Optimistic Tech Newsletter: Nitricity
Formulating fertilizer out of thin air (and other stuff)
There are people, not good ones, but they exist, who wish the global population was significantly smaller than it is. Maybe 50% smaller, maybe more. When you ask them which 50% should go, they never include themselves of course. Their existence is vital. Others? Maybe less so. We call these people degrowthers - they want a smaller world, smaller economies, smaller everything. Somehow they don’t see the other side of the coin of what that would lead to but they aren’t the brightest folks so forgive them their sins.
Among the many innovations that has allowed our population to grow - medicines, calorie dense food, water treatment centres etc, these degrowthers really dislike one that may be somewhat harder to guess - fertilizer. Why fertilizer you ask? Because since artificial fertilizer was invented back in the early 1900’s, it has allowed farmers to dramatically increase crop yields. Since 1950 grain yields have increased by 3x-4x and fertilisers are responsible for around 50% of that increase. In the 1960’s artificial fertiliser was credited with helping the world avoid famine during a time of booming population. More fertilizer, more food, more people = sad degrowthers.
Fertilizer sounds AMAZING! More Fertilizer forever!
Fertilizer is an amazing creation of science (in fact, it’s creators won the Nobel Prize in chemistry) but it does have trade-offs. Traditional fertilizer (tradfert??) is made by combining hydrogen and nitrogen under extreme pressure and at high temperatures - this is called the Haber-Bosch process. Trade-offs: This process consumes about 1-2% of the entire world’s energy production and is responsible for ~5% of global greenhouse emissions and nitrogen and phosphorus from fertilizers wash into waterways, causing eutrophication that leads to dead zones in lakes and coastal areas.
So allow me to introduce Nitricity.
Fertilizer but…better?
Basically, yes. Fertilizer has trade-offs as described above but, you know, being able to feed people is still seen as a positive for now so rather than rewind and remove fertilizer from our lives, Nitricity makes fertilizer without those trade-offs.
Nitricity’s organic fertilizer is made from air, water, clean energy and almond shells. Their proprietary tech uses solar-powered plasma cells to fix nitrogen from the air, combining it with other nutrients to produce fertilizers like nitric acid and calcium nitrate. This allows for on-site, on-demand fertilizer production, reducing the need for costly transportation and centralized manufacturing. It supports organic agriculture with pathogen-free, odour-free products compatible with irrigation systems.
Nitricity’s technology has been proven in commercial-scale farming operations through multiple functional pilots, including sub-surface fertigation of tomatoes in a collaboration with California State University Fresno’s Center for Irrigation Technology and the Water, Energy and Technology Center.
So basically you get the agricultural abundance without the side-effects. Now I’m not going to bullshit you and pretend this is ready for mass scale yet. But we have to start somewhere and if Chipotle is in, then I’m in.
I mean just look at these badasses talking about harnessing lightning
Who’s behind this natural creator of abundance??
Nitricity’s CEO is our man, Nicolas Pinkowski and amazingly, Nitricity is Nicolas’s first real job. I say “real” without meaning to diminish the academic work he did previously but straight out of university, the man is fixing agriculture - what a legend. And to be fair, it’s not like his academic work was entirely unrelated - he got his PhD in Energy Systems doing his work in the High Temperature Gas Dynamics Lab at Stanford.
Joining him on his journey are fellow Stanford PhD’s and co-founders Jay Schwalbe and Joshua McEnany.
And it’s not just me that believes in these three doctors, they’ve raised nearly $37m from top tier investors like Khosla Ventures and LowerCarbon capital with Rajesh Swaminathan, the partner at Khosla saying “Nitricity’s decentralized approach to manufacturing fertilizers using just air, water and renewables-based electricity was born out of a vision to completely transform a 100-year-old industry, and we are excited to be partnering with them.”
Why this is optimistic for the future
Not to be all “Fertilizer is good akshually” but…fertilizer is good. I like people (sometimes). A lack of famine because we’re able to meet global demand with increasing crop yields is probably under-discussed as one of the technological feats of the 20th century but I think it should be on the Mount Rushmore.
As sensitive 21st century souls, we are more aware of and care more about the downsides of this technological progress, as we should. But rather than ban positive things, lets improve on them. Lets understand technology for what it is - transitionary - and sometimes that transition takes a couple of years and sometimes it takes a century but Nitricity will help us transition to an abundant future with cleaner, better fertilizer. I, for one, am cheering them on.
Please Richard tell me where I can find out more
Why of course.