Comment by darth_avocado
Comment by darth_avocado 2 days ago
Until big fertilizer lobbies to make decentralized fertilizer illegal. Insert national security, wrong hands blah blah
Comment by darth_avocado 2 days ago
Until big fertilizer lobbies to make decentralized fertilizer illegal. Insert national security, wrong hands blah blah
ANFO is explosives made with ammonium nitrate(Ammonium Nitrate Fuel Oil), however ammonium nitrate is by itself rather energetic and will explode when store improperly. The most recent memorable incident would be 2020 Beirut: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Beirut_explosion
Imagine one of these units left somewhere, slowly filling a tank that has not been sealed, water evaporating back out leaving a nice ammonium nitrate powder behind....
Ammonium nitrate is made from ammonia and nitric acid (which is also made from ammonia). Therefore, ammonia is the only necessary direct precursor to ammonium nitrate, which is probably the most relevant oxidizer in improvised explosives today.
Not saying that it should be regulated on the basis of national security, but it’s not like there isn’t a potential security concern.
Its assets were sold to Bayer and BASF and some former Monsanto workers may have begun working at those other businesses, that is true. That kind of scenario is true of all businesses that close down, though, at least unless they truly have no remaining assets to sell or workers wanting new jobs, both of which are unlikely for anything beyond the simplest of sole proprietorships. By your logic, there is almost no business in history that has ever gone out of business.
> Insert national security, wrong hands blah blah
That isn't a big reach.
Ammonium nitrate is already controlled in several parts of the world
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANFO