What does it take to feed the world?
Plants are the basis of human nutrition. The main ingredients of photosynthetic life are well known: Sunlight, Water, Carbon, and Nutrients.
As crops grow, they remove nutrients from the soil. Maintaining productivity requires replenishing the land, and, of all nutrients, nitrogen defines plant growth.
Nitrogen is the most abundant component of our atmosphere: 78%. Unlike carbon dioxide, plants cannot absorb nitrogen in this gaseous, highly stable form (N2). They need reactive Nitrogen such as nitrous oxides.
Ammonia: from natural to human lightning
For millennia we relied on nature's supply. Lightning would occasionally replenish Nitrogen directly from the air, some plants and fungi were able to synthesise ammonia too. As soils began to deplete we recycled nitrogen by applying manure, eventually importing nitrogen-rich guano to overfarmed lands.
But by the beginning of the 20th century demand was outstripping supply. Scientists realised we would need step change from a hundred thousand to millions of tons of fixed nitrogen a year, in order to feed a rapidly growing population.
Anticipating this, in the early 1900s, a German chemist, Fritz Haber, created his own form of lightning, developing a technology that came to feed the world. Haber designed an industrial catalyst that under massive pressure and temperature combined nitrogen from air with hydrogen — the first human synthesis of ammonia.
A dirty dependence
Haber's invention was the detonator to our 20th century population explosion. Taken to scale by Carl Bosch, Haber's innovation revolutionised agriculture allowing production of food at unprecedented rates. Scientists estimate that roughly half of global crop yields are made possible by Haber–Bosch nitrogen.
A century after Haber patented his discovery, we are totally dependent on the Haber-Bosch process for our food. Today, ammonia is the reason why half of us are here. World demand for nitrogen as fertiliser has surpassed 100 million tonnes per year.
But our fixed nitrogen fairy tale hides a dirty emissions secret. First: Waste. No more than 50% of nitrogen applied to soil is utilised by plants: a large proportion is lost to the environment, with impacts on air, water and soil quality, and biodiversity. Moreover, because the Haber-Bosch reaction can only happen at high temperatures and pressures, and the process is powered with fossil fuels, it accounts for almost 2% of global carbon dioxide emissions, about 450 million tons per year. The transportation of ammonia also adds another 30 million tons of CO2 emissions in the value chain.
Clean ammonia: the decarbonised future of fertiliser
Nium's patent-pending nanotechnologies, housed in small-scale reactors (the mighty minions) have the potential to eliminate the majority of emissions in production while mitigating environmental impacts in ammonia utilisation. Our proprietary catalyst technology makes ammonia possible at much milder conditions than the Haber-Bosch process, allowing for 'clean ammonia' to be synthesised 'on demand'. Clean Hydrogen feedstocks from water, nitrogen from air, ammonia synthesis powered by renewable energy.
Nium’s patent-pending nanotechnologies are essential to the current 75.7 billion ammonia market, growing to 126.57 billion ammonia market (in 2030) in three ways:
1) Decentralisation:
- Lower energetic costs. Our proprietary catalyst technology makes ammonia possible at much milder conditions than the Haber-Bosch process.
- Decoupling of ammonia production and fossil fuels.
- Local production of clean ammonia on demand.
2) Decarbonisation:
- Elimination of grey/brown hydrogen in the ammonia production process.
- Recoupling with green hydrogen at local sites, ammonia powered by renewables.
- Shorter supply chains and transport costs, less indiscriminate spreading of bulk delivered ammonia.
- More targeted 'just in time' application at point of production, less wastage and transport emissions.
3) Democratisation:
- More independence for fertiliser producers and farmers.
- Less reliance on global supply chains, middlemen and poorly regulated foreign suppliers.
By introducing Nium's technology, we chart the evolution of ammonia from a polluting chemical today to a driver of tomorrow's sustainable food systems.
Determining what it takes to feed the world isn't straightforward. While it's tempting to solely calculate food output per capita for the current or projected population, several factors complicate the answer, such as unequal distribution, dietary choices, food waste, and climate change.
However, if we focus only on projected population growth, the global population is expected to reach 9.3 billion by 2050, necessitating a projected 60%* increase in food production.
So, one thing is clear: we need a more sustainable food system.
* World Agriculture Towards 2030/2050: The 2012 Revision
