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Haber-Bosch Process: Human’s Most Important Invention of the 20th Century

Jacob A. Miller

A Research Paper Presented to

the Department of History

of Bethel College, KS

in fulfillment of the requirements for the course

HIS 348: History of American Capitalism

November 21, 2016

Dr. Kip Wedel

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“The industrial synthesis of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen has been of greater

fundamental importance to the modern world than the invention of the airplane, nuclear energy,

space flight, or television.”—Vaclav Smil

Introduction

Humans come from the soil and return to it. Yet we often forget that breath of life quickly

leaves without nourishment from calories. A majority of our calories come from grain crops

reliant on nitrogen-rich soil. This basic chain of life has sustained homo sapiens ever since we

discovered the first reliable, annual, monoculture wheat crop at the eastern edge of the

Mediterranean 10,000 years ago. From that point up until the mid-19th century, history’s concern

was food-centered. However, modern history repeatedly casts agriculture under the umbrella

term “nature” and ignores it: “For most members of the profession and, almost by definition, for

most Americans, history unfolds against a stable environmental backdrop. Nature is taken for

granted and passed over in the rush to discuss what really mattered—wars, elections, and the

other mainstays of political and intellectual history.”1 If nature is covered by historians, it is often

“nature as politics.”2 For instance, almost every U.S. textbook has some section discussing

Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and the conservation movement—but what about global

warming? This anthropocentric worldview is contested by Steinberg, who argues writing history

“must come from the ground up,” and take into account “ecological changes.”3

While environmental history takes a backseat, humanitarian justice initiatives sporting

sociopolitical historical lenses are in the driver’s seat, not mentioning overpopulation’s

1 Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), ix.

2 Ibid., ix.

3 Ibid., xi.

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deleterious effects are closer in the mirror than what appears. By 2050 we will have to feed two

billion more people.4 The expansion of the world’s population from 1.6 billion people in 1900 to

7.35 billion5 would not have been possible without the synthesis of ammonia, articulated by

Vaclav Smil, a global agricultural historian at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg and

foremost expert on the 1909 Haber-Bosch process. 6 The Haber-Bosch process, explained

simply, is the conversion of nitrogen gas in the earth’s atmosphere into ammonia (a compound)

that can be used in fertilizer. Nitrogen accounts for 78 percent of the atmosphere and is the

naturally-occurring energy source in soil that grain crops use to make seeds. This process allows

farmers to spray additional nitrogen on crops in the form of fertilizer, resulting in increased seed

yield. When there are more seeds, the world can feed more humans. Environmental historians

now question whether or not the Haber-Bosch’s propulsion of production justifies its associated

costs.

In this research paper I argue: the 1909 Haber-Bosch process was the single most

important capitalist invention in the 20th century for human food consumption, but was

also the greatest contributor to the problems of land degradation and overpopulation that

we face in contemporary times. In order to better understand this claim, it is necessary to recap

the history leading up to Haber-Bosch (agriculture pre-1905), study Fritz Haber and Carl Boschs’

backgrounds, break down the details of the Haber-Bosch process, investigate what agriculture

looks like now as a result, and finally, discuss critical implications to a process that if it did not

4 Foley, Jonathan. “A Five Step Plan to Feed the World.” National Geographic, Copyright 2014 (Accessed October 30, 2016), 2.

5 United Census Bureau (accessed October 30, 2016).

6 Smil, Vaclav, Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production (Cambridge: The MIT Press, 2000), 1.

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happen, “40 percent of humanity would not exist,” and perhaps many influential leaders such as

