[HN Gopher] Farm in Kenya to produce fossil-free fertilizer on site ___________________________________________________________________ Farm in Kenya to produce fossil-free fertilizer on site Author : chmaynard Score : 68 points Date : 2023-10-11 13:26 UTC (2 hours ago) (HTM) web link (e360.yale.edu) (TXT) w3m dump (e360.yale.edu) | elil17 wrote: | The title should really say ammonia fertilizer. | | Of course compost is also fertilizer, and farms have been | producing that on site for a long, long time. | | That said, huge win! | User23 wrote: | In the USA we used to just spray sludge, but that's largely been | banned. A shame because it works really well and scales with | population. | stainablesteel wrote: | why was this banned? | icegreentea2 wrote: | You're spreading (often) human waste over a field. There are | a lot more pathogen risks this way. | interestica wrote: | The dream is still human waste diversion and treatment | (separation, treatment, reuse). There are a couple small-scale | projects looking at feasibility. | | Right now the norm is to combine wastes, add it to drinking | water, and then spend a lot of money to get the water out of it | again. | jack_riminton wrote: | From a first principles perspective, would I be able to grow | enough food for me from the waste fertiliser from me? my | intuition is that there wouldn't be enough | lasermike026 wrote: | Book: The Alchemy of Air | stainablesteel wrote: | this sounds awesome, i hope it remains viable. would love to see | something like this scale | RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote: | This is actually exciting. Converting carbon free energy (such as | solar and wind) into chemical energy is I think one of the more | promising approaches. One of the big challenges of solar and wind | is matching instantaneous supply with instantaneous demand. | | By converting it to chemical energy, you can basically take the | solar output that you get and use it. If you get more, you | produce more, if you get less, you produce less. It is adaptable | to the supply. | usrnm wrote: | Well, all farms in the world used to produce their own fertilizer | without using fossil fuels. It's called 'manure'. Just nitpicking | MichaelZuo wrote: | Yeah, it's definitely a pretty odd headline, considering many | millions of farmers use the good ol' fashioned method to this | day. | stainablesteel wrote: | just shit in a field bro | 7373737373 wrote: | How much agricultural land can 1 ton of ammonia fertilize? | cannonpalms wrote: | This will depend entirely on the requirements of the crop. You | won't get a generic answer per unit area. | hedora wrote: | It also depends on soil properties. | | However, 100-200 lbs of fertilizer per acre is somewhat | reasonable, so it's probably on the order of 10-100 acres per | ton of nitrogen atoms. | | Source (this is an article about measuring available | nitrogen, and their examples are in the 100-200 lbs per acre | range): | | https://www.agry.purdue.edu/Ext/corn/news/timeless/AssessAva. | .. | Mistletoe wrote: | > A 200-bushel corn crop requires about 200 to 250 pounds | nitrogen per acre. | | So that's about 240 lbs per acre of anhydrous ammonia. | | https://www.rs.uky.edu/soil/calculators/mult_fert.php | delecti wrote: | The other comment is probably right, that this varies widely, | but getting a vague order of magnitude is still useful. From | some amateur googling, it seems that an acre requires on the | order of 100 lbs/year (50-300lbs, though the higher figures | seem to also include things other than just nitrogen/ammonia). | | So 1 ton/day (assuming metric tonnage), would be in the range | of 8000 acres/year, though with obviously large error bars. | photochemsyn wrote: | This approach (eliminating fossil fuels from the nitrogen | fertilizer pipeline) will inevitably become the global norm. For | Africa in particular, it's the only plausible route to long-term | food stability as there simply isn't enough fossil fuel available | to allow Africa to industrialize (and if there was, we'd be | doubling the rate of CO2 increase in the atmosphere). Africa has | the opportunity to go directly from pre-industrial agrarian | economy to a renewable energy-powered industrial economy. | purpleblue wrote: | When I read articles like this, I can totally understand China | and India's argument as to why they won't or don't prioritize | fossil fuel consumption. | | The West has spent centuries modernizing itself to the point | where there is a vast gap between the West and the rest of the | world. Now that the West has a huge advantage, they want to start | imposing moral arguments on the 3rd world nations as to why they | should abide by the West's new set of moral codes, which handcuff | the progress that 3rd world countries can