Abstract
Nitrogen is the most limiting plant nutrient. Inexpensive natural gas has substantially reduced costs of ammonia fertilizer for intensive agriculture in the developed world, but its excessive use negatively impacts downstream ecosystems. By contrast, the availability of ammonia fertilizer is a major economic bottleneck for agriculture in developing countries. A dedicated lignocellulosic biomass crop could supply sufficient substrate to generate optimal nitrogen fertilizer on less than 5% of a grower’s food crop acreage. Reimagining ammonia generation using biomass could significantly enhance sustainable agricultural productivity in developing countries when combined with emerging catalytic technologies. © 2020 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
We dedicate this article to the memory of Wallace E. Tyner, senior fellow for the US Association for Energy Economics and a US Sen. Richard Lugar ‘Energy Patriot’. Wally earned a global reputation for his extensive research in energy, agriculture, climate, and natural resource policy analysis. This work was supported by the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Basic Energy Sciences (DE‐SC0000997), and the US Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Biological and Environmental Research.
