That can do spirit

Derek Lowe has a highly exaggerated notion of my abilities:

But some of the most important chemical reactions in the world take place down there. Take the Haber-Bosch process for producing ammonia – “Right,” I’m sure some readers of today’s newspaper are saying, “you take the Haber-Bosch process, whatever it is, and get it out of here.” But by making ammonia from nitrogen in the air, it led to (among other things) the invention of man-made fertilizers. That reaction has kept billions of people from starving to death, and kept huge swaths of wilderness from being turned into farmland. (Read up on Norman Borlaug if you haven’t already for more on this).

You can Haber-Bosch yourself some ammonia simply enough – just take iron powder, mix it with some drain cleaner (potassium hydroxide) and stir that up with some alumina and finely ground sand (silica). Heat it up to several hundred degrees and blow nitrogen and hydrogen across it; ammonia gas comes whiffing out the other end.

However, his post on the new Nobel prizewinner in Chemistry is excellent and you should read it.

Comments

I'm surprised that I am amazed, but still... our lack of understanding on how many key processes work, is kinda stunning. I'm glad that people are still interested in figuring stuff out, probably more because it bugs them to not know, than anything. The potential for these sorts of methods to be taken and made applicable to chemical/energy conversions is exciting. This work may be on one specific thing. But then two others take a method, or pick up the challenge and apply it to something else.

and they tell two friends.

and so on...

'can you believe those cave men actually burned fuel to power vehicles?'

"aw, give em a brake, how were they supposed to know you can extrapolate the whole universe from a piece of fairy cake?"

Posted by D | October 10, 2007 10:43 AM

What's the use of all that fancy-ass kitchen gear if you can't Haber-Bosch anything?

Posted by Paul Zrimsek | October 10, 2007 11:37 AM

Danger danger danger...

That reaction has kept billions of people from starving to death, and kept huge swaths of wilderness from being turned into farmland.

That is a quote from a marketing brochure of a fertilizer company - but I HOPE he does NOT believe this himself?

There are no short-cuts in nature. Nature has optimized the process over millions of years beyond our comprehension and any state intervention must be limited.

Higher yields due to the petroleum rich Haber-Bosch method also mean faster soil erosion and increased need of rotation etc. Combined with applying this method for inefficient livestock agriculture - it has destroyed NOT saved the rainforest and other ecosystems. Chemical fertilizer in ecology are like statism for the economy. You can force short-term results but nothing more!

At least 800 million people still go hungry.. their way forward into a sustainable future is less livestock agriculture and organic natural farming.

Haber-Bosch is on the same environmental level as coal, oil! Not good, not sustainable, ideologically toxic for survival. We have to get rid of it pronto if we want our children to have "a nice life".

I sincerely hope that this chap's other reasoning is "better" - as Megan implies regarding the Noble prices?

It is time to start education our children about nature if we want to reach the kingdom of sustainability and true spirituality - as E O Wilson has tried to tell us for decades. But how do we do this when we adults cannot see nature.. when we adults think of a garden or a field when "nature" comes up?

I agree with Wilson - there is no bigger and more urgent challenge on earth than the re-discovery of biophilia! It's not a hobby - it is the prerequisite, the basis for our survival and our happiness.

Just like you need people to make money in order to tax them - you need a working ecology for eventually adding the simple economy on top..

All the social sciences, all the non-biological sciences like chemistry and physics should drop immediately what they are doing and learn more about their mother (and forget as much as possible about their "father" - you know who I mean?)!

Posted by Hugo Pottisch | October 10, 2007 1:04 PM

Just as well that you didn't try it, he forgot to mention "The reaction is carried out under conditions of 250 atmospheres". So your yield, even WITH a convenient hydrogen source (nitrogen is available enough), would probably have been very disappointing.

When it comes time to do your womanly chores (OK, still chafing at that "man's place" thing :-)) you are much better off just buying the ammonia from a supermarket.

Posted by Jens Fiederer | October 10, 2007 1:22 PM

Rather odd, I'd have said, to rhapsodise on the social consequences of Haber-Bosch without mentioning all those explosives it let Germany have for launching WWI with.

Posted by dearieme | October 10, 2007 3:05 PM