“Einstein or Dr. King” would never have been born.7

Agriculture Pre-1909

As previously stated, humans found their first reliable food source 10,000 years ago. However,

skip forward to 1492 in what is now North America, and Native Americans still relied on

hunting and gathering as its staple food source, as they would “migrate across the landscape

depending on the season of the year.”8 They did grow crops, but they were not the staple they are

today. “In the South, a warmer climate was more conducive to agriculture,” and in March,

women would “sow corn and beans” on the hillside, mixing crops. This would cut down on

pests, as “insects found it difficult to find their favorite crop.”9 They would leave to hunt buffalo

in the North and return in the fall to harvest. Native Americans would also burn to keep brush

down on the prairie. They were living with the ecosystems, using what nature provided to sustain

themselves, but respected the land and gave it time to heal. This is admittedly easier to do with

only 18 million people.10 Europeans came to Jamestown in 1607 and learned how to grow crops

from the Native Americans, but as the time passed, their approach to agriculture grew much

different from their teachers’ lessons. Europeans started planting only one crop at a time in rows

and took monoculture to the extreme. Europeans’ singularity and rigidity in farming percolated

throughout history, and was evident in the Land Ordinance of 1785, a grid system where a

“checkerboard pattern was etched across the West—one of the most far-reaching attempts at

rationalizing a landscape in world history.”11 It transformed the land itself into “a commodity, a

7 Ibid., 5.

8 Steinberg, Down to Earth, 15.

9 Ibid., 15.

10 Ibid., 14.

11 Ibid., 60.

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uniform set of boxes easily bought and sold.” The prairie grasses with long roots were cut to

make way for monoculture grain crops. By the 1860s, “a futures market in grain had even

emerged in Chicago.”12 In 1867 the first commercial fertilizer was introduced, with the

establishment of large phosphate mines in South Carolina,13 and in Florida (1880s).14 Much of

the soil in the South suffered from a natural deficiency in phosphorous, a problem the fertilizer

addressed with a great deal of initial success.15 “Cotton yields soared and…fertilizer also sped up

crop growth.”16 However, “increasing fertilizer use promoted the constant planting of cotton,

which eventually took its toll on the land.”17Also, weevils could easily eat up the cotton because

it was all grown together as an annual crop. In turn, more pesticides had to be applied, to the

detriment of the land and the avail of the farmer: “It…seemed to many…farmers a short cut to

prosperity, a royal road to good crops of cotton year after year.”18 But the yield of the crops

wasn’t outpacing drought, insects, and other damaging factors, creating the worry that farming

would not be able to feed the masses. However, by the early 20th century, that worry would soon

be quelled by two German scientists.

Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch

Fritz Haber was born in Breslau, Prussia (now Wroclaw, Poland) in 1868. From an early

age he was interested in chemistry. After studying at the University of Berlin, he transferred to

12 Ibid., 61.

13 Ibid., 102.

14 Bruulsema, T.W., and R.L. Mikkelsen. “Fertilizer Use for Horticultural Crops in the U.S. during the 20th Century.” HortTechnology 15, no. 1 (January—March 2005), 24.

15 Ibid., 103.

16 Ibid., 102.

17 Ibid., 102.

18 Ibid., 103.

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the University of Heidelberg in 1886 and studied under the famed German chemist Robert

Bunsen (yes, where the name “Bunsen Burner” comes from). Haber was appointed professor of

physical chemistry and electrochemistry at the Karlshruhe Institute of Technology. There he

became friends with Albert Einstein. While he was a professor in 1904, scientists warned him

that the world would not be able to produce enough food to feed its growing human population.

Haber listened.19 Ironically, humans find themselves in the same situation a century later, no

thanks to Haber himself. Haber did not just transform agriculture, he transformed the military.20

Historians describe Haber as the “father of chemical warfare” for his work developing and

deploying chlorine and other poisonous gases during World War I. Thousands of steel cylinders

containing chlorine gas had been transported to German positions. There would be no launching

or dropping of the gas on Allied troops; instead, Haber calculated, the best delivery system was

the prevailing winds in Belgium. After weeks of waiting for ideal winds—strong enough to carry

the gas away from the German troops, but not so strong they would dissipate the gas weapons

before they could take effect against the enemy—the Germans released more than 168 tons of

chlorine gas from nearly 6,000 canisters at sunrise on April 22. A sickly cloud, one witness told

the New York Times, “like a yellow low wall,” began to drift toward the French trenches. The

cloud settled over some 10,000 troops. More than half died by asphyxiation within minutes. In

total, Haber’s creation killed millions, including Haber’s relatives.21 Not only did his work help

Germany prolong WWI, he also developed the “Zyklon B” poison gas used in WWII’s

19 Charles, Daniel. Master Mind: The Rise and Fall of Fritz Haber, the Nobel Laureate Who Launched the Age of Chemical Warfare. (New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005), 36.

