The closure of Britain’s last Haber-Bosch plant, which produced ammonia vital for the creation of fertilisers and explosives, symbolises the country’s growing dependence on imports and the broader trend of deindustrialization, says Ed Conway in the Times. Here’s an excerpt:
What is the single most consequential invention in modern human history? It’s tempting to vote for the aircraft or the motorcar, or maybe the computer or the internet, but if you ask me it has to be the Haber-Bosch process. This complex chemical reaction, devised by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in the early 20th century, is not universally famous. Yet nearly half of us wouldn’t be alive without it.
Haber and Bosch, a German scientist and engineer, were the duo who worked out how to capture nitrogen from the air and turn it into ammonia – from which we make fertiliser (and explosives).
Nearly everything you eat will contain nitrogen made this way. Actually it gets wilder than that, because more or less half the nitrogen inside your body (and there’s quite a lot, not least in every strand of your DNA) is nitrogen from a Haber-Bosch plant.
The story of the past century, of a global population swelling to eight billion and beyond without running out of food, is the story of Haber-Bosch. Even if we gave over every acre of available land on this planet to agriculture, we could not grow enough food to keep us all alive without the nitrogen fertilisers made in Haber-Bosch plants. It’s hard to think of anything quite so important for our survival as a species.
Which is why the following piece of news should give us all pause for thought: Britain is shutting down its only remaining Haber-Bosch plant. This may come as a surprise — it hasn’t appeared in a single national newspaper report — but those who work in the business see it as a watershed moment. For the first time in a century this country will become entirely dependent on nitrogen fertiliser imported from abroad.
This has, in fairness, been a long time coming. The plant in question – a site in Billingham, Teesside, owned by the American firm CF Fertilisers – has been mothballed for a while. You need lots of hydrogen in those Haber-Bosch reactors, and the main way you get hydrogen is from natural gas; while gas prices have fallen since the invasion of Ukraine, they are nonetheless higher than they were a few years ago. Since nitrogen fertiliser is a natural gas product, CF has shifted production to America, where gas is more plentiful and cheap. …
Now in one sense it might hardly seem to matter whether we get our fertilisers from Billingham or those overseas plants. Moreover, since ammonia manufacture involves burning natural gas, the closure will actually help Britain reduce its carbon footprint. Some point out that we have become too reliant on synthetic ammonia to fertilise our crops – and they have a point. And while the Haber-Bosch units will be closed, other bits of the Billingham plant will go on, since we still need to process the ammonia arriving from America. Only 40 jobs will be lost.
Even so, it is a reminder that in an era when many countries are investing more in manufacturing and thinking harder about where they get stuff from, Britain is still deindustrialising, becoming more reliant on imports from overseas, more exposed if things suddenly run short.
Worth reading in full.
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Well I never.
FFS!
What face masks don’t cause anywhere near enough of is embarrassment for the wearer.
“Most of the plastics used in daily life shed toxic chemicals when they are heated or stored for prolonged periods of time. Once they have been released, humans consume them through breathing, eating and drinking, as well as through skin absorption.” (From plasticoceans.org ).
Very hard to avoid all plastics of course, but masking sounds like a very good way to ensure you ingest plenty of those toxic chemicals. Like I say, a filthy habit and dreadful for the environment.
Friend of mine is a nurse – he opened a new box of masks one day and offered me one – I refused but I took the box to examine one – before handing them back to him I took a sniff of the newly opened box of masks and it smelled of chemicals.
Glad I stuck with my exemption card instead.
Perhaps it was the same study, but I recall seeing a report about masks shedding inhalable plastic particles some weeks or months ago.
Apart from the detrimental effects on wearers’ health, there is little comment from the eco-warriors, regarding the tons of discarded masks now polluting land and sea.
Indeed, they won’t let us have straws that work because “reasons” but there’s no issues with mountains of spit and snot riddled nappies.
I wonder how may of those useless plastic LFTs have been dumped into the sea?
The crabs must be wondering what incommunicative alien species has invaded their locale.
I believe that problem gets filed under ‘Yes, but, no, but, yes, but…’
I recall reading reports over a year ago (from Canadian research I believe) about microscopic mask fibers being breathed into the lungs and possibly leading to some quite nasty health conditions and diseases which is another reason why I refused to wear one. These masks were only ever meant to be used briefly and then disposed of – I know of people who were wearing their mask all day long and usually the same one over and over again.
A dirty, filthy habit.
A strange lapse in our otherwise pristine and antiseptic present.
I would hate that job, the researcher who flushes out people’s nostrils
Sounds like a job for Kenny Everett’s ‘Sid Snot’ character.
And they updated the Covid symptoms list to include hayfever-like symptoms last year.
But the virus is real…
Pathetic.
Someone may well have said that, but what was expressed last year was that it could be that pollen allergy might actually reduce the risk of respiratory infection. That was on the idea that there is only so much surface area in one’s nostrils etc, and the cells that are allergically reacting to various things – such as viruses – would not be available to other compounds at the same time.
A tennis friend of mine is just getting over his second bout of covid. Very fit man, but thoroughly vaxxed. I’ve begun to conclude that the vaxxes and/or the virus do something to the logical faculties.
So THAT’S why I never wore one! Knew there must be a reason.
I refused the damn things because I refuse to pay attention to an illegal government AND, I’m not prepared to look like a Next Tuesday
Recently my mask seemingly irritated a nerve and for three days it felt like I had a hair on the end of my nose. Ridiculous. Can’t wait to be rid of the thing (healthcare).
The pathetic state of our society and our deliberately broken relationship with our own health is evidenced by the fact that the plebs need “a Doctor” to tell them this ( in a White Coat of course – see Milgram).
“The masks, which are the gold standard for blocking Covid particles…”
That would be fool’s gold then would it?
I mean who the f*** would write that, and it get through editorial. They are just trolling us.
The ‘gold standard’, surely, would be lips sewn together, nostrils blocked by silicone sealant, with top quality goggles protecting the eyes and earbuds protecting the lugholes. That’s the affordable version, for those who can’t afford access to a decompression chamber.
Suggest you all read (if you haven’t already) Hector Drummond’s The Mask Cult. Explains the nonsense perfectly and in great detail.
‘The masks, which are the gold standard for blocking Covid particles…’
Ha, haaa, haaaa… Fools’ gold.
There is no such thing as a CoVid particle – that’s like saying a Common Cold particle.
CoVid is a disease which in fact shares the same symptoms as other respiratory virus infections.
Words, definitions matter… but not to lazy ignoramuses in the MSM.
Or ingnorami, as Julius Caesar might have put it.
Speaking of hay-fever… if masks can stop virus particles, they must be able to stop the much, much bigger pollen particles.
So why don’t hay-fever sufferers wear masks? Could it be they are not effective at stopping even large particles?
As normal human beings we don’t usually go around totting up numbers but our masters do. It is all metrics to them. They can’t possibly win but they can do a lot of damage as they collapse. We need to keep the number as low as possible.
They longed for mass masking. Way beyond any diease threat it was the subervience and obedience. We must never allow it to happen again regardless of the threat.
My experience exactly – long bouts of sneezing. I just exempted myself and if anyone insisted I wear one, I would explain what would happen and say “your call”. They always accepted my argument.
I’ve barely worn a mask yet I’m sneezing and have an itchy nose.
I assumed if was gay fever as it got really bad when I cut the fir tree hedge and people walking past where sneezing and coughing.
gay fever?
Is that another name for monkeypox?
Face masks also cause paranoia that results in prolongation of public fear!
This is the paper:
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.waojou.2020.100474