Nitrous oxide, which is also known as the laughing gas, is known for its contribution in the medical industry when it comes to assisting patients when it comes to more serious treatments like surgery. At the same time, nitrous oxide can also be provided in food-grade amounts in order to create products such as whipped cream chargers (nitrous oxide canisters), which serve as stabilizers for maintaining the quality of whipped cream.
But little do others know that nitrous oxide can also be used as a type of greenhouse gas in order to help improve the growth of plants. Some scientists do say that the nitrous oxide is often forgotten for its importance as a greenhouse gas due to its value in the medical and food industry. After all, carbon dioxide is already being used as a powerful greenhouse gas to improve the quality of plants. However, the emissions caused by carbon dioxide are some of the main contributors towards the effects of climate-warming in the whole world since the days it was discovered.
The molecule of N2O is proven to be more potent than carbon dioxide. Most studies show that it has 300 times more potency than the latter. What’s amazing about nitrous oxide is that it has the same lifespan as the carbon dioxide, being capable of staying within the atmosphere for around 14 years or more before it completely dissipates. However, this should be noted well because just like carbon dioxide, it still has its impact when it comes to climate warming. There are also studies which show that it has also contributed to the greenhouse emissions, though not as large as carbon dioxide, as the greenhouse gases are composed of around 6% nitrous oxide.
One of the most notable reasons why it should be noted that the nitrous oxide should be regulated for the sake of saving our climate was a research done in the Midwest area in the United States. The Midwest is known for having a huge agricultural land that’s known as the “corn belt”. The researchers noticed that the emissions caused by nitrous oxide has increased a lot lately within that area only. They found out that the levels of moisture has contributed to the dramatic increase of the nitrous oxide emissions. Additionally, the drought and the rain combined also play a huge factor in the emission of the said gas, particularly instances where the soil gets wet once again after a long drought.
The reason why the researchers were able to find out the amount of nitrous oxide gas produced by the corn belt is through the use of containers to store the gas, which are applied on top of the soil in the central Iowa area. They have done this for three years, pumping off all of the gas out of the soil to the container, which has an analyzer that can measure the nitrous oxide gas levels. Unfortunately, they discovered there that the nitrous oxide emissions are double than the carbon dioxide emissions generated by the soil.
Despite these studies and proofs, nitrous oxide is always ignored when it comes to policies involving climate change. As of this 2020, the accumulation of nitrous oxide has increased further, and might be alarming enough to be noticed in the future. The last 40 years of applying that small amount of nitrous oxide has already increased by 30% as of year 2020. The main reason why this happened is because of the nitrogen-rich fertilizers that are being used on plants. Therefore, you can say that nitrous oxide is not a safe means to be used as a greenhouse gas, which is why it’s much more favorable for the gas to be used for food and medical purposes, rather than agricultural.
Gladly, there are solutions being studied in order to regulate the emission of the nitrous oxide gas, since greenhouse effects are widely in-demand in many farms for the sake of supplying the whole world with enough crops. One known option is through the means of cultivating the capability of the microbes present in the soil that supply the nitrogen to the plants.
Through this process, a certain company called Pivot Bio was able to create a microbial product that they sell in order to serve as an alternative solution to the microbes present in nitrous oxide. This product, called Pivot Bio Proven, has the ability to form a symbiosis with the plant’s roots once an inoculant is applied to the areas where the crops are planted. These microbes then convert the sugar that are leaking out of the plant in order to provide more nitrogen, which reduces the risk of causing emissions.
With this, we do hope that nitrous oxide will be avoided to be used more for the sake of greenhouse projects in the future. That way, manufacturers will just focus on obtaining the gas in order to create much better products like whipped cream chargers and also know as laughing gas canisters, which plays a more important role for the people and to save the environment even further.