The Nitrogen Problem

[progressoid]

The farming systems we are putting in place now will need to feed the 9-10 billion people that will inhabit our planet in 2050. This is a huge challenge.

One of the most, if not the most, important factor in sustainability is nitrogen. Plants need a lot of nitrogen to grow, and this is often the limiting factor in large-scale food production.


~~~

The Solution

As is often the case with any complex problem, there is rarely a simple answer. If we want to optimize sustainable farming we need to consider the entire system, all inputs and outputs, all the land use, and all of the environmental impacts.

...

It seems that a combined strategy using as much recycled nitrogen as possible, nitrogen-fixing crops, and optimally applied chemical fertilizer, can maximize yield per unit of land while minimizing environmental impact. This can be extra work for farmers, however, so they need an incentive to do this.

As the human population grows, however, it will likely become necessary to add new options. One intriguing possibility is genetically engineered crops that are able to fix their own nitrogen. Imagine a wheat variety that can fix nitrogen from the air – no need for nitrogen fertilizer.

Legumes are plants that can do this now. Actually it is bacteria that live on their roots that fix the nitrogen from the air. There is ongoing research to engineer cereals that are able to develop the same symbiotic relationship with these bacteria. This is a complex task, however, and estimates are that we are at least 20 years away from this goal.

Still, this is the kind of technology we need to be working on so that we do have more options in 2050 when there will be more than 9 billion human mouths to feed.

~~~

Conclusion

A thousand years ago we were essentially mining our world for nutrients, and the reservoir was so vast that we did not have to worry about the entire system. That changes with the industrial revolution and the explosion of the human population. This was followed by the green revolution made possible by synthetic fertilizer, which caused further population increase.

...

This is partly why I think the false dichotomy of organic vs conventional is harmful. An integrated evidence-based approach to best practices, without an appeal to an arbitrary ideology, is what we need.

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-nitrogen-problem/

[GliderGuider]

1. This is only a yuuuge challenge if we want to feed 9-10 billion people by 2050.

If we lower the target to half that, the problem becomes much easier to solve...

[Erich Bloodaxe BSN]

2. That's what I was thinking. The real solution is not to HAVE 9-10 billion people.

Did my part, didn't reproduce. More people need to do the same. The 'quiverful' movement is an obscenity.

[NeoGreen]

3. The problem I see...

...is not the fact that the population will decline, but by what path will it decline and how much momentum will be induced.

IMHO 4.5 billion is still to many for future generations to sustain in the degraded world they will inherit.

Once the path down the population reduction slope is started what does that world look like and where and how does the decline stop?



Hyperbole with a ring of truth:

In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway.

[NickB79]

5. Can I ask where that quote is from? nt

[NeoGreen]

10. From the character...

...Tyler "I want you to hit me as hard as you can" Durden from the book (1996) and 1999 film Fight Club.

[happyslug]

4. Fixing Nitrogen is late 1800 technology

Last edited Tue Feb 23, 2016, 05:41 PM - Edit history (4)

The use of electricity to produce nitrogen rich fertilizer has been around since the late 1800s, received a big boost between 1914 and 1918 when Germany was cut off from natural Nitrogen deposits by the British Blockade and had to resort to electrical fixing of Nitrogen for use in making explosives. This technology is fully developed and a lack of Nitrogen is NOT a concern today.

Another article tying Nitrogen Fertilizer with Ammunition making (in this article they mention diversifying crops, beans, for example, are nitrogen fixing crop, beans will remove nitrogen from the Air into the soil):

http://www.motherjones.com/tom-philpott/2013/04/history-nitrogen-fertilizer-ammonium-nitrate

The real concern is Phosphorus. Unlike Nitrogen which is in the air and easily fixed into fertilizers. Phosphorus is imported into the US at the present time and at present rate of consumption may be depleted by 2100 (and 94% of Urine is Phosphorus).

http://www.dailyyonder.com/forget-oil-worry-about-phosphorus/2010/09/13/2929/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus#White_phosphorus_and_related_molecular_forms


As a general rule Fertilizers have three components (Nitrogen (N), Phosphorus (P), and Potassium (K):

Koske explains the first number of the left-to-right sequence always is the percentage of nitrogen (N). The second is the percentage of phosphorus (P) as expressed in phosphate, which Koske notes is not pure phosphorus. The third number is the percentage of potassium (K) as expressed in the oxide called K20 equivalent.

