This text argues strongly for prioritizing the immediate and affordable production of fertilizer in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) using natural gas and grey urea plants, even while acknowledging the need to address emissions in the longer term.
Here’s a breakdown of the key arguments:
Core Argument:
Immediate Need: SSA faces an urgent fertilizer shortage that fuels famine. The fastest and cheapest solution is to leverage existing natural gas resources and build grey urea plants. Pragmatism over Ideology: The focus should be on practical,affordable,and rapidly deployable solutions,not on immediate decarbonization of the fertilizer process,which is deemed unrealistic and detrimental to addressing the current crisis.
Key Points and Supporting Arguments:
Grey Urea as the Best Option:
It’s the fastest and least expensive option for SSA.
It will reduce fertilizer prices and increase agricultural productivity.
Even a long-term plan for blue retrofits (CCUS) requires immediate investment in upstream fossil fuel extraction and the base grey process.
Addressing emissions:
Unabated emissions from grey urea plants can be confined to the near term by incentivizing Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) retrofits.
DFIs and governments can develop financial mechanisms to offset the premium for blue urea (using CCUS) while green urea premiums are considered “outlandish.”
Critique of Green Fertilizer Focus:
The current focus on green hydrogen and green fertilizer by institutions like the World Bank, EIB, and IFC is criticized for disregarding the economic and engineering feasibility and near-term suitability for SSA’s urgent needs.
green hydrogen alone cannot replace hydrocarbons in fertilizer production.
The premise of decarbonizing fertilizer production in SSA is presented as having “vanishingly little” impact on global climate change, given SSA’s historically minimal contribution and the small increase in emissions required to meet its fertilizer needs. SSA’s Development Priorities:
SSA needs food, fertilizer, and local natural gas to produce them.
It does not need electrolyzers and direct air capture at this stage.
Call to Action:
DFIs and the development community should seriously consider petrochemical solutions and not dogmatically discard them.
* Funding fertilizer chemical plants local to SSA is crucial.
In essence, the author advocates for a pragmatic, phased approach: first, address the immediate food security crisis by rapidly increasing fertilizer production using readily available resources (natural gas and grey urea), and then, in parallel, develop strategies and financial mechanisms to mitigate the environmental impact of this production through CCUS retrofits. The argument is that prioritizing immediate development needs should not be sacrificed for aspirational, but currently unfeasible, decarbonization goals.
