3 Comments

I was surprised that synthetic nitrogen only makes half of the population possible. I would have thought it was much higher, like 80%.

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The Haber Bosch process was only possible because fossil fuels provided the energy. You could argue that fossil fuels allowed the increase in population. Everything is about energy!

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True indeed. Vaclav Smil has an interesting chapter on fertilizers on his book How the World Really Works

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