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Natural gas is used to produce hydrogen, which is then used in the Haber-Bosch process to produce ammonia from nitrogen in the atmosphere. Only about 6% of natural gas is used to produce hydrogen, so even if the price were to rise substantially, we could divert natural gas from other uses and have plenty for making ammonia. We also have other ways of producing hydrogen, it’s just that natural gas is more established.
PEM electrolyzers paired with cheap solar in countries with high insolation can now produce hydrogen for less than the cost of natural gas, but we’re only recently starting to see the construction of the large-scale green ammonia plants needed to accomplish this. Egypt is currently constructing a 100-MW green ammonia plant powered by solar energy. Even if you didn’t have enough PEM eletrolyzers you could still just pass current through some salt water and produce hydrogen, albeit much less efficiently.
It’s not going to be a catastrophic issue.
Fun fact: Fritz Haber, the German guy that invented the Haber-Bosch process is the same Fritz Haber that developed a way to use the chlorine gas in chemical warfare. He was personally overseeing its effect in the battle of Ypres.
Clara Immerwahr, who was married to Fritz Haber and was a successful chemist in her own right, spoke out against his research as a “perversion of the ideals of science” and “a sign of barbarity, corrupting the very discipline which ought to bring new insights into life.” She ended her own life the day before he traveled to the eastern front to oversee the use of chlorine gas against Russian troops.
Dude knew his chemicals
Farmers almost uniformly over-apply N fertilizer. Having it be more expensive and forcing them to look into more efficient ways of applying fertilizer and managing nutrients is not a bad thing.
Unless it just causes the crop to cost more without any change in behavior.
Farmers are price-takers not price-makers. The prices they receive are driven by speculation on the commodities markets (even for crops not traded on the market).
Since they can’t control the price they receive for their crop, they are very sensitive to any change in the cost of inputs. Determining how much to spent on inputs is the part of their profitablity they can control. So widespread behavioral change is usually pretty close to immediate.
we could divert natural gas from other uses and have plenty for making ammonia. We also have other ways of producing hydrogen
We can’t do any of those in a scale large enough to replace the destruction and have it online for the next planting season on the North Hemisphere. Or the next one on the South Hemisphere either, btw. Or the following ones for each.
It might not be a massive scientific issue but I bet prices will still rise and the news will be fearmongering causing pricing to go up and never come back down. It’s a capitalism issue and corruption and greed.
Plant a vegetable garden?WHERE?
DO YOU THINK I CAN AFFORD A YARD?
I have a copy of this little pamphlet called Fugitive Gardens, which is all about gardening in small spaces, such as a fire escape.
It’s all fun and games until there’s a fire.
Hydroponic indoor gardening is the way. (I assume - I don’t grow any food hahahahaha)
If they cannot afford a yard what makes you think they have space to spare inside to grow stuff??
Was thinking of those small footprint plant towers that were circulating online a decade or so ago. Look like big upright pipes with holes in the sides for plants. Continually circulating water inside. I’m sure they’re expensive now but I bet we could throw one together without too much effort if we had the knowledge.
Pvc is relatively cheap. Submersible pump could be as cheap as $10. Expanded clay is also affordable. Not sure about the design, though.
i would, but power prices are making it impossible to be a alternative
Do you think power draw would be that much for hydroponic/aquaponic? Always just watched that and auto gardening from afar
it kinda dosent matter if its hydroponic or soil they still need the same amount of light, and that depends on the crop, but basically there isnt a crop that could feed you if u only have a normal sized flat, even if u stack micro greens to the top and sleep in the bathtub
Container garden. I even had one on my North facing balcony in Baltimore.
You think food prices will come back down after it’s all over?
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Most chemical fertilizer is synthesised from LNG.
The two biggest exporters are Russia (sanctioned) and Qatar (all plants shut down)
Good thing my country exports 90% of its agricultural produce, so if we start getting hungry then we’ll just export a bit less.
(We learned the hard way a long time ago when we ran out of potatoes.)
I mean, you exported 90% of your agricultural produce back then, too.
It’s a little late to start a food garden. You won’t be getting any harvests for a while, and it won’t be much. Best to stock up on shelf-stable goods now, and build community for mutual aid.
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Also, groundhogs will fuck up your garden, and they dig tunnels and climb fences. You have to basically build a big cage around your garden, floor included.