20 Ibid., 151.

21 Ibid., xiii.

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Holocaust. Combine this with the fact that his process helped create such a population boom and

it’s clear that Haber, paradoxically, affected more lives and deaths than anybody else.22

Carl Bosch was born in Cologne,23 Germany to a successful gas and plumbing supplier.24

Bosch attended the University of Leipzig, and this is where he studied under Johannes

Wislicenus, and he obtained his doctorate in 1898 for research in organic chemistry. After he left

in 1899 he took an entry level job at BASF, then Germany's largest chemical and dye firm.25

Bosch met up with Haber when he was a professor at University in 1904. Bosch, a critic of many

Nazi policies, was gradually relieved of his high positions after Hitler became chancellor, and

fell into despair and alcoholism. He died in Heidelberg.26 Whereas Haber was more focused on

the technical aspects of the chemistry and how to create the ammonia, Bosch’s contribution was

more about making the process work on a large industrial scale. To do this, he had to construct a

plant and equipment that would function effectively under high gas pressures and high

temperatures. This eventually led to what we see now wheeling down rural streets—a white

ammonia tank (complete with the warning “Caution, explosive”) hooked up to a pickup or

tractor. These white tanks help account for an estimated 100 million tons of nitrogen fertilizer

every year.27

Haber won the Nobel Prize in 1918, while Bosch won in 1931. They were voted the

world’s most influential chemical engineers of all time by members of the Institution of

22 Smil, Enriching the Earth, 155.

23 Cologne is also a sickly cloud of gas junior-high students use too much of.

24 “Carl Bosch (German chemist).” Encyclopedia Britannica. (Accessed October 31, 2016), 1.

25 Ibid., 2.

26 Ibid., 5.27 Ibid., 3.

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Chemical Engineers. High praise indeed, but after all, “the process sustains the food base for the

equivalent of half the world’s population today.”28

Haber-Bosch Process

Today, on average, one-half of the nitrogen in a human body comes from synthetically

fixed sources, the product of Haber-Bosch.29 This is a staggering fact that habitually falls silent.

Under high temperature and very high pressure, hydrogen and nitrogen (from thin air) are

combined to produce ammonia. This is what Haber was able to prove in his 1905 work, The

Thermodynamics of Technical Gas Reactions (translated into English in 1908). As Haber himself

explains, this book deals with “technical, rather than theoretical chemistry.”30 In this 353-page

slog of a read, Haber ultimately finds that high pressures in combination with a suitable catalyst,

immediate removal of the ammonia formed through rapid cooling, and repeated recycling of any

unreacted dinitrogen and dihydrogen make the ammonia synthesis practical.

Creighton cites Haber’s work in his 1919 essay, How the Nitrogen Problem has been

solved. He outlines the production of ammonia from cyanamide in accordance with the equation:

“CaCN2 + 3H2O = CaCO2 + 2NH3.”31 Like Haber, Creighton is technical, but less so. He

concludes by stating: “The process at the present time involves a large investment and high labor

and repair charges, but, as previously mentioned, if the mechanical difficulties are successfully

overcome, it appears that nitrogen may be fixed in the form of cyanide more cheaply than by any

of the processes already described.”32 Note the language here, especially “investment,”

28 Smil, Enriching the Earth, 54.29 Ibid., 121.30 Haber, Fritz. “The Thermodynamics of Technical Gas Reactions: Seven Lectures.” (London: London, New York Bombay, and Calcutta, Longmans, Green, and co., 1908). Library of the University of California (Accessed October 30, 2016), x. 31 Creighton, Henry. “How the Nitrogen Problem has been solved.” Journal of the Franklin Institute no. 1 (January 1919): 599-610. Google Books (accessed October 30, 2016), 606.

