Is The State-Subsidized Fertilizer Plant Already Scientifically Obsolete Before Its Built?

New scientific process may allow urea production to skip hydrogen by electrolysis process unneeded, and turn $125 million state loan/grant into a total waste of money.

During the special legislative session, I wrote about the boondoggle plan for the state to give a $125 million “forgivable loan” (when is a grant by another name) to a company for the construction of a “fertilizer plant utilizing hydrogen from water using electrolysis”, and how this loan/grant is directed toward a particular company.

Now comes news that new scientific breakthrough may make it possible to create urea (the basic ingredient of fertilizer) without the need to split water into hydrogen and oxygen at all, let alone by electrolysis.

According to a research paper published in The Journal of the American Chemical Society outlines a way to utilize a catalytic approach to use water directly rather than electrolysis. This is what the abstract of the study says about the process.

Water (H₂O) microdroplets are sprayed onto a graphite mesh covered with a CuBi₂O₄ coating using a 1:1 mixture of N₂ and CO₂ as the nebulizing gas. The resulting microdroplets contain urea [CO(NH₂)₂] as de…