Haber Process - Economic and Environmental Aspects

Economic and Environmental Aspects

Further information: Sustainable ammonia production

The Haber process now produces 500 million tons (453 billion kilograms) of nitrogen fertilizer per year, mostly in the form of anhydrous ammonia, ammonium nitrate, and urea. 3–5% of world natural gas production is consumed in the Haber process (~1–2% of the world's annual energy supply). That fertilizer is responsible for sustaining one-third of the Earth's population, but results in various deleterious environmental consequences. Notably, the rise of the Haber industrial process led to the "Nitrate Crisis" in Chile when the natural nitrate mines were no longer profitable and were closed, leaving a large unemployed Chilean population behind.

Read more about this topic:  Haber Process

Famous quotes containing the words economic and, economic and/or aspects:

    The chief reason warfare is still with us is neither a secret death-wish of the human species, nor an irrepressible instinct of aggression, nor, finally and more plausibly, the serious economic and social dangers inherent in disarmament, but the simple fact that no substitute for this final arbiter in international affairs has yet appeared on the political scene.
    Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)

    The bourgeois takes economic power very seriously, and often worships it quite unselfishly.
    Nicolai A. Berdyaev (1874–1948)

    An atheist may be simply one whose faith and love are concentrated on the impersonal aspects of God.
    Simone Weil (1909–1943)