Abstract
The paper discusses the CF-industries ammonia plant in Donaldsonville, Louisiana. The plant is framed as an exemplary site from which the Anthropocene can be observed and understood. In doing so, a proposal for a “chemical cultural theory” is set out, to allow us to understand such molecular planetary technologies and interpret their (geo)historical significance. As one of the largest fertilizer plants in the world in terms of its output, and one of the largest chemical plants along the “Petrochemical Corridor,” a cluster of chemical industries situated between Baton Rouge and New Orleans, Donaldsonville typifies the relations between the nitrogen and hydrocarbon industries. Catalysis is here used both as a chemical concept and as a metaphor central to the proposed chemical cultural theory. As key to the Haber-Bosch process and refinery technologies in general, investigating the role of catalysis allows us to connect the history of the Petrochemical Corridor to that of German industrialism. This relation reveals how, from the late 19th century through to the World Wars, an ambivalent industrial co-operation between the US and Germany not only transformed local and planetary environments, it also contributed to the Anthropocene condition.
Highlights
The paper discusses the CF-industries ammonia plant in Donaldsonville, Louisiana
In order to understand the plant and the extended geography of the petrochemical corridor, both the technical principles of these sites and the various layers of history of technology, science, and politics which lie behind this technology need to be revealed
Catalysis marks a crucial point for reflecting the technicality typical of Anthropocene materiality, from the cascades of molecular to planetary accelerations, and for the types of history that have played a role in establishing their respective industries (Steininger, 2008, 2013, 2014, 2018)
Summary
Ammonia synthesis is one of the most important industrial inventions of the 20th century. German media theory such as the work of Friedrich Kittler, Hans-Ulrich Gumbrecht, and others have established a strong focus on materiality and on the history of technology since the 1980s (Berz, 2001; Gumbrecht and Pfeiffer, 1994; Kittler, 1990, 1997, 1999, 2014; Siegert, 1999; Vismann, 2000) These scholars, it has been argued, have a similarity to approaches in epistemology, such as that of Rheinberger (1997, 2010), with regard to the need to investigate the material basis of culture and science for an understanding of modern thought. Investigating the “chemical a priori” as an extension of both the historical and the “media a priori” (Engell and Vogl, 2001: 6) would combine geographical and historical and philosophical approaches, and synthesize insights into infrastructures and landscapes (Steininger and Klose, 2020) with a yet to be written critique of “fossil reason” (Steininger and Klose, 2018)
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