http://www.lsuagcenter.com/topics/lawn_garden/home_gardening/flowers/understand-fertilizer-numbers

three main macronutrients:

Nitrogen (N): leaf growth;

Phosphorus (P): Development of roots, flowers, seeds, fruit;

Potassium (K): Strong stem growth, movement of water in plants, promotion of flowering and fruiting;

three secondary macronutrients: calcium (Ca), magnesium (Mg), and sulphur (S);

micronutrients: copper (Cu), iron (Fe), manganese (Mn), molybdenum (Mo), zinc (Zn), boron (B), and of occasional significance there are silicon (Si), cobalt (Co), and vanadium (V) plus rare mineral catalysts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertilizer

Potash is Potassium in a water soluble form:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potash

Potash is presently mined, but can be obtained from trees (ashes of broad-leaved trees were the main source of lye which then made into Potash prior to the 20th century). Again Potash is NOT is short supply and can still be obtain from trees is other sources are used up (and it is possible to extract it from Sea Water, but that is only experimental at the present time):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Potash#Production

Thus the big concern is Phosphorus, that has no other sources except actual mines.

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Actually, there’s a pretty good source of potassium and phosphorus available without mining

It’s called urine.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=Phosphorus+Potassium+urine+fertilizer

Of course many people are squeamish about any thought of using human waste in an agricultural setting.

[happyslug]

7. That was a traditional source of both materials, but not the MAIN source today.

Last edited Tue Feb 23, 2016, 10:24 PM - Edit history (1)

and would require a return to the use of Oxen and Horses whose urine will return those elements to the soil.

http://www.grit.com/farm-and-garden/farming-with-oxen-zm0z13mazgou.aspx

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/04/dining/04oxen.html?_r=0

http://www.midwestoxdrovers.com/blog/files/8c4a2da16ff2e692165fa37eab2425e4-8.html

http://www.theagitator.com/2005/01/20/ox-vs-tractor/

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1385193/Take-bull-horns-Farmers-America-trade-tractors-oxen-beat-soaring-fuel-prices.html

http://www.homesteadingtoday.com/general-homesteading-forums/homesteading-questions/365681-save-world-raise-oxen-sell-your-tractor.html

Horses vs Tractors:

http://www.motherearthnews.com/homesteading-and-livestock/farming-with-horses-zmaz87jazgoe.aspx

https://www.ruralheritage.com/back_forty/economics_career.htm

1935 report on why you had 1 Million Tractors in the US in 1935, but only 15,000 tractors in Germany:

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1807806

Horse outnumbered Tractors in US Farms till 1946 (The paper states Horses only outproduce tractors if you work a horse to death, but the report the paper is based on only states if the horse is used throughout the year it is more productive than a tractor, but if most of the year the horse is idle, the tractor is cheaper for the tractor only uses oil when it is being used, a horse eats every day:

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/03/how-the-tractor-yes-the-tractor-explains-the-middle-class-crisis/254270/

Paper on tractors vs Horses in Ireland from 2009, the paper says on small farms horses are more economical:

http://www.horsepowerinireland.com/uploads/4/0/2/9/4029783/dissertation_on_horse_traction_in_ireland.pdf

Another paper says on farms less then 200 acres, Horses are superior to Tractors, but on larger farms, Tractors win hands down:

http://modernfarmer.com/2015/12/horsepower-vs-horse-power/

[Nihil]

11. That used to be a good idea but now? Not so much ...

At least, not until the quantities of pharmaceutical products & by-products
is seriously reduced from the urine of the humans concerned.

Take out all the added (mostly artificial) crap from the urine (pun intended)
and it will once more become a sensible (and ecologically friendly) use of
what is currently just a polluted waste product.

