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Thursday, February 03, 2022

Commentary: It’s an Unraveling, Not a Reset

Last week the Wall Street Journal reported that a shortage of fertilizer is causing farms in the developing world to fail, threatening food shortages and hunger. Ironically, the lead photo is of mounds of phosphate fertilizer in a Russian warehouse.

Modern synthetic fertilizers are typically made using natural gas or from phosphorous-bearing ores. The former provides the nitrogen that is critical to re-use of fields in commercial agriculture. They constitute more than half of all synthetic fertilizer production.

So what happens when oil and natural gas extraction are crippled in industrialized nations? One likely outcome is that the fertilizer manufacturing industry is also crippled, leaving both large commercial growers and smaller farms around the world starved of a key substance they need to grow food for hungry populations.

20 comments:

  1. Environmentalists have no real world intelligence, drilling and refinery of petroleum products are a real world thing. Without it we will be bordering on 3rd world living standards. Food, transportation, medical, manufacturing all rely on petroleum
    JD

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    1. This is the point I have been making for years now. People simply do not realize that all the modern conveniences we have, and even their green projects, rely on petroleum by-products. If there is not a need for nor production of petroleum products, there are no by-products and almost everything we use and, in some cases, rely on daily will not be available.
      Sadly, that is not the end game, like many here have stated, it is to cull the herd in the name of saving the planet.
      I belong to the G. Carlin theory of the planet's survival, it is as sound as any from the so-called scholars and more believable.

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  2. Have to go back to organic. Unfortunately that is not as prevalent as it used to be and the EPA has a shit fit.

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    1. Organic doesn't produce the food volume that modern chemical-intensive farming does.

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    2. Organic is good if you're growing a garden in your yard for your family but it cannot replace modern farming methods to produce the amount of food needed in this country much less feed any other countries.
      JD

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    3. Honestly, we should not feed, give money or assistance to other countries. If they can't do it on their own, then they need to figure it out as we all had to.
      No different than in Canada with Quebec; the West keeps sending them money because they can't run a balanced budget - cut them off and make them stop all their BS shopping sprees.

      Delete
  3. And for some reason a fertilizer plant in North Carolina started burning on Monday night and is still burning today! Fire fighters were pulled out and are being kept out because they said an explosion was imminent. No explosion yet but still on fire.

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  4. A more in depth look at the impact of fertilizer on food production tying it into globull warming and the further impacts on interconnected and dependent complex systems. she answered the what is affected question.

    It still all boils down to why, which she did not answer or even address. Here's the why IMHO:

    How do you control control a nation the size of the USA with a mostly freedom loving population that is armed to the teeth? Control the food supply, i.e. starve the populace out with food shortages and/or massive price increases putting a whole bunch of categories of foods out of reach for most of the population.

    Such is the state of our national government today that they are willing to risk civil war, which will happen on small and large scales, when they take control of the food supply to make food availability "equitable" because they "blew up" the fertilizer supply chain. They've attacked it on multiple fronts. First they screwed with the natural gas supply here and in Europe. Natural gas is a key component in producing ammonium nitrate - fertilzer. Then they torched two of the biggest fertilizer producing plants here in the US.

    Result? Increased costs to farmers to produce grain, who in order to manage their costs either plant less or fertilize less equaling lower over all crop yield and food shortage all through the interdependent food production cycle because the base of that cycle is grain.

    Nemo

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  5. At $90 a barrel there will be plenty of production of the raw materials for fertilizer. When the price craters is when you need to worry.

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  6. well: 6 and a half billion people are gong to kill themselves, just like Epstein.

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  7. Lack of fertilizer means less food grown. Less food grown means more people starve. All part of the plan. The ruling elite is determined to cull a huge percentage of the population by whatever means necessary.

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  8. A lot of the "food" grown is corn which is being used to make fuel.

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  9. It is all factory farming. It provides little nutrition and is completely unsustainable environmentally and nutritionally. Support real farmers who don't need to purchase chemicals and artificial fertilizer. It is possible and it creates real food, not bare minimum peasant feed. It costs more, but health is what it brings and living a long healthy life is what you get.

    The origin of health is good soil and you don't get that with a Haber process, but with husbandry.

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    Replies
    1. Organic farmers do their spraying and fertilizing at night.

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  10. Mistakes of this nature don't happen by accident.

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  11. Wait until the weenies discover their beloved electronic devices source from petroleum products.

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  12. The largest customer of ONG in Oklahoma is a fertilizer plant. And unless TGS has a larger customer It is the biggest in the One Gas system. It used more than twice what KGSs largest customer does.

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  13. Also remember that since 2007 30% Alum has been used as Diesel Exhaust Fluid (DEF). If a tractor trailer runs low on it the engine runs in cripple mode until the tank is replenished. Alum is liquid fertilizer used for the production of corn. If you cant produce corn you sure cant truck other products across the country.

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