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posted by martyb on Monday February 13 2017, @12:18PM   Printer-friendly
from the when-you-REALLY-want-to-clear-your-sinuses dept.

https://unews.utah.edu/ammonia/

Nearly a century ago, German chemist Fritz Haber won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for a process to generate ammonia from hydrogen and nitrogen gases. The process, still in use today, ushered in a revolution in agriculture, but now consumes around one percent of the world's energy to achieve the high pressures and temperatures that drive the chemical reactions to produce ammonia.

Today, University of Utah chemists publish a different method, using enzymes derived from nature, that generates ammonia at room temperature. As a bonus, the reaction generates a small electrical current. The method is published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition [DOI: 10.1002/anie.201612500] [DX].


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @01:39PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @01:39PM (#466572)

    We make ammonia so that we can have fixed nitrogen without having to grow nitrogen-fixing crops such as legumes or clover. ATP is an energy-rich biological molecule. It's been made artificially but not, AFAIK, on an industrial scale like we make hydrogen or nitrogen. Mostly it exists inside cells. If it would be made in a bio-reactor then it would be simpler to grow nitrogen-fixing bacteria in a bio-reactor, if they can be coaxed to do so. They're perfectly happy to grow in the roots of certain plants. Why isn't it better to do that? Because farmers want to grow a single crop year after year? Monocultures are lame.

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  • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Monday February 13 2017, @08:44PM

    by JoeMerchant (3937) on Monday February 13 2017, @08:44PM (#466736)

    >Monocultures are lame!

    Absolutely, they are an arrogance against nature, an ignorance of the big biological picture, and they're easy for accountants, investors, and commodities traders to understand - so, we've got lots of them because: money.

    --
    🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @10:45PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 13 2017, @10:45PM (#466767)

    I'm not quite a permaculturalist, but I definitely am no fan of monocultures. There are no monocultures on my farm, in fact.

    That said, there are lots of valid, technical reasons why monocultures can make a lot of sense, given some limiting assumptions. Bear in mind that farming is really biological engineering; you're engaging in a design exercise with every choice you make for running your farm.

    As for growing legumes for nitrogen, sure, you're right, that does work. However, it doesn't work to the same degree that other sources of nitrogen do. It's just one part of a bigger picture, and if you're trying to grow an astonishing amount of corn in one field over one season, you're not going to do it with a few clovers or soy plants. You're not even going to do it with manure knifed in, and clovers grown in that.

    And that doesn't even touch on the mechanical efficiencies introduced by combine harvesters on monoculture fields. It's not even close, comparing that to a gang of skilled labourers harvesting an integrated crop.

    I mean, I'm all there for changing farming practices, but while you're pushing your glasses up your nose, adjusting your fedora and sneering at monocultures, it helps to come up with concrete, alternative proposals that solve the very real design and engineering problems around farming.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:12AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:12AM (#466845)

      "it helps to come up with concrete, alternative proposals that solve the very real design and engineering problems around farming."

      One example of a flexible system: https://farmbot.io/ [farmbot.io]

      Another: http://openag.media.mit.edu/about/ [mit.edu]

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agricultural_robot [wikipedia.org]

      "Agricultural robots: Fields of automation"
      http://www.economist.com/node/15048711 [economist.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:15AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:15AM (#466847)

      https://remineralize.org/ [remineralize.org]
      "REMINERALIZATION utilizes finely ground rock dust and sea-based
      minerals to restore soils and forests, produce higher yields and more
      nutritious food, and store carbon in soils to stabilize the climate."

      It works for the same reason people risk volcanoes to grow lush crops near them.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:28AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 14 2017, @04:28AM (#466851)

      Why it works: https://www.elsevier.com/books/towards-holistic-agriculture/widdowson/978-0-08-034211-5 [elsevier.com]

      Essentially, as "Towards Holistic Agriculture: A Scientific Approach" by R.W. Widdowson explained (in 1987!), soil rich in organic matter holds a diversity of nutrients, but when you pour a lot of ammonia on soil, the electrostatic charges change in the clay micelles and carbon equivalents and most nutrients are leached out of the soil and then lost. Then your crops suffer various diseases from micronutrient starvation -- similar to how most US Americans are suffering from micronutrient starvation from eating highly processes SAD foods i.e. as discussed by Dr. Joel Fuhrman).