[OKIsItJustMe]

14. Oh, I don’t know

When there is a shortage of these minerals, don’t you think we’ll find a safe way to use a prominent, untapped source?

http://richearthinstitute.org/our-work/research/

[font face=Serif][font size=5]Research[/font]

[font size=4]The Rich Earth Institute conducts original research examining the safety and efficacy of using urine-derived fertilizers in agriculture.[/font]

[font size=3]Current research projects investigate:

• The value of urine-derived fertilizer for growing hay. Since 2012, the Institute has been applying sanitized urine to hay fields and quantifying the crop yield. The primary research goal has been to determine whether it is necessary to dilute the urine with water before application, to avoid injury to the crop. In 2014 we found no statistically significant difference in the yields of hay fertilized with diluted urine, undiluted urine, and synthetic fertilizer.
• The effect of pharmaceutical residuals in urine on crops, soil, and groundwater. In partnership with the University of Michigan, University at Buffalo, and the Hampton Roads Sanitation District, the Rich Earth Institute is studying the presence and persistence of a wide variety of pharmaceuticals when urine-derived fertilizer is used for growing fresh vegetables.
• Methods for processing urine to increase its value as a fertilizer and reduce storage costs. Because urine contains so much water, it can be expensive to transport and store, and labor intensive apply to farmland. The nitrogen in stored urine is in the form of ammonia, which is prone to evaporation and requires special handling during fertilizer application. To counter these challenges, we are experimenting with innovative methods for stabilizing the nitrogen in urine, as well as adapting reverse osmosis equipment (used by boaters to make drinking water from seawater) for use in producing a concentrated fertilizer product.

[/font][/font]

[NNadir]

16. Spark fixation of nitrogen was never a viable process.

It never will be a viable process.

Your history is also wrong, very wrong.

The Haber-Bosch process was fully industrialized in Germany by the time of the First World War. If Germany had depended on electrolytically fixed nitrogen, it would have lost the war within six months, because it was not, is not, and never will be economic. At the time, most of the world's nitrates were supplied by Chilean mines; the British naval blockade was designed to deplete Germany's access to fixed nitrogen as much as anything else.

The tale of the development of the Haber Bosch process is told beautifully and with the great sophistication that is his wont, by Vaclav Smil, one of the world's most important and knowledgeable thinkers on the subject of sustainability - although he is not prone to tell people what they want to hear - in his book, Enriching the Earth.

Haber was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for the invention of the process; even though many people wanted him tried as a war criminal:

Haber is also famous for having been the initiator of gas warfare in the First World War. He was a rabid German nationalist, who was, ironically, expelled from Germany in 1938 because of his Jewish heritage, and died in Switzerland.

Smil's book is often cited in scientific papers on the subject of dinitrogen fixation through catalysis; I personally became aware of Smil's famous and much cited work when he was cited in this paper on the subject of zirconium catalysts designed to avoid some of the energy requirements of the Haber Bosch process, which currently consumes about 1% of the world energy supply. (Fixing nitrogen on the order of the hundred million tons now produced each year by a spark process would easily deplete the world's electricity supply.)

The real problem with nitrogen fixation is not that we need energy to make it or that it is difficult to achieve, now that we live in the Golden Age of Chemistry, notably catalysis. The real problem is that artificial nitrogen fixation is increasing the concentration of nitrous oxide, N₂, in the atmosphere, a gas that is both a powerful ozone depleting agent, and a potent greenhouse gas, now being the third most important greenhouse gas after carbon dioxide and methane.

Nitrous Oxide (N2O): The Dominant Ozone-Depleting Substance Emitted in the 21st Century (A. R. Ravishankara*, John S. Daniel, Robert W. Portmann, Science 02 Oct 2009: Vol. 326, Issue 5949, pp. 123-125)

No one has come up with a way to ban food, however, and there is no way in hell we could feed the world's current population without Haber Bosch nitrogen. One reason that China was willing to establish relations with the United States during the Nixon administration was that China (at the time) needed American technology to establish its own Haber Bosch plants.

[happyslug]

17. Actually Frank–Caro process is economically viable but the Haber system is just cheaper to operate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank%E2%80%93Caro_process

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

The electrically based Frank-Caro process was first developed in the 1895 and continued to be used till after WWII with one factory surviving in Norway till 2002. If you have access to cheap electricity, the Frank Caro System is still viable, if you do not then the Haber Process is more cost effective. Norway had cheap electricity do to electrical dams, thus Norway kept up its Frank Caro plant till 2002. By 2002 it was time to rebuild it or tear it down. By 2002 Norway had access to cheap Natural Gas from its own North Sea Gas fields, so rebuilding a Frank Caro plant was never considered.

