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A Century of Synthetic Fertilizer: 1909-2009 by John Paull Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University, Canberra

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A Century of Synthetic Fertilizer: 1909-2009 by John Paull Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University, Canberra A Century of Synthetic Fertilizer: 1909-2009 By John Paull Fenner School of Environment & Society, Australian National University, Canberra. Email - [email protected] The Chemical Vision 1840 Carl Bosch’s role was to extend Haber’s In 1840 Justus von Liebig (1803-1873) “high pressure synthesis” of ammonia from presented his vision for a new agriculture, the laboratory proof-of-concept “to an “a rational system of Agriculture”, to be industrial scale with a view to its economic based on “the application of scientific application” (Bosch, 1932, p.197). principles”. He asserted that “This knowledge we must seek from Haber and Bosch achieved the conversion chemistry” (Liebig, 1840, p.iiv-iv). It was of nitrogen and hydrogen to ammonia (N2 not until seven decades later that two + 3H2 → 2NH3). They employed a cast of German chemists were on the threshold of “hundreds of scientists”, pressures of “100 realizing Liebig’s vision of chemical atmospheres and higher”, and farming, and thereby transforming “temperatures of not less than agriculture. 400-450ºC” (Bosch, 1932, p.197, 208). Theirs was a “brute force “ method (Leigh, The Successful Experiment 1909 2004, p.22). They had achieved what a variety of microscopic organisms can and Fritz Haber approached German chemical do achieve at farmyard temperatures and company BASF in 1908 “with the pressures each day. The contrast between suggestion to attempt the technical the industrial and the natural method is synthesis of ammonia from hydrogen and stark (Table 1). nitrogen under high pressure” (Bosch, 1932, p.197). The following year, with Carl Plants and animals cannot “fix”, capture, Bosch as a witness (Leigh, 2004), Haber nitrogen directly from the air - of which reported triumphantly that on the 2nd of nitrogen is the chief component. The web July 1909: “we began operating the large of life has heretofore relied primarily on ammonia apparatus … and were able to the nitrogen capturing capabilities of keep its uninterrupted production for about micro-organisms, often in a symbiotic five hours. During this whole time it had relationship with plants. functioned correctly and it produced liquid ammonia” (Haber, quoted in Smil, 2001, p. The ammonia produced by the Haber- 81). Bosch process was not merely bio-available 16 ELEMENTALS - Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania Issue 94 2009 Table 1: A comparison of two methods of nitrogen fixation. NITROGEN Biological Chemical FIXATION Temperature Ambient temperature 450ºC Pressure Atmospheric pressure 100+ atmospheres Set-up costs Free $millions Scale Microscopic Hectares Cost of output Free ~$80/tonne Input Air Coal or natural gas Timeline Since billions of years ago Since 1909 Process description “natural” “brute force” Process knowledge “mystery” well understood Annual Nitrogen ~100 million tonnes pa ~100 million tonnes pa Fixation and capable of feeding food crops, it was WW1 (1914-1918) also a product that could directly feed a war machine. Yes nitrogen is an essential Allied troops in WW1 nicknamed their ingredient for life and it is an essential German military adversary as “Fritz” and component of amino acids, but it can also “the Bosch”. Perhaps it is just irony, or be used as a feedstock for ammunition. perhaps it was with chemistry- This dual-use process suited to both guns aforethought? In any event, it was the and grain, was rapidly commercialized in handiwork of Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch Germany. The nitrogen industrial complex that contributed directly to some of the at Oppau, employing the new Haber-Bosch estimated 10 million lives lost in WW1. process of converting nitrogen and Writing just after the end of the war, Hall hydrogen to ammonia opened in 1913 observed that “commercially great (Nobel Foundation, 1966). advances in the processes of manufacturing Issue 94 2009 ELEMENTALS - Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania 17 synthetic nitrogen compounds from the Nitrogen in the form of synthetic fertilizers atmosphere were stimulated by the war can be applied directly as ammonia (82.2% demand for explosives” (1920, p.x). Bosch nitrogen) to fields, but mostly ammonia is related that “the Oppau works were further processed, and applied to fields as bombed night after night” (Bosch, 1932, p. ammonia-derivative products. Synthetic 224). nitrogenous fertilizers derived from Haber- Bosch ammonia include urea, ammonium The 1918 Nobel Prize award for Chemistry nitrate, calcium ammonium nitrate, urea to Fritz Haber for the synthesis of ammonia ammonium nitrate, ammonium chloride, was both controversial and unpopular. It and ammonium sulphate (listed here in was not just that the Haber-Bosch process order of nitrogen content, greater to lesser, had prolonged the war - long after German 46% to 20%) (IFADATA, 2009a). ports were blockaded - but also because Haber had “developed a new