Hacker News Reader

Comment by disordinary | Hacker News Reader

Except fertilisers are bad for the environment, especially Nitrogen which is mined.

I have a friend who is building a commercial aquaponic setup and he claims that not only is it better for the environment but it is price competitive now and will be cheaper than hydroponics as the prices of fertilizer keep increasing.

View on HN

Fertilizers are not bad for the environment. They are bad for our water supply, but fertilizer that doesn't get to the water supply is helpful.

You try and tell that to the people of Nauru.

A substantial fraction of the world's natural gas is burned to produce nitrogen fertilizer. This is largely obtained through fracking. Fertilizers, as they are used on the large scale, are pretty bad for the environment.

You seem to be arguing that the current production of fertilizers is bad - but that doesn't implicate fertilizers in general(unless it is impossible to do otherwise for some reason).

Fertilizers in general aren't necessarily bad. It is important for us to actively recycle our phosphorous and potassium, because there is no short term replenishment of these vital elements in the soil. For more information, I highly recommend "The Humanure Handbook": http://humanurehandbook.com/downloads/Humanure_Handbook_all....

Fertilizers do increase the growth rate of plants. However, there is mounting evidence that nutritional content is inversely proportional with growth rate.

Mined? Its applied commercially as anhydrous ammonia, which is produced from air and electricity.

The vast majority of nitrogen fertilizers are produced by burning natural gas with atmospheric nitrogen to produce NH3, NH3OH and CO2.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haber_process

I guess in a way, the natural gas extraction is a mining process.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com