make. | | This feels like another example of where I bet it would be | cheaper to do it in other ways (besides using Russian ammonia) | but they decided to try the "green" way. It also feels a lot like | how Monsanto tricked Indian farmers into using their seeds which | required Roundup and then became indentured servants for the rest | of their lives because of the financial handcuffs put on them. | | So I can completely sympathize why many poorer countries can see | all these environmental moral edicts as being ways to keep them | oppressed and tricked into not making progress independently from | the West. | elil17 wrote: | >It also feels a lot like how Monsanto tricked Indian farmers | into using their seeds which required Roundup and then became | indentured servants for the rest of their lives because of the | financial handcuffs put on them. | | I think it's actually the exact opposite of this. The farm now | has a fertilizer factory that produces fertilizer for free. | They are no longer reliant on buying ammonia from big | companies. | newfriend wrote: | > The West has spent centuries modernizing itself to the point | where there is a vast gap between the West and the rest of the | world. | | The West has spent centuries inventing and iterating on | technology which is now available to the rest of the world, and | has experienced how environmental hazards are created, which we | want to avoid repeating. | | The West also handcuffs itself with environmental morality (see | infrastructure development in China vs the US). We have | experience with pollution and want to avoid countries and | continents of 1b+ people making the Earth uninhabitable. | hannob wrote: | You seem to confuse "physics" with "moral arguments". They are | profoundly different. | dotnet00 wrote: | All it takes to change that opinion is to spend a few winter | days out in the smog-choked capital of India. That had quickly | built an appreciation in me for even the current state of | pollution controls in the West, where the air getting that bad | is considered 'historic' (eg the Canadian wildfire smoke that | passed through NY back in June). | hannob wrote: | It may come as a surprise to people (it certainly was a surprise | to me), but actually there was a quite substantial renewable | ammonia industry in the past in some countries, e.g. in Iceland | and Norway. It eventually couldn't compete against cheap fossil | gas though... | | See e.g.: https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4079/3/2/11 | aragonite wrote: | I wonder how much more expensive this process is than the | conventional approach. | | Apparently 'five times as expensive' according to Vaclav Smil | (who is very pessimistic about rapid decarbonization) in How the | World Works (2022): | | > In terms of the second category, as I will detail in the next | chapter, synthesis of the ammonia needed to produce nitrogenous | fertilizers now depends heavily on natural gas as the source of | hydrogen. Hydrogen could be produced by the decomposition | (electrolysis) of water instead, but this route remains nearly | five times as expensive as when the element is derived from | abundant and inexpensive methane -- and we have yet to create a | mass-scale hydrogen industry. | wolfi1 wrote: | the absurdity is, there would be enough nitrogen in waste | water, but bacteria in the sewage plants release it into air | Y_Y wrote: | > The Kenya Nut Company, near Nairobi, will be the first farm in | the world to produce fertilizer, on site, that's free of fossil | fuels. | | Hardly. They're just using a new ammonia synthesis. | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_fertilizer | pstuart wrote: | It's using solar energy as input, where's the fossil fuels? | | This development is exciting and hopefully spreads everywhere. | Farmers being able to make their own fertilizer (at least on | the nitrogen side), is a huge win. | maxbond wrote: | Without commenting on the merits of this technique, | composting is as old as the hills and doesn't necessarily | involve fossil fuels. | pstuart wrote: | Composting has value too -- I'm a fan of permaculture. But | as noted elsewhere, this scales well and becomes one tool | of many. | hedora wrote: | Composting is to atmospheric nitrogen fixing (this type of | process) as recycling is to mining. | | Before people could pull nitrogen out of the atmosphere, | wars were fought over guano deposits, etc. | | At this point, the majority of nitrogen in human biomass | comes from the Haber-Bosch process. | | (I'm not arguing against composting, to be clear!) | sparrowInHand wrote: | Its also doesent scale. Medieval farming for industrial | societies gave us the atrocities of WW2 including | Lebensraum. | pjc50 wrote: | WW2 could not have happened without Haber