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>the mistaken notion that fossil fuels are essential for making fertilizer I think the correct statement is that fossil fuels are the cheapest way of making fe

by rsj_hn 5y ago

>the mistaken notion that fossil fuels are essential for making fertilizer I think the correct statement is that fossil fuels are the cheapest way of making fertilizer, and that any other (known) way is currently much more expensive. Therefore raising the price of fossil fuels does raise the price of fertilizer. This is pretty incontrovertible.

Robotbeat 5y ago
No, we use hydrogen to make ammonia. That hydrogen is grey hydrogen from fossil fuels usually, but the actual Haber process does not use any hydrocarbons. Using hydrogen to make ammonia is therefore not a new process. It literally IS the process we use today. An analogy would be an article on hydrogen fuel cell cars that never once used the word “hydrogen” in it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- acoard 5y ago
  I'm new to this so asking earnestly, but: >That hydrogen is grey hydrogen from fossil fuels usually, but the actual Haber process does not use any hydrocarbons. Using hydrogen to make ammonia is therefore not a new process. It literally IS the process we use today. It seems like this grey hydrogen still ultimately comes from fossil fuels. It might be further up the chain, so to speak, but it's still dependant on them. No? So doesn't the statement that raising fossil fuel prices raise fertilizer prices true then?
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Yes, true in the narrow sense, but it’s misleading, I think, or at least it’s avoiding a really good opportunity to educate people about the role of hydrogen in our industrial processes. I don’t think it’s irrelevant minutiae. By not mentioning hydrogen but mentioning by natural gas, you reinforce the mistaken impression people have that the process we use to make fertilizers requires fossil fuels in particular. It actually uses hydrogen, which historically was, technically can be (and is today on a modest scale), and in the future likely will be made using electricity. It also avoids context that the Hydrogen Economy is something we have today, but it’s almost all fossil fuel reliant. So a hydrogen car or hydrogen heating or whatever is not intrinsically fossil-free, not even close. And ammonia is actually a really good use of hydrogen as the actual process itself uses hydrogen, so unlike for heating, where a Joule of hydrogen gives you the same as a Joule of natural gas for heat, a Joule of hydrogen gives you more ammonia than a Joule of natural gas would. AND you can avoid the capital cost of the on-site steam reforming. Anyway, I just think such articles should say something like “Fertilizer production, in which nitrogen from the atmosphere is fixed by combining it with hydrogen, is the largest industrial use of hydrogen—almost all of which is today produced on-site from fossil fuels like natural gas.” Or even just “nitrogen fertilizer, which uses hydrogen usually made from natural gas…” The idea that hydrogen is largely green but fertilizer intrinsically requires hydrocarbons are two really common misconceptions that we could easily fix by just mentioning “hydrogen” in these news articles.
- MobiusHorizons 5y ago
  In the case of the plant pictured in the article, the hydrogen is produced on site from methane. So, at least in that case, from the factory perspective, it is a methane in, ammonia + CO2 out. [1] I don't know how common it is for factories to do both processes at the same site, but that would explain why the article frames it that way. But beyond that, I think the parent comment is just saying that the price of the hydrogen plays a big role in the availability and price of fertilizer. Even with the current increases in price, it is not profitable to manufacture ammonia using green hydrogen at current market prices. [1] https://www.cffertilisers.co.uk/about-us/how-our-fertiliser-is-made/ https://www.cffertilisers.co.uk/about-us/how-our-fertiliser-...
