{"id":5103,"date":"2009-11-14T22:04:28","date_gmt":"2009-11-15T04:04:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress-367309-1145705.cloudwaysapps.com\/?p=5103"},"modified":"2009-11-14T22:04:28","modified_gmt":"2009-11-15T04:04:28","slug":"how-to-feed-the-world-and-get-a-nobel-prize-invent-an-efficient-small-scale-haberbosch-process","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/how-to-feed-the-world-and-get-a-nobel-prize-invent-an-efficient-small-scale-haberbosch-process\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Feed the World and Get a Nobel Prize: Invent an Efficient Small Scale Haber\/Bosch Process"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Nobel<\/a>[social_buttons]<\/p>\n

Ok, I didn’t actually clear this challenge with the Nobel Committee, but I think we could convince them. \u00a0Nobels were awarded early in the 20th century when German scientists Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch made the sequential advances<\/a> that made it possible to make synthetic nitrogen fertilizer from the nitrogen gas that makes up ~80% of the atmosphere. \u00a0Without their contributions we could not have improved the lives of billions of people, and we could never have fed the increase in world population that has occurred since their work. \u00a0Of course that comes with the environmental issues I’ve been discussing in my previous posts<\/a>. \u00a0I’m not forgetting that there are changes that need to be made<\/a> in the way we farm to make nitrogen use more efficient<\/a> and to prevent water pollution issues.<\/p>\n

The Carbon Footprint of Fertilizer Issue<\/h3>\n

The other thing that would be good to address is the “carbon footprint” of running Haber-Bosch. \u00a0For every pound of ammonia that is synthesized, about 3.7 pounds of carbon dioxide is generated (mainly through the use of natural gas to generate hydrogen). That means to fertilize an acre of corn at 120 pounds of nitrogen, there are carbon dioxide emissions that are the equivalent of ~20\u00a0gallons of diesel.<\/a> That works out to 1.59 billion gallon equivalents for just the US corn crop – some serious carbon emissions (I’ve already posted about why Organic fertilizers are not the solution<\/a> here).
\n<\/p>\n

What This Invention Could Mean<\/h3>\n

Here is where our future Nobel Laureate comes in: \u00a0animal manure, municipal sewage, woody debris and other waste streams can be turned into energy through a variety of methods (anaerobic digestion for methane, pyrolysis for syngas or bio-oil, burning for electricity…). \u00a0What if you could use that energy to run the Haber-Bosch process? \u00a0Today the nitrogen fertilizer for the world is made in very large facilities that mostly use natural gas. \u00a0I’m sure you could never achieve comparable efficiency on a small scale, but the cost difference could be offset with something like carbon credits or some other form of subsidy.<\/p>\n

What would be even better would to to invent a system that can run on a very small scale to take waste sources of various types and generate nitrogen fertilizer for\u00a0subsistence\u00a0farmers in Africa and elsewhere. \u00a0In this case, the system would also have to take the ammonia and turn it into something like urea (hey, chemists and engineers are very\u00a0resourceful, right?)<\/p>\n

I’m definitely not the first to suggest this, but I honestly don’t know whether this is feasible. \u00a0I usually try to blog about things I know more about, but I’m hoping that there are some chemical engineers or other specialists out there that can tell me if this is even something worth talking about. \u00a0Maybe you know one and could ask them.<\/p>\n

So if you are someone\u00a0knowledgeable\u00a0about this tell me whether this makes sense. \u00a0Thanks!<\/p>\n

You are welcome to comment of this site or write me at feedback.sdsavage@gmail.com<\/p>\n

Nobel Medal image from Jonathunder<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[social_buttons] Ok, I didn’t actually clear this challenge with the Nobel Committee, but I think we could convince them. \u00a0Nobels were awarded early in the 20th century when German scientists [ … ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":110,"featured_media":5104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,21,13,7],"tags":[827,3741,2126,1911,4114],"yoast_head":"\nHow to Feed the World and Get a Nobel Prize: Invent an Efficient Small Scale Haber\/Bosch Process • Sustainablog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/sustainablog.org\/articles\/how-to-feed-the-world-and-get-a-nobel-prize-invent-an-efficient-small-scale-haberbosch-process\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta 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