ammonia .. for | explosives. | laurencerowe wrote: | The Industrial Revolution couldn't have happened without | the Agricultural Revolution that preceded and accompanied | it, freeing up workers for industry. | | In medieval times most of the population were farmers by | necessity. In the UK, output per acre tripled and the | proportion of the population in farming went from 60% to | 20% in 1840. And the UK was still almost entirely self | sufficient at this time, food imports only became | substantial in the late 1800s. | | Similar changes happened across Europe, though timing | varied by country with the spread of industrialisation. | | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Agricultural_Revo | lut... | hedora wrote: | What? | | The Germans pioneered modern fertilizer production in the | 1890s-1910s. | walleeee wrote: | Solar panels cannot currently be manufactured, distributed or | repaired at any serious scale without fossil fuels. | throwaway5752 wrote: | While that is true, it is misleading. If you can use a | fixed quantity of fossil fuels to generate many decades of | carbon free energy, the change to the overall lifecycle | carbon requirements are very different. | | Just like in algorithms, making it an O(1) rather than O(n) | solution, even with a large constant factor, can make an | enormous difference over time. | walleeee wrote: | Your point is also true. I would contest the notion that | mine is misleading, given that the parent asks, "where | are the fossil fuels?" | hedora wrote: | True, but the solar panels displace way more fossil fuels | than were used to produce them, so their net consumption of | fossil fuels is negative. | MayeulC wrote: | This says more about the industry than about solar panels, | you could say this about any product. There isn't anything | inherently carbon-intensive about solar panel production. | | And if you compare the distribution of these solar panels | with the distribution of the equivalent amount of nitrogen | produced, I bet the panels require a lot less carbon for | transportation. Not to mention not relying on a nitrogen | producer (Russia), and additional uses for the panels. | mym1990 wrote: | Farmers have been able to do this for a very long time, but | the process is very inefficient and messy when done at scale. | Certainly these are good strides forward though! | leblancfg wrote: | History tidbit: before the Haber process was discovered, most | commercial fertilizer was calcium cyanamide | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calcium_cyanamide) as a downstream | product from calcium carbide - one of the first industrial | chemistry processes. | | In the late 1800s - early 1900s this was done along many | riverside cities in Eastern US and Canada, because of cheap hydro | power generated by dams. | actionfromafar wrote: | How did they produce the nitrogen gas? | contravariant wrote: | Just open a window I suppose. | mlinhares wrote: | I LOLed hard at this. | blueflow wrote: | Second paragraph in the linked Wikipedia article. | soperj wrote: | Don't know why you're being downvoted when you have | provided the answer. | | "In their search for a new process for producing cyanides | for cyanide leaching of gold, Frank and Caro discovered the | ability of alkaline earth carbides to absorb atmospheric | nitrogen at high temperatures." | ww520 wrote: | Kenya has an amazing run in economic growth over the years. The | key was their heavy investment in agriculture and related | technologies. With food security, the other aspects of the | economy simply flourish. | spenrose wrote: | A number of commenters are pointing out that natural fertilizers | exist. That is true. It is also true that artificial fertilizers | were invented because around 1900 humanity ran out of | biologically accessible ("fixed") nitrogen that it could convert | to crops. The key nitrogen atom in roughly half of the amino | acids in your body was part of a nitrogen-nitrogen pair floating | in the atmosphere until it was fixed in a factory. If all the | factories making fertilizers shut down tomorrow, there would be | mass famine. | photochemsyn wrote: | An additional issue is that a good fraction of 'organic | nitrogen fertilizer' comes in the form of fish meal. This isn't | a very environmentally friendly or sustainable approach, | however - e.g. at peak extraction, 2/3 of sardine fishery | production on the US west coast was being converted into crop | fertilizer (mid 20th century). | | Note however that modern industrial agriculture uses fertilizer | fairly inefficiently, and a large fraction just runs off the | fields into waterways. Here is where the AI robots could make a | big difference, by crawling up and down farm fields and | selectively applying fertilizer to individual plants as needed | (while also removing weeds and treating pest infestations). Of | course, this doesn't make agrichemical producers all that happy | as it could greatly reduce demand. | searine wrote: | >Here is where the AI robots could make a big difference | | Usually when someone says "AI will save the world because" it | is followed by a bunch of naive hyperbole. | | However, you are 100% right. A few robust robots with an AI | to spot pests and poor nutrition could decimate input costs | for a farm and solve several environmental issues in one go. | Retric wrote: | It's not nearly so dire because the majority of farmland isn't | raising crops for direct human consumption. 