Feast or Famine? Fixating on Nitrogen

This nifty map (click to enlarge; also visit the WWW site to view the interactive version) is from National Geographic.

The interactive version shows the nitrogen flows by continent. Here is an article and diagram of the nitrogen cycle.

Managing the nitrogen cycle is one of the 21st Century's Grand Engineering Challenges. Here is what the GEC site says about the nitrogen cycle:

A further but less publicized environmental concern involves the atmosphere’s dominant component, the element nitrogen. The biogeochemical cycle that extracts nitrogen from the air for its incorporation into plants — and hence food — has become altered by human activity. With widespread use of fertilizers and high-temperature industrial combustion, humans have doubled the rate at which nitrogen is removed from the air relative to pre-industrial times, contributing to smog and acid rain, polluting drinking water, and even worsening global warming. Engineers must design countermeasures for nitrogen cycle problems, while maintaining the ability of agriculture to produce adequate food supplies. 

Here is a good, brief discussion on managing the nitrogen cycle, with references.

We can thank Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch for developing artificial nitrogen fertilizer, which revolutionized agriculture. Haber developed the chemistry to produce ammonia

N₂ + 3 H₂ → 2 NH₃   (ΔH = −92.22 kJ·mol⁻¹)   exothermic reaction

from nitrogen and hydrogen and Bosch engineered the process, now known as the Haber process or Haber-Bosch process. The engineered process is one hundred years old; 2013 is the 100th anniversary. Both Haber (1918) and Bosch (1931) won Nobel prizes for their efforts.

You can also produce explosives from the ammonia. 

Who would have imagined we'd have a huge problem with too much soluble nitrogen one hundred years later. Think 'dead zones' in the ocean, water pollution...

Unintended consequences in spades.

"A lot of people ask, 'Do you think humans are parasites?' It's an interesting idea and one worth thinking about....If the biosphere is our host, we do use it up for our own benefit. We do manipulate it. We alter the flows and fluxes of elements like carbon and nitrogen to benefit ourselves—often at the expense of the biosphere as a whole." - Carl Zimmer

Comments

[Michael Campana]

Hi, Nicholas.

I posted that item quite some time ago although I am sure that the figures were in the article I posted. It is possible a slightly different version of the article has since been posted on the NG site.

I would suggest consulting a reference librarian at Purdue and asking him/her to track down the numbers, either in NG or elsewhere.

Sorry I cannot be of more help.

Michael

[Nicholas Carpita]

I would like to use and cite an adaptation of the global nitrogen deficiency/excess posted here (scientific article). The source is allegedly a May 13, 2013 National Geographic article, but it is not in the article on line. What is the proper citation and who should I contact for permission?