Module 4: “Nitrogen Fertilizer Is Bad Stuff—and Not Just Because It Could Blow Up Your Town”

The explosion, which could be felt up to 50 miles away, obliterated the facility and destroyed houses.

In 1909, when German chemist Fritz Haber demonstrated a process that synthesized ammonia, the main component in what was to be known as synthetic nitrogen fertilizer, it was considered a miracle.

The problem is that a lot of that fertilizer is wasted — more is applied than plants can absorb — and it washes out of the soil into waterways, or evaporates into the atmosphere in the form of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas.

Weaning farmers off corn won’t be easy, since the entire U.S. agricultural system seems designed to support it.

It’s not that there aren’t alternatives that can work within our industrialized system.

West Fertilizer had evaded regulatory scrutiny for years — as one member of the House Homeland Security Committee put it, the company was operating “willfully off the grid.”

West Fertilizer had evaded regulatory scrutiny for years — as one member of the House Homeland Security Committee put it, the company was operating “willfully off the grid.”

West Fertilizer had evaded regulatory scrutiny for years — as one member of the House Homeland Security Committee put it, the company was operating “willfully off the grid.”

The line between a true accident and negligence can be hard to discern, but when a company operates in a legal grey zone for decades and then has a horrible accident, it’s not unreasonable to expect negligence was involved.

The line between a true accident and negligence can be hard to discern, but when a company operates in a legal grey zone for decades and then has a horrible accident, it’s not unreasonable to expect negligence was involved.