The Nitrogen Fertilizer Industry: Integrating Industrial Ecology and Political Ecology Approaches

这项研究项目将结合工业生态对新陈代谢的关注来追踪工业过程的投入和产出，并结合政治生态对政治、历史和文化的关注来研究合成氮气生产行业，以确定自然和人类系统之间的复杂关系。该项目将从新的角度考虑一个主要经济部门的演变和运行。它将扩展对新陈代谢的考虑，超越侧重于工业过程的传统考虑，考虑更广泛的自然和人类系统中的投入和产出，从而能够考虑自然系统在影响和接受工业过程的产出方面的作用。该项目将使人们更全面地了解大气氮转化为商品的过程，以及这一经济活动如何演变并与各种自然和人类系统相互作用。因此，该项目将扩大关于社会和其他人为因素在全球生物地球化学流动转变中的作用的知识。该项目预计将产生一系列产品，这些产品将加强基本的理论理解并产生实际效益。一本书和其他出版物将分发给化肥研究所、粮食和农业组织、地球研究所、工业生态中心和国家可持续农业联盟等民间社会和工业组织，调查人员还将开发特殊的教育材料，包括涉及氮循环的社会和自然方面的教学模块，说明在工业设施中提取化石燃料和制造氮肥的技术过程，以及该行业与社会和环境的更大关系。科学家们认为合成氮气生产的“哈伯-博世过程”是20世纪最基本的创新之一。这一工艺取消了之前对氮肥(通常是粪肥)天然来源的限制，从而彻底改变了全球粮食生产。然而，这一过程存在几个可持续性问题，因为它依赖不可再生的投入，特别是天然气、水污染和过量的营养物质流入水体，这可能会导致富营养化和海洋“死区”等现象。这一过程还产生了大量的碳排放，并就粮食生产水平和人口增长之间的关系提出了棘手的问题。因此，氮气跨越了能源-水-食品三者之间的环境挑战。研究人员将把传统上用于工业生态学的“投入-产出”分析与三步研究设计结合起来，重点放在主要“投入”(天然气)的历史和社会动态、发生在具有代表性的地点(路易斯安那州唐纳德逊维尔)的工业和相关过程以及主要“产出”(氮肥和二氧化碳)。他们将采用一系列的方法，包括档案研究、访谈和实地观察。

This research project will examine the synthetic nitrogen production industry by combining an industrial ecological focus on metabolism to trace inputs and outputs of the industrial process with a political ecology focus on politics, history, and culture to ascertain the complex relationships among natural and human systems. The project will consider the evolution and operation of a major economic sector from new perspectives. It will expand on the consideration of metabolism by moving beyond traditional considerations that focus on industrial process to consider inputs and outputs among a broader suite of natural and human systems, thereby permitting consideration of the role of natural systems in terms of impacting on and receiving outputs from industrial processes. The project will provide a more comprehensive understanding of the processes though which atmospheric nitrogen has been transformed into a commodity as well as they ways in which this economic enterprise has evolved and interacted with various natural and human systems. The project therefore will expand knowledge about the role of social and other human factors in the transformation of global biogeochemical flows. The project is expected to result in a range of products that will enhance fundamental theoretical understandings and yield practical benefits. A book and other publications will be disseminated to groups like the Fertilizer Institute, the Food and Agriculture Organization, The Earth Institute, the Center for Industrial Ecology, and the National Coalition for Sustainable Agriculture among other organizations in civil society and industry, The investigators also will develop special educational materials, including teaching modules that deal with the social and natural aspects of the nitrogen cycle and illustrate the technical process of taking fossil fuel and creating nitrogen fertilizer in industrial facilities as well as the larger relationships this industry has with society and the environment.Scientists consider the "Haber-Bosch Process" of synthetic nitrogen production to be one of the most fundamental innovations of the 20th century. The process revolutionized global food production by lifting previous limitations on natural sources of nitrogen fertilizer, usually manure. The process has several sustainability concerns, however, because of its reliance on nonrenewable inputs, especially natural gas, water pollution, and excessive flows of nutrients into water bodies that can lead to eutrophication and phenomena like marine "dead zones." The process also yields significant levels of carbon emission and raises thorny questions regarding relationships between levels of food production and population growth. As such, nitrogen cuts across the energy-water-food nexus of environmental challenges. The investigators will combine an "input-output" analysis more traditionally employed in industrial ecology with a three-step research design focused on the historical and social dynamics of the primary "input" (natural gas), the industrial and related processes occurring at a representative site (Donaldsonville, Louisiana), and the primary "outputs" (nitrogen fertilizer and carbon dioxide). They will employ a range of methodological approaches, including archival research, interviews, and field-based observations.