32 Ibid., 610.

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“mechanical,” and “cheaply.” These all derive from the stance that the world is merely

mechanical, humans can overcome difficulties with more science, and that costs (a human

construct) are merely monetary, not including the cost of natural resources. Ironically, it is those

very natural resources on which American capitalism has been, and still is, dependent.

Agriculture Post-1909

“The 20th century has been a time of unprecedented change in food production practices

in the United States. Advancements in areas such as plan nutrition, improved genetics, pest

control, irrigation, farm mechanization, and transportation have combined to radically transform

the horticultural industry. Despite the tremendous changes in the nature of fruit and vegetable

production during the past 100 years, many of the same issues, such as nutrient efficiency, crop

quality, labor costs, marketing, and profitability, are still concerns of farmers today.”33 Thus,

Nitrogen fixation is still employed all over the world.34 One percent of the world’s energy supply

is used for it. “In 2004, it sustained roughly 2 out of 5 people. As of 2015, it already sustains

nearly 1 out of 2; soon it will sustain 2 out of 3.”35 Billions of people would not exist without it

and our dependence will only increase as the global count moves to nine billion by 2050.36 Grain

crops are Haber-Bosch’s greatest friend. Grains—with corn, wheat, soybeans, and rice being the

top four—account for 70 percent of the worlds’ calories grown on 70 percent of the worlds’

acreage.37

Implications

33 Bruulsema, Fertilizer Use for Horticultural Crops in the U.S. during the 20th Century, 24.

34 See Figure 2 for worldwide fertilizer consumption from 1950-2013.

35 Schmidhuber, Jürgen. “Haber & Bosch: Most influential persons of the 20th century.” Copyright 2016 (accessed October 30, 2016), 1-2.

36 Ibid., 2.

37 Wes Jackson (former President of The Land Institute) in discussion with the author, October 2016.

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There are several implications moving forward in a post-Haber-Bosch world, but two

pertinent ones stand out.

Initially, the codification of technological fundamentalism could prove egregious for

humans. To recap, the Haber-Bosch process has been called the most important invention of the

20th century as it “detonated the population explosion” of 7.35 billion people.38 To put this into

perspective, the 70 million deaths of World War I and World War II nearly vanish next to these

numbers. Thus, because of its role in the world’s population boom, a paradox emerges. Haber-

Bosh got us into overpopulation problem, and Foley says it could get us out.39 It states that in

order to feed nine billion, which will necessitate twice as much grain production worldwide,

humans will have to use the land more “efficiently.”40 But what does that mean? That we throw

more ammonia on crops, use GMOs, and pack the corn closer together? Not to mention, Jevon’s

Paradox states that as efficiency increases, so too does energy consumption—a direct correlation.

Efficiency’s undercurrent assumption is that any new technology will save us, what some

describe as “technological fundamentalism.” Wes Jackson, President Emeritus of The Land

Institute, sees it as worse than any religious fundamentalism.41 Although this may seem fatalist,

what happens when means (energy consumption) to a max-yield-end…ends? By trying to save to

our species, we could be creating the perfect conditions for its gradual destruction. Even when

adopting a completely anthropocentric worldview and assuming every human is valuable and we

should do everything possible to extend each life, problems emerge that social justice aims to

remedy. Figure 1 shows that the explosion in population growth has occurred in less-developed

38 Smil, Enriching the Earth, 415.

39 Foley, Five Steps to Feed the World, 3.

40 Ibid., 4.

41 Jackson, October 2016.

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countries where there are more mouths to feed. The effects are easy to observe: a concentration

of homeless in cities, impoverished who have little to no access to water and food, and so on.

This is strictly a human-centered focus. What about what the natural systems destroyed in the

process? A recent headline proclaims, “Carl Bosch is the reason you are alive right now and the

Gulf of Mexico isn’t.” This is referring to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico the size of

Connecticut that is a result of nitrogen run-off. Thirty million aggregate acres of soil erosion

every year cause the excess nitrogen to flow into rivers and streams, which then pour into the

Mississippi River and eventually, the Gulf of Mexico. Scientists knew nitrogen was crucial to

plant life; they also knew the earth’s supply of usable quantities was quite limited. Apparently

the latter fact didn’t seem as important to Haber or Bosch in 1909, because their writings contain

plenty of “we can,” but not “should we?”

