This Toxic Gas is Responsible for Almost All Our Food

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Anhydrous ammonia can cause headline-grabbing disasters, but it’s also responsible for 50% of the food on your table. It all boils down to nitrogen, and the process of turning the inert dinitrogen in our air into useful fertilizer. So what is this stuff, how is it used, and how is something so dangerous also so vital?
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Credits:
Executive Producers:
Hilary Hudson
Producers:
Elaine Seward
Andrew Sobey
Darren Weaver
Writer/Host:
Alex Dainis, PhD
Scientific consultants:
Michelle Boucher, PhD
Daniel R. Kuespert, PhD
Carson Arch, PhD
Brianne Raccor, PhD
SOURCES:
docs.google.co...

Опубликовано:

28 сен 2024

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Комментарии : 64

@ACSReactions 2 года назад

Peru’s Chincha Islands exported 13 million tons of guano over 40 years, much of it to the US and Europe. But it wasn’t enough to feed the world: in 1856 the United States passed the “Guano Islands Act” which encouraged fleets of ships to search the ocean for uninhabited, guano-covered islands. Still not enough, the Pacific Guano Company tried to turn tiny fish into usable fertilizer, mixing them with guano and sulfur… the thought of that scent alone is enough to make you appreciate anhydrous ammonia.

@MilnaAlen 2 года назад

Yeah near my mum's house they spread liquid animal poop on the fields and it smells awful, though fortunately not very long. Not sure if they use factory made fertilizer too.

@JEdwardBanasikJr 7 месяцев назад

I was 9 years old when the Ammonia Truck accident happened in Houston, and I recall it being really bad. The truck driver took the interchange ramp too fast, and the liquid ammonia was not properly loaded in the tank, causing the whole tractor-trailer to flip off the upper ramp onto the traffic on the lower main lanes. The tank instantly split open forming a giant ammonia cloud no one could escape from. Ultimately, they banned hazardous materials from being transported on the inner-city freeway routes.

@playgroundchooser 2 года назад

As a Central Montana farm kid, I'm all too aware of "Anhydrous" for crop usage. It has an incredibly distinct smell. Not like household ammonia, it's this crazy bad/sweet concoction. Small leaks in the system are quite normal, so it was common to get a whiff up close while the lines depressurized. This video taught me why under my tongue would burn afterwards. 😲☠️

@Dinie09 2 года назад

Minot = My-knot*, or at least that's how it's pronounced locally in ND

@AlexDainisPhD 2 года назад

Ahh, my apologies! Thank you for the correction.

@deltabeta5527 2 года назад

3:21 Tell me you have studied chemical kinetics without telling me that you have studied chemical kinetics.

@michaelbedford2993 Год назад

Interesting video about some good-to-know kinda stuff 0.o Thank you folks for putting this video together!

@markholm7050 2 года назад

The International Space Station uses two cooling systems with anhydrous ammonia coolant to remove excess heat from the station. I tried to leave a link to a NASA page with a brief description of the system, but RU-vid does not like links in comments. You will have to Google it for yourself. When space walking astronauts work on the cooling systems, they have to wait after their last potential ammonia exposure to let any frozen ammonia evaporate off of their space suits before they return to the station atmosphere.

@murkyseb 2 года назад

Very interesting good work

@muhdfauzibmohdrais3844 2 года назад

And now ammonia is being viewed as an alternate energy source to fossil fuels...

@Ramoonus 2 года назад

luckily some people see this as a great way to store liquid NH3 as easy-to-handle hydrogen supply

@skybluskyblueify 2 года назад

What if those that test the trucks and railcars are not funded because some people hate "regulation"?

@eckligt 2 года назад

I heard one statistic that around 50 % of the Nitrogen atoms in your body were pulled out of the air through the Haber-Bosch process. That's something to think about!

@shiroineko13 2 года назад

not surprising they received the nobel prize for this invention. Without them, a lot of us wouldn't be here which is crazy if you think about it.

@jasonk5752 2 года назад

I found this one really interesting because I had absolutely no idea of this or its importance! Amazing, and thanks Reactions!

@ACSReactions 2 года назад

Sweet--we're glad you enjoyed it!

@crystalc8992 2 года назад

My green chem professor talked abt the importance of the haber process and it’s problems with energy efficiency, climate and water quality, it seems like we cant live without it and that made me loss hope in a lot of things, until I learned abt regenerative agricultural ofc

@MilnaAlen 2 года назад

Wow, yeah we don't use anhydrous ammonia on fields in Finland. It's either solid fertilizer beads, animal poop, ash or compost. And especially for animal feed growing peas and broad beans is common, they get their nitrogen from air. In organic farming that can be left on the field as fertilizer.

@MilnaAlen 2 года назад

I think the difference is field size. Finnish fields are usually small, and you obviously can't buy a small amount and drive and spread it yourself. It would be too expensive to pay a pfofessional for an individual field, but with several different crops on nearby fields, too difficult to coordinate with neighbours. Not to mention houses are never far away.

@edgeeffect Год назад

The Ammonia story is full of what we could call "good Vs evil"... there's a video or two on YouTue about Fritz Haber and his contribution to food production Vs his thoroughly horrible work developing chemical weapons...

@Rickmakes Год назад

Anhydrous ammonia is also used in the illegal production of meth. I'm sure that has contributed to quite a few "accidents" over the years.