The Frank Caro process was even used in the US. During WWI, President Wilson proposed a Dam at Muscle Shores Alabama for production of electricity for making ammo using the Frank Caro System. The dam was finished in 1924 and turned over to the TVA in 1934. It never did provide power for any Frank Caro process in the US, but that is why it was built. That dam is now call Wilson Dam and produces electricity for the TVA.

http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2261.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilson_Dam

By WWII the US had access to the Haber process and used it during WWII. From Texas Oil fields the US had massive "surplus" of Natural Gas, so adopting the Haber Process was a way to use that excess natural gas starting in the 1920s. The Haber Process is less labor intensive then the Frank Caro Process and uses less actual power, but is based on Natural Gas access. If you have no Natural gas, the Frank Caro process is competitive.

The problem is today, Natural Gas is available in most of the world, either through pipelines or compressed natural gas. Thus the Haber Process dominates the present day production of Nitrates. And in those areas without Natural Gas access, they just find it is cheaper to trade for Nitrates then to build a Frank Caro process plant.

Thus my comment that Nitrogen fixation using electricity has been known since the late 1800s, the Haber System started to replace the older Frank-Caro System during WWI, but the Frank Caro system continued to expand till 1945, it is only after 1945 that the Haber Process replaced rather then supplemented the older Frank Caro process.

As to N20, 62% of all N20 emissions are from natural sources,

http://whatsyourimpact.org/greenhouse-gases/nitrous-oxide-sources

N2O is primarily removed from the atmosphere in the stratosphere by photolysis (breakdown by sunlight). This reaction is a primary source of the oxides of nitrogen (in the stratosphere), which play a critical role in controlling the abundance and distribution of stratospheric ozone. A secondary removal process (which accounts for about 10% of removal) is through a reaction with excited oxygen atoms.

http://ec.europa.eu/environment/enveco/climate_change/pdf/nitrous_oxide_emissions.pdf

http://www.eia.gov/environment/emissions/ghg_report/ghg_nitrous.cfm

77% of all Human Emissions (30% of all emissions) is tied in with Agriculture. 1/4 of those emissions is just runoff from the fields (7.5% of ALL emissions). This can be addressed by ordering farmers NOT to plant right up to any water ways on their property, thus you have a safety zone around such water ways that catch such run off. This has been advocated for decades but no one is willing to pass such a restriction (or pay for any loss of the use of land to the farmers if you adopt such restrictions).

Most of the rest of Farming production of N20 has to do with the fact most fertilizers are NOT absorbed by plants, instead is released into the atmosphere. Plants are only 10-15% efficient at absorbing N20, thus most fertilizers is loss. The only way around this is to reduce fertilization but that requires restrictions on how much fertilizer a farmer can buy. If done right, food production can be maintained with a substantial drop in the use of fertilizers. The biggest problem here is the research on this is just beginning and what I have read would require more frequent spraying of less fertilizer (something that requires more man hours and thus increase the cost to produce food).

The good part is N20 is the #3 source of global warming, and like most #3, a distant #3. In many ways addressing Carbon and Methane is much more important than N2O. To a degree N2O MAY even solve itself given the primary cause of its breakdown is sunlight (Increase carbon increase sunlight NOT reflected back into space, thus available to break up N2O). Again the research on that is just beginning and may be wishful thinking, but beside ending farming to the edge of waterways and reducing how much fertilizer is used by farmers, I do not see how else we can address the increase in N2O in the atmosphere.

[NNadir]

18. The title of your post borders on an oxymoron.

They didn't give Haber the Nobel Prize because he saved a few cents over a great process, however.

There are, believe it or not, many tens of thousands of references on the topic other than Wikipedia, if you look.

Smil's book gives an excellent account of the entire situation with nitrogen fixation at the beginning of the 20th century. It may be better to read Smil's book than to provide popular links to popular websites. If you are truly interested in this issue, I would suggest you read it. It's an excellent work, highly regarded and often cited in the primary scientific literature. (The Wikipedia page, by contrast, is not.)

There was a reason that the Chilean saltpeter mines were considered in the early part of the 20th century, and there was a reason that Germany was very interested in having BASF (Bosch) work with Haber to scale his process up. Trust me, it's not because the Caro process was workable. The issue is discussed in the first chapter of Smil's book.