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    From the factory perspective, 1 Joule of hydrogen produces more ammonia than 1 Joule of natural gas AND you get to avoid the steam reforming equipment, saving capital & maintenance cost. And in Europe, at the moment natural gas prices are so high that green hydrogen is now competitive. BUT that’s beside the point.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  I really think you are trying to obfuscate the issue here. We "usually" make the hydrogen from fossil fuels because this is by far the cheapest way to make it, so if we raise the price of fossil fuels, the fertilizer becomes more expensive. And man, you are twisting and turning in order to obscure this fact.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    No, I’m not. Again, by not mentioning that ammonia is made from hydrogen (and not mentioning that ammonia is by far the largest use of hydrogen today and also that almost all hydrogen is made with fossil fuels now but not historically), we are obfuscating multiple things. It seems implied that ammonia based fertilizers actually need hydrocarbons in particular (which isn’t true historically, technically, or in the future, BUT you’ll have many Degrowther types argue we have to use fossil fuels for fertilizer) AND it makes it easy to exaggerate the benefit of hydrogen cars (or the “hydrogen economy”) because it becomes unclear that hydrogen is actually by far made from fossil fuels. It’s not a simple consequence. (Finally, green hydrogen is currently competitive with grey and blue hydrogen in Europe due to high gas prices at the moment, but that’s totally beside the point.) https://think.ing.com/articles/hold-1of4-high-gas-prices-triples-the-cost-of-hydrogen-production/ https://think.ing.com/articles/hold-1of4-high-gas-prices-tri...
    - politician 5y ago
      Thanks for your comments. Until today, I was under the mistaken impression that fertilizers required hydrocarbons.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    We usually make electricity from coal, because its so cheap... as long as you ignore the pollution and death that it causes. An insistence on how "cheap" it is to make fertilizer from natural gas, without taking into accoint fugitive methan emmisions, the fossil fuel used for the heat, and the CO2 released as an intrinsic part of the process seems the more obvious, at at this point preictable and boring, attempt to distort reality.
vkou 5y ago
> Therefore raising the price of fossil fuels does raise the price of fertilizer. Yes, but how much does this impact the total retail cost of the food we eat? Would it be a difference of 2%, or a difference of 200%? That's the only number I (as someone who eats food) care about.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Good question. 3kg of hydrogen makes about 17kg of ammonia. One bushel of corn requires about 0.8 pounds of ammonia. A bushel of corn weighs about 56 pounds and a pound of corn has about 1566 kilocalories. Grey hydrogen is about $2/kg (more in Europe right now, about $5/kg not counting CO2 tax), and green hydrogen is about $3-6/kg, depending on your electricity costs. So one kg of hydrogen produces about 1,367,000 kilocalories, or about 683 days’ worth if you ate just 2000kilocalories of field corn per day. :) A price difference of $1-4/kg for hydrogen means less than 1¢/day… of course that’s only if you eat just corn at the bottom of the food chain and use efficient agricultural practices… also, everyone gets a cut on the way…
  - ch4s3 5y ago
    This is truly one of the more interesting HN comments I've read recently. I'm actually surprised how little H goes into a bushel of corn. This really makes the potential future energy tech even more exciting.
    - Robotbeat 5y ago
      Keep in mind that’s for state of the art practices. In much of the world, productivity of food production is an order of magnitude less (corn is pretty much the most productive modern staple crop), and a bushel of corn produces about 6.7 pounds of beef, which is an order of magnitude fewer Calories than the corn you started with. Plus there is food wastage. With inefficient processes, the cost could be two orders of magnitude higher! So the increase in actual food prices could be far greater than just one cent per day.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]

