It's actually a really interesting fuel (well, energy storage medium) with quite high compatibility with our current way of life. The best part is that you can synthesise it without carbon - which means the feedstocks are only really water, air and electricity.
The downsides are toxicity (but this is probably manageable) and poor round trip efficiency. If we ever end up with excess energy (eg solar power in summer) then synthesising ammonia could be a good means of long term energy storage with very little capital investment required.
I gotta imagine that the low efficiency can be managed by using batteries whenever possible.
There’s already a hybrid ferry in Norway that uses batteries for the first and last part of the trip to avoid emissions near land. Would be perfect if it used ammonia for the middle part of the trip.
The downsides are toxicity (but this is probably manageable) and poor round trip efficiency. If we ever end up with excess energy (eg solar power in summer) then synthesising ammonia could be a good means of long term energy storage with very little capital investment required.