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Comment by londons_explore | Hacker News Reader

Notably, ammonium nitrate is fertilizer.

It is also effectively 'natural gas in solid form' - the main input to making ammonium nitrate is natural gas.The main cost is the cost of the natural gas, and there are huge worldwide markets for both natural gas and fertilizer. Therefore, from an economics perspective, natural gas and fertilizer are pretty much tied together.

Same as electricity and aluminium.

Natural gas is hard to ship - whereas fertilizer is easy to ship.

Since Russia has bountiful supplies of natural gas, and sanctions prevent it selling that gas to europe via pipeline, producing fertilizer and selling that to the rest of the world is a workaround.

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CH4 vs NH4NO3, where does the carbon go? Don't you need the carbon to recover the energy?

Ammonia is produced at scale by the Haber-Bosch process, N2 + 3H2 => 2NH3. Most H2 is currently produced by steam reformation of natural gas, CH4 + 2H2O => CO2 + 4H2.

It's not really feasible to turn ammonium nitrate back to natural gas, moreso GP was insinuating it's a way to export (a proxy for) natural gas, eg to bypass sanctions.

You make it sound as if you can produce natural gas out of a fertilizer.

Yeah you just put it on grass then wait for cows to munch on the grass and burp.

The parent does not imply anywhere that you can produce natural gas out of fertiliser.

* They state that natural gas is an input to the fertiliser product

* They state that with sanctions on natural gas from Russia, converting it to fertiliser evades the sanctions, albeit by transforming it into a different but saleable product.

I think they mean because of that part

>It is also effectively 'natural gas in solid form'

Would it be necessary if they could burn it in a controlled way that extracts an acceptable amount of energy?

(Pure speculation of course, as I know nothing about the matter)

I think it's because gas wells can't just be turned off. Gas comes out of the ground and they have to do something with it.

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