Gazprom’s decision to turn off the taps of Nord Stream 1 this month has rocked Europe’s industrial and manufacturing sector, with fertiliser producers first in line.
This is because the production of synthetically derived fertilisers, which are manufactured from minerals, gasses from the air and inorganic waste materials, requires a huge amount of energy. By some accounts, the Haber-Bosch process, which converts nitrogen and hydrogen into ammonia, uses between 1% and 2% of all global energy produced annually. In Germany alone, ammonia production pumps up about 4.5% of the natural gas used by industries.