weapon - The Birth of Bio-Dynamic (1924) & poison gas, the first example of which was Organic Agriculture (1940) chlorine gas - and supervised its initial deployment on the Western Front at Ypres, An early response to the proliferation of Belgium, in 1915” (Bowden, 1997, p.20, chemical agriculture was Rudolf Steiner’s 22). Haber was “considered in some circles Agriculture Course. The course was a to be a war criminal” (Leigh, 2004, p. 162). series of eight lectures, delivered in June Haber’s “name appeared on the first list of 1924 to a group of Anthroposophic war criminal sought for extradition by the farmers, at their invitation, at Koberwitz Allies, and he hid for a short time in (Poland) (Steiner, 1924). The year prior to Switzerland” (Smil, 2001, p.228). the course, Steiner “for the first time gave the procedures for making the bio-dynamic Intensive Agriculture fertilizer preparations” in Switzerland (Pfeiffer, 1956, p.3). These events in Haber has been described as “the Switzerland and Poland initiated the progenitor of the basis for modern foundational stirrings of “a world- intensive agriculture” (Leigh, 2004, p.163). embracing agricultural move- His process of fixing nitrogen underpins ment” (Pfeiffer, 1956, p.3). The Agriculture industrial scale agriculture by providing Course was delivered only once. Steiner cheap fertilizer in abundance. “Since the died just nine months later on 30 March 1930s the Haber-Bosch process has been 1925 (Hemleben, 1963). Ehrenfried the only significant industrial method of Pfeiffer comments that “At the time of the fixing nitrogen” (Leigh, 2004, p.157). The Agriculture Course the bio-dynamic amount of nitrogen fixed by Haber-Bosch direction of thought, and agricultural is now estimated to equate to the amount chemistry, stood opposed (Pfeiffer, 1956, p. fixed by biological systems - both equal 6). approximately 100 million tonnes per annum (Leigh, 2004). Across the English Channel, at the outset 18 ELEMENTALS - Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania Issue 94 2009 of WW2, Lord Northbourne coined the termed the precautionary principle: “if we term “organic farming” and endorsed the waited for scientific proof of every bio-dynamic method. Northbourne wrote impression before deciding to take any that “the ‘bio-dynamic method’, evolved in consequential action we might avoid a few accordance with the recommendations of mistakes, but we should also hardly ever the late Dr Rudolf Steiner. The ... method decide to act at all. In practice, decisions has been highly developed in the course of about most things that really matter have to some fifteen years' work on the Continent, be taken on impressions, or on intuition, and its effectiveness may be said to be otherwise they would be far too proved” (Northbourne, 1940, p.173) late” (Northbourne, 1940, p.41). Northbourne identified a contest of Synthetic Fertilizer - Final Solution or “organic versus chemical New Problem? farming” (Northbourne, 1940, p.81). He proposed that “The main weakness of [the The amount of synthetic nitrogenous chemist’s] position as the farmer’s adviser” fertilizer applied to agriculture is growing is that “no chemist has ever analysed or exponentially (Fig.1). It has been asserted described in chemical terms a living that the world’s population expansion of creature, however humble; and there is not the twentieth century “would not have been the slightest chance that he ever will” (p. possible without the synthesis of 159-160). ammonia” (Smil, 2001, p.xiiv). Smil may be right, but since he does not produce his In his call for action, Northbourne evidence the claim remains just that. By expressed his version of what is now way of contrast, a meta-analysis of many Figure 1: Global consumption of nitrogen fertilizers, in million tonnes of nutrient. (Data sources: Smil (2004) data 1910 to 1950; (IFADATA, 2009b) data 1961 to 2006). Issue 94 2009 ELEMENTALS - Journal of Bio-Dynamics Tasmania 19 comparative studies reveals that a global into the Law of Unintended Consequences. switch to organic agriculture would Leigh observes that “in the long run, the increase the world’s food supply (Badgley, ‘solution’ was going to bring problems of a et al., 2007). different kind that could not have been envisaged” (2004, p.157). Did Haber and The early concerns, of Steiner’s Koberwitz Bosch solve a problem, or did they create a farmers in 1924, of Lord Northbourne in problem - in this the centenary year of the 1940, of Herbert Koepf in 1965 and in Haber-Bosch process, the question persists. 1977, were concerns for the health of the soil, seeds, plants, animals, humans and the References environment. These concerns remain live issues today. There is a long litany of Badgley, C., Moghtader, J., Quintero, E., knock-on effects from pumping massive Zakem, E., Chappell, M. J., Aviles- Vázquez, K., Samulon, A. & Perfecto, I. amounts of synthetic nitrogen products into (2007). Organic agriculture and the global the food chain. In the shadow of massive food supply. Renewable Agriculture and algal blooms in waterways, and the Food Systems, 22(2):86-108. proliferation of ocean dead zones, concerns about synthetic nitrogenous fertilizers now Bosch, C.
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