源。该中心将具有三个核心功能：1)信息中心，开发最先进的网络基础设施，包括数据发现、模型融合和知识门户，用于对当前农业-食品-能源系统中氮肥的生产和使用进行基准测试，同时共同开发数据和决策支持工具，指导新兴的绿色氨生产和使用；2)创新平台，通过地方、国家和全球范围的生活实验室和利益相关者研讨会，促进与绿色氨作为肥料和能源相关的技术和社会经济创新的共同发展；3)教育计划，在超过四个国家为本科生和研究生以及早期职业专业人士建立旗舰氮气学院。该项目将把测量与建模结合起来。我们将应用创新的绿色氨肥和常规肥料，并评估氨和温室气体（N2O和CO2）的排放。我们将在英国应用集水区系统模型（CSM），该模型目前基于广泛的全国数据库，为有关农业实践的环境后果的国家政策提供信息，以预测与绿色氨的出现相关的环境后果。全球变化评估模型（Global Change Assessment Model）等其他模型也将用于表示肥料需求、生产者价格、农产品的各种价格弹性需求和区域间贸易之间的联系，从而能够分析粮食安全指标及其对弱势群体的影响。来自英国、加拿大和美国的数据将填补现有的知识空白，使人们能够捕捉到在全球农业中使用绿色氨这一新兴趋势的多方面影响

The technological innovation to produce ammonia using renewable energy, known as "green ammonia," offers transformational opportunities and disruptive hazards. In the agricultural sector, green ammonia technology could lead to decentralization of fertilizer production, which stands in contrast to the centralized, carbon-intensive production methods currently in use. This shift could enhance fertilizer use and bolster food production in countries where N fertilizer accessibility has been limited, thus improving crop production, economic prosperity, nutrition, and food security. It could also enable farmers in industrialized countries to improve the timing and dosing of fertilizer to better match crop needs and thereby reduce N losses. On the other hand, cheap and abundant N fertilizer could also exacerbate the current severe environmental problems of N losses to air and water from over- or inefficient use of N fertilizers. This technological transformation appears to be close at hand. And yet we are only beginning to contemplate the wide-ranging consequences, both good and bad, that are likely to ensue. Several green ammonia plants are already planned or under construction in Australia, South Africa, and the U.S. with production capacity ranging from several hundred to a million tons per year.We think it is imperative to explore the future impacts of green ammonia in agriculture so that both food production and efficient use of N in the agriculture-food-energy (AFE) system are improved. We have built a partnerships among countries not only offering complementary expertise, but also presenting a diverse portfolio of potential users of green ammonia technologies, as well as the cyberinfrastructure and innovation platform provided by the center.The overarching goal of the NICCEE center is to enable and accelerate transformative socioeconomic and technological innovation for sustainable and climate-smart nitrogen management with use-inspired and data-driven approaches. One technological advancement of particular focus of the center is the emerging production and use of green ammonia for clean energy and as a fertilizer source for food production. The center will have three core functions: 1) Information hub to develop state-of-the-art cyberinfrastructure, including data discovery, model fusion, and a knowledge portal, for benchmarking current N fertilizer production and usage in the agriculture-food-energy system, while co-developing data and decision-support tools to guide the emerging green ammonia production and use; 2) Innovation platform to facilitate the co-development of technological and socioeconomic innovations associated with green ammonia as fertilizer and energy through living labs and stakeholder workshops on local, national, and global scales; 3) Education programme to establish a flagship Nitrogen school for undergraduate and graduate students, as well as early career professionals in more than four countries. The project will combine measurements with modelling. We will apply the innovative green ammonia fertilizers and conventional fertilizer and assess emissions of ammonia and greenhouse gases (N2O and CO2). We will apply the Catchment Systems Model (CSM) in the UK which currently informs national policy regarding environmental consequences of agricultural practices based on an extensive nationwide database, to anticipate environmental consequences associated with the advent of green ammonia. Other models such as the Global Change Assessment Model will also be applied to represent connections among fertilizer demand, producer prices, and various price-elastic demands for agricultural commodities and inter-regional trade, enabling analysis of food security indicators and impacts on vulnerable populations. The data from the UK, Canada and the US will fill an extant gap in knowledge to enable the capture of the multifaceted impacts of this emerging trend in the use of green ammonia in global farming