

Researchers have developed a method to produce ammonia with air and water - Shivetya
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/08/fertilizer-raw-material-made-with-water-air-and-sunlight/

======
mikeyouse
This is a potentially world-changing development. If their figures are
correct, and we handicap this technology to only see a 10% improvement vs.
Haber-Bosch, that's still a savings of over 300 million megawatt hours
annually with the added benefit of cheaper food worldwide since nitrogen is
one of the largest costs in agriculture.

I highly recommend the book, "The Alchemy of Air" about the creation of the
Haber-Bosch process.

[http://www.amazon.com/The-Alchemy-Air-Scientific-
Discovery/d...](http://www.amazon.com/The-Alchemy-Air-Scientific-
Discovery/dp/0307351793/)

The subtitle doesn't do the book justice, but fixing nitrogen might be the
most important discovery in the history of humanity and Hager's book does a
tremendous job in telling the story.

~~~
hcarvalhoalves
> This is a potentially world-changing development.

... potentially negative?

It seems cheap, abundant nitrogen fertilizers is an environmental disaster
waiting to happen.

Saves energy and increases other problems by an order of magnitude: water
poisoning, algae blooms, impact on the fishing industry, acid rain and other
problems by caused by NO2, nutrient depletion (by soil acidification),
intoxication by metals (Al, Cu)...

~~~
mikeyouse
> It seems cheap, abundant nitrogen fertilizers is an environmental disaster
> waiting to happen.

Completely hyperbolic. Nothing you've described will be any more likely with
cheaper Nitrogen.

Modern farms are extremely nitrogen efficient and runoff can easily be
eliminated if the farms are incentivized to do so (aka appropriately
regulated). Artificially keeping the price of fertilizer high as a pollution-
control measure is needlessly cruel to the poor.

In many countries, the poor spend over 50% of their income on food. Reducing
the cost of a main food input by a substantial portion would mean an immediate
raise in the standard of living for some of the world's poorest people. It
would also open up previously inhospitable areas to agriculture, further
helping those in less fortunate circumstances.

------
th3iedkid
Combined with the fact that ammonia can be used as a fuel, they are making
fuel out of air & water in that case.The question being , how soon are we
going to run out of air and water.

[a brochure]
[http://nh3fuel.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/nh3brochuresept20...](http://nh3fuel.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/nh3brochuresept2010.pdf)
[keynote Tenth Annual NH3 Fuel Conference, September 23, 2013]
[http://nh3fuel.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/nh3fcx-keynote-
st...](http://nh3fuel.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/nh3fcx-keynote-steve-
wittrig.pdf)

