No Fertilizer Without Gas: The Chemistry Feeding 3.8 Billion

No Fertilizer Without Gas: The Chemistry Feeding 3.8 Billion

Forty countries agreed at the COP26 in Glasgow to phase out coal, and with it, according to a thesis that began circulating then, much of the planet's food. The mechanism is chemical, not political: natural gas is the raw material for nitrogen fertilizer that supports around 3.8 billion people. Without it, the math doesn't add up.

The warning was launched as fiction — "any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental," repeated as a disclaimer — but the substance was a reminder of elementary chemistry. Producing ammonia, the first link in modern fertilizer, requires hydrogen, and that hydrogen comes today, almost always, from natural gas. Without fertilizer, agricultural production collapses. The timeline was aggressive: hunger would knock on the door in 2022.

The Haber Process: Air, Gas, and 200 Atmospheres

The method, patented in 1908, combines nitrogen from the air — 78% of the atmosphere — with hydrogen from natural gas. The reaction requires 450 °C and 200 atmospheres of pressure, hence its dependence on heavy infrastructure and cheap energy. From that ammonia come urea, nitric acid, and ammonium nitrate: the three fertilizers that support intensive agriculture.

The central argument is that solar or wind energy does not produce natural gas, and without gas, there is no cheap hydrogen. Turning air into food practically requires hydrocarbons. The calculation supporting this current is simple: strangling natural gas is strangulating ammonia.

The Closures That Triggered Alarms

The shortage was not hypothetical. SKW Piesteritz, Germany's largest fertilizer producer, halted production claiming that "the price level no longer allows economically viable production." CF Industries paralyzed its Billingham and Ince plants in the UK with no date for resumption. Egyptian urea was trading around $900 per ton. Australia, the United States, and the UK recorded similar shutdowns.

The official reading pointed to an energy cost crisis, with anticipated blackouts in North America, Ukraine, Western Europe, China, India, and the Middle East. The darker reading saw design where others saw a side effect.

"There is an inexhaustible source of hydrogen"

The most solid technical counterattack points to hydrogen. With renewable electricity, water electrolysis generates H2 without touching natural gas. If the electricity supply is guaranteed, the argument for fossil dependence weakens. The weak point is another: electrolysis requires a lot of energy, and nitrogen still comes from the air inside a reactor that needs pressure and heat.

Some argue that the issue is not technical viability but will. The closure of plants would be a decision, not an inevitable physical consequence. That part of the analysis remains open.

Is There Hunger or Are There Prices?

Another front disputes the entire premise. There is plenty of food, it is argued: it is thrown away, there are markets with surplus, and chemical-free agriculture works. The problem would be prices and distribution, not existence. An apple for one euro, a tomato for one euro, a pepper for one euro.

The rebuttal points out that cows, pigs, and chickens eat feed produced with fertilizers, and that most food depends on industrial processes. The calculation of cereal per kilo of meat leaves little margin: 16 kilos for beef, 6 for pork, 4 for turkey, and 3 for chicken. The fine print, with spreadsheets and slogans included, is in the original source.

The Calendar That Does Not Close

2022 passed. The announced famine did not arrive to the extent predicted, and the dates kept shifting: "we will not see it until the end of '23," "until at least 2024." Meanwhile, grocery prices rose by 40%, and fertilizers entered the energy conversation months late.

There are also those who remember that nitrogen fertilizers can be produced with alternative fertilizers: manure ranges between 3% and 23% nitrogen, calcium nitrate 11.9%. And that over-fertilization and aquifer eutrophication have been on the table for decades.

From 1900 China to the Effect of Blackouts

Household arithmetic allows for gossip. Each person produces about 28 grams of urea per day; with 47.4 million residents in Spain, that is more than 1,300 tons daily. In 1900 China, with 300 million inhabitants and no chemical fertilizers, city feces were auctioned off to fertilize the fields.

The warning, formulated as chemistry, ultimately becomes geopolitical. He who controls gas controls ammonia; he who controls ammonia controls the pantry. The point where the analysis gets stuck is not the how, but the when. And that when has been moving its date for three years.