Second, Haber-Bosch’s continued use by farmers could mask the real problem: annual,

monoculture grain crops. Steinberg mentions “single-crop farming is always a perilous

enterprise.”42 Wendell Berry maintains that when modern Universities adopt “Agriscience” that

furthers annual monoculture crops requiring herbicides and pesticides, production becomes

divorced from consumption.43 In other words, when you take the culture part out of food

production, you remove the people as well. Further, the prairies that once graced the earth

contained polycultures, and so when farmers jam pack as much corn as they can on an acre, the

natural cycle of dying and growing is broken, leaving the soil’s nitrogen sucked dry. Cue the

need for bigger sprayers—which already don’t fit on county roads—requiring increased fossil

fuel usage.44 “Although modern agriculture has increased food production faster than population

42 Steinberg, Down to Earth, 103.

43 Berry, Wendell, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. 1st ed (San Francisco: Sierra Club Books, 1977), 25-26.

44 See Figure 3.

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growth in recent decades, there are concerns that existing models of ‘industrial agriculture’ are

unsustainable45 due to long-run trends towards increased fossil energy costs.”46 All of this has led

to suggestions that future food production must call for smaller-scale and more labor-intensive

farming systems.47 However, discussion of a ‘post-industrial’ agriculture remain polarized

between visions of a more energy-efficient mechanized agriculture on the one hand, and labor-

intensive farming by ‘new peasantries.’48 However, can anti-growth, small-scale farming ever

exist within a capitalist system?

Conclusion

By summarizing the history leading up to Haber-Bosch, learning Fritz Haber and Carl

Boschs’ backgrounds, breaking down the details of the Haber-Bosch process, investigating what

agriculture looks like now as a result, and finally, discussing crucial implications of using the

process moving forward, one thing is more clear: the 1909 Haber-Bosch process was the single

most important capitalist invention in the 20th century for human food consumption, but

was also the greatest contributor to the problems of land degradation and overpopulation

that we face in contemporary times. We come from the soil and return to it, and should ask the

question Haber and Bosch did not ask: when we return to the soil, do we really want our bodies

seeped in chemicals that shouldn’t be there? If not, then the land likely does not want that either.

45 See Figures 4 for the relationship between food and energy prices.

46 Woodhouse, Philip. “Beyond Industrial Agriculture? Some Questions about Farm Size, Productivity and Sustainability.” Journal of Agrarian Change 10, no. 3 (July 2010): 437-453. Business Source Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed October 3, 2016), 437.

47 Ibid., 437.

48 Ibid., 438.

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Figure 1.49

Figure 2.50

49 Schmidhuber, Haber & Bosch: Most influential persons of the 20th century, 1.

50 “World Fertilizer Consumption, 1950-2013,” EPI from Worldwatch, IFA, Earth Policy Institute, www.earth.policy.org.

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Figure 3.51

Figure 4.52

51 Woodruff, Paul H. “Earth’s population.” Graph. Journal of Environmental Engineering 132, no. 4 (2006): 434-444. Academic Search Premier, EBSCOhost (accessed December 14, 2007), 435.

52 Ibid., 435.

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Creighton, Henry. “How the Nitrogen Problem has been solved.” Journal of the Franklin

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id=gXEoAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA599&lpg=PA599&dq=creighton+how+the+nitrogen+prob

lem+has+been+solved&source=bl&ots=trW3S4mFiu&sig=seVEg8GVT6B0BVpbMFhU

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Miller 16

Berry, Wendell, The Unsettling of America: Culture and Agriculture. 1st ed (San Francisco:

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https://tools2.bethelks.edu/illsys/illfiles/8pli4ci3kc.pdf.

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Steinberg, Ted. Down to Earth: Nature’s Role in American History (New York: Oxford

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Woodhouse, Philip. “Beyond Industrial Agriculture? Some Questions about Farm Size,

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