Not my garden :) groundhogs don’t exist here
one of my friend has a pretty elaborate garden setup.
he has a groundhog execution chamber too. he has to gas and kill about 6 of them each year.
I box trap them (they love cantaloupes) and haul them off to a neighboring town. I’m not sure how humane it is since they usually tear off their claws trying to get out of the trap. And momma hog is too smart to go in the trap, so I only get the kids.
I am a successful gardener.
You can’t and don’t want to eat 20lbs of tomato in a week. I use maybe 2-4lbs and the rest of it rots or has to be given away. I’m lucky if consume 1/4 of what I produce.
And that’s how crops come in, all at the same time in abundance. It’s not like you can pick 4 tomatoes each day and they just hang out for weeks on the vine. There is about a 4-6 week widow in which all the stuff you have spent 5 months growing, is edible off the vine. You start in April and then you don’t really get anything until August, and then by Mid Sept, the plants stop producing and are dead by Oct.
And if you want to preserve it, that’s a lot more work and you need the space and equipment to store dozens and dozens of jarred/canned veg. And at that point it’s no longer a small kitchen garden.
oh and by the way if you give me that ‘community sharing!’ stuff. no. literally everyone’s crops are also coming in at the same time. that’s why you see people leaving baskets of veg on the stops all around and nobody takes it, because they already have their own from their own gardens.
That is very different from a commercial farm who is able to have dozens of rotating crops and crop varieties with the expertise to manage it and also the ability to distribute it commercially.
Then there’s me who has a black hand. Damned near every plant I’ve intentionally tried to grow has died, including the sturdy ones.
What is a pulse?
Beans
In case anyone was wodering how much damage a single idiot in the White House can cause.
He’s just the idiot in the front, there are real masterminds behind all this who are manipulating the orange dipshit to their advantage. Project 2025 is some scary shit for Americans and soon, earth as a whole.
Good thing I have a couple of acquaintances that have small farms and produce, so if shit goes downhill, I know where to offer my labor
At least the schools aren’t teaching WOKE. Priorities. /s
Which bathrooms are the starvers allowed to use?
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When agricultural processes are invented that allow the population to grow by billions, what’s the first thing people do? Rush to fill the extra capacity. Sure would be nice if we had the prudence to maintain a buffer.
Sure would be nice if we had the prudence to maintain a buffer.
we do. half the food is thrown away. that’s literally what a buffer is.
Fertilizer “crisis” is a man made problem.
Nice to see at least one voice of reason here. Even if OP is correct about an upcoming fertilizer shortage, how on earth would going out and starting a garden help at all?
Commercial farms would buy up all of whatever supplies there are & home gardeners would be priced out of it. Unless you’re running a whole farm with chickens, worms, and compost you’re also going to need fertilizer on a local scale.
TLDR: Farmer who talks about all this: https://youtube.com/@farmtotaber
There’s lots of actual farmers who talk about the fertilizer situation. Since the start of agricultural subsidies we have pigeonholed our farmers into growing cash crops. Chemical companies clocked in and invested genetically modified strains of said cash crops that are resistant to their pesticides. All the while the US gov is pumping cash into the farm sector to overproduce crops for export. Farmers forgot how to farm without pesticides because there is too much tax payer money being funneled to grow the same cash crops year over year.
These new crops make it very easy to grow the most profitable crops but they require accompanying pesticides and fertilizers to be feasible.
We need to stop handing money to farmers and let them fail and open the playing field to new farms who can’t compete with government subsidized multi billion dollar “family farms”.
In this world, what is not a man made problem though?
Probably not, ammonia production isn’t exactly a huge portion of natural gas usage, it’ll just have to compete on price with other demands, other things with lower value will get priced out of the market long before nitrogen fertilizer. The price for it will probably go up, already has on futures markets, but not by a huge amount, not even the biggest blip in the past decade. And nitrogen fertilizer is a fairly small portion of overall costs for most agriculture, so it won’t be a significant increase in price.
The places it might have an impact are on products with really narrow profit margins already, like commodity corn in the US (actually a lot of commodity corn breaks even or even is grown at a slight loss because reasons ) and a lot of that goes in to non-food uses like ethanol(for gas), chemical production, or even for use in construction materials.
Amazing video link. Makes me want to grow my own organic free range tax breaks!
I’d rather make someone else do it by offering things in trade. Almost like some kind of barter system. I’ll fix your garden tools and equipment just feed me plz.
