Nitrogen fertilizer shortage threatens to cut global crop yields – CF Industries
What bothers me in articles like this is that no one mentions that ammonia is not produced with natural gas. It’s produced with HYDROGEN.<p>The cheapest source of hydrogen is usually steam reforming of natural gas. (But this wasn’t the case until about 1950 when steam reforming became cheap and widespread. Before that, cheap hydroelectricity-produced green hydrogen was common for nitrogen fertilizer production.)<p>Not mentioning this means that the average person who reads the news (including the typical politician and HN reader) has the mistaken notion that fossil fuels are essential for making fertilizer.<p>My 2cents: Two consequences (which kind of go in opposite directions) of this are:<p>1) You really think we need to push hydrogen cars right now when we’re not even producing a significant amount of green hydrogen for fertilizer? Unlike the electric grid (which is 40% clean already in the US), almost no hydrogen for ammonia is made with clean electricity.<p>2) This should provide impetus for locally produced green hydrogen efforts as food security, insulation from fossil fuel price swings. (Blue hydrogen doesn’t have that advantage since it’s still fossil fuel based and is worse in other ways.)