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Post by Admin on Sept 11, 2022 19:54:05 GMT 8
Cardimona says:
September 11, 2022 at 8:50 pm
Calling Bruce of Newcastle!
Bruce, a mate of mine (since 1972!) does a weekly broadcast on FNQ community radio, in which he debunks lefty psy-ops.
He often gets me on as a guest to explain climate and energy issues in simple terms that the great unwashed can understand.
He’s planning a show discussing the shortage of LPG-based fertilisers and has asked me to be guest expert.
My problem is I’m not real strong on the LPG to fertiliser process.
And I’m short of time in the next few days to study up.
So, here’s my questions.
Would you be prepared to be his guest expert?
Or failing that, could you home-school me up to speed?
Or failing that, could you dump some facts on me?
Cheers
Cardi
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Post by Admin on Sept 11, 2022 19:54:40 GMT 8
Bruce of Newcastle says:
September 11, 2022 at 9:28 pm
Cardimona – I’ve never spoken on such a gig, so doubt it would go well. I’m spectacularly bad at public speaking. I’m a geek.
The fertilizer issue is this. Natural gas (not LPG) is mainly methane. Methane (CH4) is used to make ammonia (NH3). That is done by converting the methane to hydrogen (H2) then reacting the hydrogen with nitrogen (N2) by heat and pressure over a catalyst to produce the ammonia.
Haber Process (making the ammonia)
Steam Reforming (making the hydrogen from methane)
The latter is the problem. Methane (ie nat gas) is humongously expensive right now. So the producers of ammonia cannot afford to buy the gas to make it. Nor can the farmers afford to buy the ammonia at the price it requires, nor the alternatives made from it like ammonium sulfate or urea (NH2CONH2).
The reason no one can afford to make and sell ammonia is because of renewable energy.
Renewable energy has to have gas to be burned in inefficient gas turbine generators to make up for the intermittency of the renewable energy sources. Whenever the wind drops gas has to be burned to produce energy from an open cycle gas turbine (OCGT). They have a low efficiency (about 30%) but are very fast response, so they can fill the gaps in wind gusts as wind turbines vary production (customers require steady electricity production, or there will be blackouts if there isn’t enough).
Consequently the renewable energy silliness is impacting upon agriculture because it rips gas away from making ammonia for fertilizer. And makes it ridiculously expensive so farmers can’t afford to buy it. And greenies won’t let us explore or produce more of it without lawfare.
That’s the problem.
(I won’t get into the N2O problem that is affecting N fert usage, as it is another issue. So far only getting serious in Holland and Canada, but not here yet.)
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Post by Faulty Memory on Sept 12, 2022 13:20:46 GMT 8
Hi Cardimona.
Bruce is correct about fertiliser as far as he goes, but he has left out the political elephant in the room.
The main fertilisers used on broadacre crops these days are MAP and DAP – mono-ammonium phosphate and di-ammonium phosphate. As Bruce has explained, one of the principal ingredients in MAP and DAP is hydrogen derived from natural gas. What he left out was that 85% of the world's MAP and DAP now comes from Russia, which has no shortage of gas to turn into fertiliser. They're just not selling fertiliser to western countries.
When the war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, the western nations froze Russia's bank accounts, making it impossible for them to receive payment for the gas – and fertiliser - they were supplying to Europe. So Russia demanded payment in Russian Rubles. The western European countries refused, (ie NATO), so Russia cut off supply to them.
However, that is only half of the story. The BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa), have no such reluctance in paying for their fertiliser in Rubles, so they are getting all that they need at competitive prices, while the rest of the world misses out – Australia included.
China and India are two of the world's biggest importers of grain, especially wheat. It is hardly a coincidence that it was announced this morning that China just bought a record 6.3 million tonnes of Australian wheat. India is already a major buyer of our grain. Northern hemisphere grain crops come up for settlement on September 30, and is generally, and conservatively, estimated supply to be 30% less than demand, which means prices are going to skyrocket.
One would like to think that our politicians would see the writing on the wall and impose some kind of export limits on grain to protect domestic consumers. However, as we are seeing with gas prices, Australian politicians will happily throw the rest of us under a bus if it means more profit for their multinational sponsors.
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