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”，提供了转型的机会和破坏性的危险。在农业部门，绿色氨技术可导致化肥生产的分散化，这与目前使用的集中化、碳密集型生产方法形成对比。这一转变可以提高化肥的使用，促进氮肥可及性有限的国家的粮食生产，从而改善作物生产、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，以更好地满足作物的需求，从而减少氮的损失。另一方面，廉价和丰富的氮肥也可能加剧目前严重的环境问题，即过度或低效使用氮肥导致氮素损失到空气和水中。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，无论是好的还是坏的。澳大利亚、南非和美国已经规划或正在建设几个绿色氨厂，其生产能力从每年几百吨到100万吨不等。我们认为有必要探讨绿色氨在农业中的未来影响，以便提高粮食生产和农业-粮食-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，不仅提供互补的专门知识，而且还提供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中心的总体目标是实现和加速变革性的社会经济和技术创新，以实现可持续和气候智能型氮管理，驱动的方法。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粮食生产的肥料来源。该中心将有三个核心功能：1）信息枢纽，以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，用于对农业-食品-能源系统中当前氮肥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，以指导新兴的绿色氨生产和使用; 2）创新平台，通过地方、国家和全球范围的活体实验室和利益相关者研讨会，促进与作为肥料和能源的绿色氨相关的技术和社会经济创新的共同发展; 3）教育方案，为四个以上国家的本科生和研究生以及早期职业专业人员建立一所旗舰氮气学校。该项目将把联合收割机测量与建模结合起来。我们将应用创新的绿色氨肥料和常规肥料，并评估氨和温室气体（N2 O和CO2）的排放。我们将应用集水系统模型（CSM）在英国，目前通知国家政策的农业实践的基础上，广泛的全国性数据库的环境后果，预计环境后果与绿色氨的到来。全球变化评估模型等其他模型也将被用来反映化肥需求、生产者价格、对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和对弱势群体的影响。来自英国、加拿大和美国的数据将填补现有的知识空白，使人们能够了解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