by rsj_hn 5y ago

Robotbeat 5y ago

No, we use hydrogen to make ammonia. That hydrogen is grey hydrogen from fossil fuels usually, but the actual Haber process does not use any hydrocarbons. Using hydrogen to make ammonia is therefore not a new process. It literally IS the process we use today. An analogy would be an article on hydrogen fuel cell cars that never once used the word “hydrogen” in it.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
acoard 5y ago
I'm new to this so asking earnestly, but: >That hydrogen is grey hydrogen from fossil fuels usually, but the actual Haber process does not use any hydrocarbons. Using hydrogen to make ammonia is therefore not a new process. It literally IS the process we use today. It seems like this grey hydrogen still ultimately comes from fossil fuels. It might be further up the chain, so to speak, but it's still dependant on them. No? So doesn't the statement that raising fossil fuel prices raise fertilizer prices true then?
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  Yes, true in the narrow sense, but it’s misleading, I think, or at least it’s avoiding a really good opportunity to educate people about the role of hydrogen in our industrial processes. I don’t think it’s irrelevant minutiae. By not mentioning hydrogen but mentioning by natural gas, you reinforce the mistaken impression people have that the process we use to make fertilizers requires fossil fuels in particular. It actually uses hydrogen, which historically was, technically can be (and is today on a modest scale), and in the future likely will be made using electricity. It also avoids context that the Hydrogen Economy is something we have today, but it’s almost all fossil fuel reliant. So a hydrogen car or hydrogen heating or whatever is not intrinsically fossil-free, not even close. And ammonia is actually a really good use of hydrogen as the actual process itself uses hydrogen, so unlike for heating, where a Joule of hydrogen gives you the same as a Joule of natural gas for heat, a Joule of hydrogen gives you more ammonia than a Joule of natural gas would. AND you can avoid the capital cost of the on-site steam reforming. Anyway, I just think such articles should say something like “Fertilizer production, in which nitrogen from the atmosphere is fixed by combining it with hydrogen, is the largest industrial use of hydrogen—almost all of which is today produced on-site from fossil fuels like natural gas.” Or even just “nitrogen fertilizer, which uses hydrogen usually made from natural gas…” The idea that hydrogen is largely green but fertilizer intrinsically requires hydrocarbons are two really common misconceptions that we could easily fix by just mentioning “hydrogen” in these news articles.
MobiusHorizons 5y ago
In the case of the plant pictured in the article, the hydrogen is produced on site from methane. So, at least in that case, from the factory perspective, it is a methane in, ammonia + CO2 out. [1] I don't know how common it is for factories to do both processes at the same site, but that would explain why the article frames it that way. But beyond that, I think the parent comment is just saying that the price of the hydrogen plays a big role in the availability and price of fertilizer. Even with the current increases in price, it is not profitable to manufacture ammonia using green hydrogen at current market prices. [1] https://www.cffertilisers.co.uk/about-us/how-our-fertiliser-is-made/ https://www.cffertilisers.co.uk/about-us/how-our-fertiliser-...
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  From the factory perspective, 1 Joule of hydrogen produces more ammonia than 1 Joule of natural gas AND you get to avoid the steam reforming equipment, saving capital & maintenance cost. And in Europe, at the moment natural gas prices are so high that green hydrogen is now competitive. BUT that’s beside the point.
rsj_hn 5y ago
I really think you are trying to obfuscate the issue here. We "usually" make the hydrogen from fossil fuels because this is by far the cheapest way to make it, so if we raise the price of fossil fuels, the fertilizer becomes more expensive. And man, you are twisting and turning in order to obscure this fact.
- Robotbeat 5y ago
  No, I’m not. Again, by not mentioning that ammonia is made from hydrogen (and not mentioning that ammonia is by far the largest use of hydrogen today and also that almost all hydrogen is made with fossil fuels now but not historically), we are obfuscating multiple things. It seems implied that ammonia based fertilizers actually need hydrocarbons in particular (which isn’t true historically, technically, or in the future, BUT you’ll have many Degrowther types argue we have to use fossil fuels for fertilizer) AND it makes it easy to exaggerate the benefit of hydrogen cars (or the “hydrogen economy”) because it becomes unclear that hydrogen is actually by far made from fossil fuels. It’s not a simple consequence. (Finally, green hydrogen is currently competitive with grey and blue hydrogen in Europe due to high gas prices at the moment, but that’s totally beside the point.) https://think.ing.com/articles/hold-1of4-high-gas-prices-triples-the-cost-of-hydrogen-production/ https://think.ing.com/articles/hold-1of4-high-gas-prices-tri...
  - politician 5y ago
    Thanks for your comments. Until today, I was under the mistaken impression that fertilizers required hydrocarbons.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  We usually make electricity from coal, because its so cheap... as long as you ignore the pollution and death that it causes. An insistence on how "cheap" it is to make fertilizer from natural gas, without taking into accoint fugitive methan emmisions, the fossil fuel used for the heat, and the CO2 released as an intrinsic part of the process seems the more obvious, at at this point preictable and boring, attempt to distort reality.

vkou 5y ago

> Therefore raising the price of fossil fuels does raise the price of fertilizer. Yes, but how much does this impact the total retail cost of the food we eat? Would it be a difference of 2%, or a difference of 200%? That's the only number I (as someone who eats food) care about.

Robotbeat 5y ago
Good question. 3kg of hydrogen makes about 17kg of ammonia. One bushel of corn requires about 0.8 pounds of ammonia. A bushel of corn weighs about 56 pounds and a pound of corn has about 1566 kilocalories. Grey hydrogen is about $2/kg (more in Europe right now, about $5/kg not counting CO2 tax), and green hydrogen is about $3-6/kg, depending on your electricity costs. So one kg of hydrogen produces about 1,367,000 kilocalories, or about 683 days’ worth if you ate just 2000kilocalories of field corn per day. :) A price difference of $1-4/kg for hydrogen means less than 1¢/day… of course that’s only if you eat just corn at the bottom of the food chain and use efficient agricultural practices… also, everyone gets a cut on the way…
- ch4s3 5y ago
  This is truly one of the more interesting HN comments I've read recently. I'm actually surprised how little H goes into a bushel of corn. This really makes the potential future energy tech even more exciting.
  - Robotbeat 5y ago
    Keep in mind that’s for state of the art practices. In much of the world, productivity of food production is an order of magnitude less (corn is pretty much the most productive modern staple crop), and a bushel of corn produces about 6.7 pounds of beef, which is an order of magnitude fewer Calories than the corn you started with. Plus there is food wastage. With inefficient processes, the cost could be two orders of magnitude higher! So the increase in actual food prices could be far greater than just one cent per day.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]