still on the subject of oil,
Something that most people have no idea about, is the almost total reliance on oil for agriculture.
Basically, agriculture is the conversion of oil and other fossil fuels into food. The obvious fuel used is diesel, for the tillage, spraying, harvest and transport, but other less obvious inputs, are chemicals, which are made from hydrocarbons, but more importantly, fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizers, are made from natural gas mainly, but can also be made from coking coal. Now, I know people here will say...
***Lets grow food organically***.
Great.....So says all the hollywood stars...... Problem is, to supply the nitrogen for organic food, the land has to be spelled while a legume crop is grown. It takes a year for enough nitrogen from a legume, to grow a crop. So straight away, production is halved. The world is awash with grain at the moment, but it is a very fine balance between supply and demand. A drought anywhere in the world sends prices higher. I can assure everyone that if every farmer in the world had to rely on legumes to supply the nitrogen, and have production cut in half, then grain production would halve, and prices would skyrocket. With grain production halved, there would not be enough grain in the world to feed to animals, so there would be no manure, therefore, no organic fertilizer for the organic food industry. A farm is a system. What is removed has to be put back. Millions of tonnes of nutrients are removed each year. It has to be replaced. The only reason 6 billion people can live on this planet is because of chemical nitrogen fertilizers. Hard to believe, I know. This backs up my claims....
http://www.cgfi.org/materials/articles/2002/nov_15pr_02.htm
I have heard people say that ethanol and biodiesel will solve all the energy problems. Well, it won't, because it can't. The main problem is that it is very inefficient to convert grain to energy via ethanol and biodiesel. It will help, and it will make oil last longer, but it can never be the solution. Remember, grain is dependant on fossil fuels for every step of production, and for nitrogenous fertilizer. Accey used to go on about this. Accey claimed that it took more energy to produce ethanol than resulted. I don't think this is correct, but then Accey sounded like he knew more about it than me.
Grain prices are now at decade lows thanks to subsidised production from the US, and Europe, and big crops overseas. Nitrogen fertilizer, and fuel production costs have more than doubled. Grain is the backbone of the food chain. Grain is used to feed cattle, pigs, chooks, to produce meat, eggs, milk etc. It also supplys the straw and manure for the organic food industry.
***If oil will never be cheap again, then neither will food.***
Why is food still cheap? Well, the crops in the ground now were planned last year. They were planted 6 months ago. Prices are shocking. When farmers get their checks next year, they will realise that they made no or little money. Hectares planted will be reduced, fertilizer imputs will be reduced. Grain production will reduce dramatically. Grain prices will rise dramatically. This will flow through to the other agriculture industrys that rely on grain. [thats all of them]. This will happen all over the world. All farmers are effected.
Oil will get more expensive, one day. If not due to supply, it will be increased demand. So will natural gas, and maybe coal, and uranium as a result. I don't know when production will peak. It may not peak for many years. I do know that food prices will eventually rise, and not just a little, a lot. I do know that most people have no idea about any of this stuff.
See ya's.