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1/5 of raw fertilizer materials come from Russia! Is there a reason Russia is so prolific a source of fertilizer? I assume it's a legacy of Soviet Union attitu
by legitster 4y ago
1/5 of raw fertilizer materials come from Russia!
Is there a reason Russia is so prolific a source of fertilizer? I assume it's a legacy of Soviet Union attitudes towards raw material production.
- delecti 4y agoAs I understand it, the hydrogen in most industrially produced fertilizer comes from petroleum products. Given that, Russia being a big producer of fertilizer makes sense.
- legitster 4y agoIn the article though, they make it clear the 3 resources they are talking about are nitrogen, potash, and phosphate.
- delecti 4y agoNitrogen fertilizer is what I was talking about. Atmospheric nitrogen is combined with hydrogen from natural gas. I can't really say why Russia would also be a large supplier of potash and phosphate, except to guess that they wanted to cover all of the relevant bases in a market in which they were a big player.
- drdaeman 4y ago
- stefan_ 4y agoIt's just a side-effect of basing the entire economy around fossil fuel exports. Fertilizer production then is like one elementary school step away from that.
- dmurray 4y agoIt's a huge country in terms of land area. 1/5 is only a bit above the odds if you predict potash and phosphate deposits are evenly distributed across the world.