Nitrous oxide has always been a feature of the nitrogen cycle, and always will be. However, in terms of concentration, this is driven by thermodynamic equilibrium and kinetics, it's a little glib to say "it may solve itself." It's, um, not solving itself. Further, of note, the process in the ionosphere by which nitrous oxide is decomposed is a chain radical process that destroys ozone, much as the CFC's banned under the Montreal protocol does. The concentration is rising rather rapidly, not because the sun has broken down and no longer irradiates the upper atmosphere with high energy UV radiation.

It is not broken down by infrared radiation at all, and therefore the remark about "NOT reflected into space" has no meaning.

Now, different groups have been working on TiO₂ based (and other) catalysts that might help catalyze this reaction in visible light, but it is very difficult to imagine how one might utilize such a catalyst in such a way as to make a difference to the entire atmosphere. The photolysis wavelengths for the decomposition of nitrous oxide are given in a paper that is available in open access: Atmos. Chem. Phys., 10, 6137–6149, 2010. In this paper the photolysis wavelengths are given as between 195 and 230 nm for both N₂O and CCl₄. These are UV wavelengths, high energy radiation, very different from infrared.

The rate of decomposition and its balance in pre-industrial and present day times is nicely covered in a paper that I happen to have in my files, but may not be public access: Nature Geoscience 2, 659 - 662 (2009)

Here's an excerpt from the introductory text that addesses the point:

Estimates of the stratospheric sink of N₂O are reasonably well constrained2,7,so the global source strength can be inferred from knowledge of the sink and the rate of N₂O accumulation in the atmosphere. For the period before the industrial revolution, when primarily natural N₂O sources and sinks were approximately in balance, each at about 10.2 Tg N₂O_N yr?1, N₂O production from natural terrestrial and coastal ecosystem sources was 4-5% of the estimated natural rate of N fixation by lightning and biological N fixation7.Similarly, in the 1990s, after adjusting the growth of atmosphericN₂O for estimated industrial sources, the annual increase was equal to 3-5% of the sum of estimated anthropogenic sources of new N fixation7. Crutzen et al. concluded that a reasonable approximation of N₂O production, both before and after the industrial revolution, from terrestrial and coastal systems is about 4%+/- 1%) of annual new N fixation (natural and anthropogenic) in the biosphere7.

The paper's first paragraph declares that the rate of growth of N₂O, is linear, about 0.26% a year.

It is not clear that we can reduce the amount of applied fertilizer and still feed seven billion people, not at least without genetically engineering most food crop plants to increase their nitrogen efficiency. That, however would take a lot of time, more time than we actually have.

The climate forcing of nitrous oxide is non-trivial, and is not really "a distant third," accounting for roughly 4% of the forcing.

Have a nice day tomorrow.

[kristopher]

8. Please better define "an evidence based approach".

Does that mean you endorse the "Precautionary Principle"? As far as I know that is the science based approach.
What most people mean when they write "science" in opinions like your OP is actually better defined as "economics".

[progressoid]

9. Ask the author.

Dr. Novella is an academic clinical neurologist at Yale University School of Medicine. He is the president and co-founder of the New England Skeptical Society. He is the host and producer of the popular weekly science podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe. He is also a senior fellow and Director of Science-Based Medicine at the James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF), a fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) and a founding fellow of the Institute for Science in Medicine.

The NeuroLogicaBlog covers news and issues in neuroscience, but also general science, scientific skepticism, philosophy of science, critical thinking, and the intersection of science with the media and society.

Dr. Novella is also the founder, executive editor, and regular contributor to Science-Based Medicine, a blog dedicated to issues of science and medicine.

If you would like to contact Dr. Novella to suggest a topic for this blog, ask a question, or give feedback, you can e-mail him directly at: [e-mail]

http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/about/

[Nihil]

13. ... because an academic neurologist is obviously the best critic of agricultural systems ...

... especially when he is a close buddy of Jame$ Randi and other right-wing,
self-promoting pro-business turds ...

[Nihil]

12. Screw that load of GMO apologia and address the real problem.

> to feed the 9-10 billion people that will inhabit our planet in 2050.

Don't produce the 9-10 billion people in the combination of religious stupidity,
political stupidity and techno-cornucopian stupidity that all claim that some
"miracle-worker" will continue to clean up our shit in time.

Stop breeding like vermin who have broken into the grain hopper
and start acting like the "sapiens" bit of the self-awarded name
actually means something.

[progressoid]

15. Good luck with that.