@jbmbryant Год назад

Another very rich supply of bat guano can be found right here in the US - Washington DC.

@SaiGanesh314 2 года назад

Thank you so much Dr. Alexis! Your videos are as I find them some of the most informative and most insightful contents on the internet. Very thankful that I found you here... Keep making such content...

@sidhuumoosewalagodforme9897 2 года назад

❤ love to reactions from India. Samantha Jones!

@ACSReactions 2 года назад

Love right back at you!

@rfldss89 2 года назад

if ammonia is more efficient than CFCs why dont we use it on household refrigeration? is it only more efficient at industrial scale?

@natakushi 2 года назад

It's heavily regulated and even tiny spills or system losses have to be reported in the US and one reason for that is because it's used in making meth and if to much is missing you'll get investigated

@jimk8520 Год назад

A sudden rapid cfc or hfc leak in your kitchen won’t kill you.

@entity6966 11 месяцев назад

@@natakushithat's not true. Ammonia is not super regulated like other refrigerants.

@flaplaya 2 года назад

Very high quality video. I remember in the 90's drug people dove with cutting equipment and SCUBA in a lake with a pipeline across its floor to cut into it. They never said what happened to the lake but there was a dead patch of trees for what looked like miles from this release. Dopers seem to love the stuff and cause what appears to be the majority of releases. Just saying. Say no to meth.

@jamespaul4618 Год назад

AWESOME. Thanks for sharing this information. LOL I had no idea how what anhydrous meant. This was a great video. I learned a lot.

@williamm8069 Год назад

My late father was an architect and as a boy I used to make blueprints with ammonia gas in a small cylinder that was screwed in on the side of the blueprint machine (ammonia is the developer and dyes the paper). In the winter time, we would have to open the windows, but I got used to the smell - a bit tough on the nose and eyes.

@amybrown-x6e Год назад

did you know when lightning strikes nitrogen it gets converted to ammonia

@Scaevola9449 Год назад

HABER-BOSCH, THE GREAT ALLIANCE

@majedaljaber134 2 года назад

Thanks a lot for the information!

@Little-bird-told-me Год назад

the best channel ever

@CL-yp1bs Год назад

Methamphetamine!!

@douglasboyle6544 2 года назад

It's "My-not" North Dakota. Nice place. I know it's a nit-pick but it's one of those things that unless you know, you'll never know so I don't fault you. Don't even get started on Cairo, Illinois ;)

@LisaBeergutHolst 2 года назад

Pretty good argument for organic farming tbh

@crissd8283 Год назад

Organic farming can't possibly feed everyone. Sadly, all land that is converted to organic means the remaining land must be worked harder (more fertilizer) to continue to feed the 8 billion people in the world.

@Lomecron 2 года назад

Who else read androgynous ammonia?

@Noneblue39 2 года назад

what an informative video!

@Praisethesunson 2 года назад

This fertilizer is why we are screwed with carbon emissions. This stuff is basically turning fossil fuels into fertilizer. Thank Haber.

@flaplaya 2 года назад

Methane to ammonia that is correct. Scarier yet phosphate ore supplies will be gone in 50 years if not sooner. With you 100 on the carbon issue though it is absolutely out of control.

@entity6966 11 месяцев назад

Ammonia is naturally occuring . Don't know what you're on about there. If you're so worried about carbon immersion stop sending food to Africa and other 3rd world countries. It's a them problem

@gsp0113 Год назад

Brilliant video. You literally explained how the atomic structure of nitrogen has had a major effect on world history. And I loved every second of it!

@OdysseusWolf16 Год назад

This gas is making me realize that the poison fog cloud in the hunger games is not as science fiction as I thought it was.

@Iowa599 Год назад

How is it made?

@vaibhavgupta20 2 года назад

Fancy nails!!

@NelsonGuedes 2 года назад

Pretty cool (literally) but lots of problems with how we use this stuff. The process of producing fertilizer relies on fossil fuels, the fertilizer causes pollution in the rivers and ocean, it's not cheap to transport all this stuff which also requires fossil fuels... and all for what? Because bacteria in the soil can't produce enough nitrogen for the plants? What if we stopped killing the soil bacteria (and other very beneficial microorganisms) with our pesticides? Would that help? And wouldn't it be much cheaper to do that than creating this entire industrial fertilizer system?

@scottbergeson8726 2 года назад

Why is this (at least the first part) targeted at the lower grade school level? And it doesn't mention ammonia is an antidote for bromine inhalation? You don't have to use anhydrous ammonia as fertilizer; you can convert it to salts if you're willing to pay the increased shipping costs. BTW, what isn't toxic? (Helium and neutrinos?) Don't forget Paracelsus!

@AdityaMehendale 2 года назад

Please STAHP with the kiloElephants and dozenFootballFields units. It proves no additional insight whatsoever; the traditional "3e8" notation is far easier to grasp AND to remember.

@vaibhavgupta20 2 года назад

@mabamabam Год назад

but the weight of a million elephants is sooo relatable.

@regular-joe 2 года назад

American Chemical Society sponsored this ad (watch to the end of the video). It sounds like they scripted the ending as well.

@themrdeadlift 2 года назад

It's a fact. You make it sound like some kind of conspiracy. What's wrong with the American chemical society other than trying to keep their papers behind a pay wall

@regular-joe Год назад

Check the very last frame of the video.

@regular-joe Год назад

I appreciate the thought you put into your response.