40% of US corn is | turned into ethanol and the majority of the remainder is used | to feed livestock who burn calories by exiting. | | In the event of a major disaster most of the existing livestock | would be slaughtered and a significant percentage of | biofuel/animal feed would be converted for human consumption. | It's less palatable than sweet corn, but vastly better than | starvation. | | Longer term you get different crops and even a return to things | like crop rotation. Meanwhile people would be extremely | motivating to get alternatives working. | searine wrote: | >Longer term you get different crops and even a return to | things like crop rotation. | | Farmers never stopped doing crop rotation. | dalbasal wrote: | Livestock feed is part of food's supply chain (and ou literal | food chain). | | Yes, we can eat eat a lot of this feed... but that doesn't | mean that the world will neatly respond to a shortage of | quantity with a slight tweak to quality. A shortage is still | a shortage, with all the dynamics of any other shortage. | Delphiza wrote: | Yes, the world did not respond neatly to a shortage of | toilet paper. In the event of a shortage of animal-based | protein, I would expect the response would be worse than | the toilet paper wars. | seltzered_ wrote: | Yes but... | | Some of the famines in the 1940s werent natural famines, they | were due to war and colonizing forces, see: | | https://nitter.net/i/status/1210635179221348352 (linking to | Winston Churchill associates with Indian famine deaths: | https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/03/29/asia/churchill-bengal-fam... | ) | | The other part of our predicament is that excess nitrogen | impacts water supplies (see http://e360.yale.edu/features/the- | nitrogen-problem-why-globa... ) and creates ocean dead zones ( | see https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/deadzone.html , | https://oceantoday.noaa.gov/happenowdeadzone/ ) | KaiserPro wrote: | yes, however now, we have soil turned to sand and really | aggressive nitrogen run off because it doesn't pay to manage | the soil properly. | | In the Netherlands, they have so much shit, that its limiting | how much cattle they can produce (because of laws about | nitrogen runoff.) | | Now the soil is fucked, it doesn't absorb water. That means | that not only does it dry out quicker, it means that it can't | generate rain as much, which means more drought, and higher | temperatures. Worse still, because it can't absorb as much | water, you get worse flooding. | | Farming needs swales, ground cover, mixed planting and shite. | lots of shite. | cornholio wrote: | To add to this: livestock make up 62% of the world's mammal | biomass; humans account for 34%; and wild mammals are just 4%. | | Humanity, and especially the meat eating subspecies, is just a | side effect of the Haber-Bosch reaction. | [deleted] | d4nt wrote: | "Subspecies" feels a bit othering. Humans have been eating | meat since Homo erectus (about 2M years). | riedel wrote: | No sustained increase in zooarchaeological evidence for | carnivory after the appearance of Homo erectus [1]. | | [1] https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2115540119 | MadcapJake wrote: | I'd argue that the increase occurred earlier. Everything | we're learning about other human species is showing they | also had intelligence and were around before Erectus came | to be. | soperj wrote: | > The evolution of these traits is commonly linked to a | major dietary shift involving increased consumption of | animal tissues. | | I've never heard of this linkage. I've always heard it | was on account of cooking the meat, rather than eating | more of it. | losteric wrote: | Yep, 2MM years of eating meat - it's definitely weird to | suggest meat eating humans are a new "subspecies" rather | than the historical norm. | Synaesthesia wrote: | Hundreds of millions of people in India and around the | world are just fine without meat, it's not like we have to | eat it. Could even be better for us not to. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-10-11 16:00 UTC)