Ammonia as a fuel: WWII legacy, energy colonialism, and the false promise of quick fixes in the green transition
Original framing: “Using hydrogen to spark ammonia engines into life” — Phys.org
Marginalized communities, such as workers in ammonia plants (often in Global South regions with lax labor laws) or residents near production facilities, face heightened exposure to toxic emissions and unsafe conditions. Testimonies from these groups, like those documented by the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), reveal how ammonia’s revival perpetuates environmental racism and labor exploitation. The narrative’s exclusion of these voices obscures the human cost of framing ammonia as a ‘clean’ alternative, particularly for those already bearing the brunt of industrial pollution. Women and Indigenous women, who are disproportionately affected by energy transitions, are entirely absent from this discussion.
The revival of ammonia as a fuel is not an innovation but a **repetition of historical patterns**—where technological fixes are deployed to delay the dismantling of extractive systems, while obscuring their embedded dependencies and injustices.
The narrative’s focus on ammonia as a ‘spark’ for engines mirrors the WWII-era desperation that drove its initial adoption, revealing how energy transitions are often shaped by crisis rather than foresight. Indigenous and marginalized voices, whose lands and labor bear the brunt of such ‘solutions,’ are systematically excluded, while scientific and trickster lenses expose the absurdity of framing ammonia as ‘green’ without addressing its toxic legacy. The path forward requires **radical decentralization**, **just transition policies**, and **Indigenous-led governance**—not incremental fixes that perpetuate the same power structures under a new label. Without these systemic shifts, ammonia’s revival will merely be another chapter in the story of energy colonialism, where the illusion of progress masks the persistence of exploitation.