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147 points rbanffy | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.841s | source
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dizzant ◴[] No.42728125[source]
The comments here are focused on how much energy it would take to turn this into fuel. The real story here is decentralized fertilizer production, buried at the end of the article:

> this innovation could fundamentally reshape fertilizer manufacturing by providing a more sustainable, cost-effective alternative to centralized production

The high energy cost of Haber-Bosch, plus the additional cost of transportation from manufacturer to farmer could potentially be eliminated by distributed, passive fertilizer generators scattered around in the fields.

I'm no expert, but assuming sufficient local production, low concentration could potentially be overcome by continuous fertilization with irrigation throughout the growing season.

Let's find out. Some quick fiddling with a molarity calculator and an almanac:

-- 100 uM ammonia -> 1.7 mg / L ammonia

-- 82% nitrogen -> 1.4 mg / L nitrogen

-- My lawn needs around 1 lb / 1000 sq ft, or around 5 g / m2

-- So my lawn needs about 3500 L / m2 of fertilized irrigation total for the season

-- Ballpark farming irrigation is around 0.2 inches per day, or around 5L/m2

I would need to water my lawn about 700 days in the year, or more realistically up my irrigation rate by about a factor of 4, AND source all of the water from the fertilizer box.

I'm a little skeptical that I can allocate space for enough production and still have a lawn left to fertilize. The tech probably isn't ready for the big time on an industrial farm yet, but for research demo, this seems like a promising direction! Much more than concentrating it for fuel.

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darth_avocado ◴[] No.42728262[source]
Until big fertilizer lobbies to make decentralized fertilizer illegal. Insert national security, wrong hands blah blah
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dylan604 ◴[] No.42729508[source]
What happens when your decentralized fertilizer mixes with someone's copyrighted/trademarked fertilizer? Do you have to pay them their dues?

If you think this is outlandish, you must not be familiar with Monsanto

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1. 9rx ◴[] No.42730619[source]
> you must not be familiar with Monsanto

It has been out of business for almost seven years now. Who is putting any energy into remembering them at this point?

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2. jfengel ◴[] No.42731231[source]
It's not out of business. It merged with Bayer. It's a change in ownership, and to some degree a change in upper management, but large swathes of the company are unchanged.
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3. 9rx ◴[] No.42734737[source]
Its assets were sold to Bayer and BASF and some former Monsanto workers may have begun working at those other businesses, that is true. That kind of scenario is true of all businesses that close down, though, at least unless they truly have no remaining assets to sell or workers wanting new jobs, both of which are unlikely for anything beyond the simplest of sole proprietorships. By your logic, there is almost no business in history that has ever gone out of business.