ETopia: a Canticle for Leibowitz | 151 comments (151 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: ETopia: a Canticle for Leibowitz (4.00 / 4)

You sound like a hardcore Doomer. There's no way it could get that bad so quickly after peak oil. True, most petroleum use is in transport, but only a tiny fraction of all transport is foodstuff. And this would get priority over personal transport and fancy consumer goods. Only a century after peak oil would we have so little of the stuff left that we couldn't ship grain and flour into the cities of Europe. And by then, if we still haven't found a substitute, then surely we don't deserve to live on.

It's the same with the industrial-agriculture-is-doomed meme. Pesticides are a tiny volume of petrochemistry. They could be made with other inputs of CHON. Diesel for industrial machinery is again a tiny amount of total consumption. could already be replaced by diester without going mad about biofuel acreage (waste products are enough). The only true problem is natural gas used to make fertilizers (and not petroleum). It's several percent of all NatGas use, and if Peak Gas is a total cliff as expected, then it could bite into those few percents. But since what is needed is actually hydrogen, not natgas, we could still find substitutes, we have decades (like electrolysis from renewables of pyrocracking using solar heat).

Granted, phosphorus is a harder problem, but it is a bit less urgent than peak oil and gas. And I expect when peak oil hits the mainstream (that is, 20 years after it has happened and there is no concealing it anymore), it will change a lot in the way governments are held accountable to the management of these resources. So we are not entirely doomed as a specie. The biggest impacts will be socio-economic, and dense fuel-efficient cities are actually a way to mitigate this.

Pierre

by Pierre on Mon Sep 24th, 2007 at 08:54:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

RE Peak Oil and Die Off ... (none / 1)

No going to argue that I agree, but it is easy to postulate mass die off in face of Peak Oil ... check www.dieoff.org, for example.

Blogging regularly at Get Energy Smart. NOW!!!

by a siegel (siegeadATgmailIGNORETHISdotPLEASEcom) on Mon Sep 24th, 2007 at 10:32:11 AM EST
[ Parent ]

OTOH, only a fraction of the oil ... (none / 0)

... used in oil-fed agriculture is consumed in transporting the finished product. There is oil consumed in producing the fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides, oil consumed in breaking the ground for planting, sowing, and harvest.

Of course, for drying after the harvest its more likely to be natural gas.

About the only time our current agricultural system doesn't use oil is when the farmer is in the house in the evening, consuming coal or natural gas fired electricity.

Indeed, for all of the hoo hah about ethanol driving up corn prices, I saw a claim floating around cyberspace that the major factor driving up corn prices were oil price spikes.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Mon Sep 24th, 2007 at 05:52:52 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: ETopia: a Canticle for Leibowitz (none / 0)

IIRC, Hughes "Networks of Power" attributes the development of huge sources for electricity - hydro in USA and coal in Germany - during WWI to the need for synthetic fertilizers.

Sweden's finest (and perhaps only) collaborative, leftist e-newspaper Synapze.se

by A swedish kind of death on Mon Sep 24th, 2007 at 07:02:11 PM EST
[ Parent ]

crushed rock would be a good start (none / 0)

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/4710219-claims.html

1. A method for producing a combined phosphate fertilizer and soil conditioner without employing a mineral acid, which consists essentially of the steps of:
(a) grinding a moist, acidic, organic waste material having a pH less than 5, a water content of at least 40% and lower calcium and phosphorous contents than the calcium and phosphorous contents of phosphate rock;
(b) heating the acidic, organic waste material ground during step (a) to a temperature of 40° to 120° C. and at a pressure of 16 to 22 bar;
(c) grinding phosphate rock to a particle size of 0.02 to 1 mm;
(d) heating the phosphate rock ground during step (c) to a temperature of 50 to 800° C.;
(e) combining the ground, acidic, organic waste material obtained during step (b) as the sole acidic reactant with the ground phosphate rock obtained during step (d) at a pressure of 20 to 55 bar to permit the ground, acidic, organic waste material and the ground phosphate rock to collide, to cause disintegration of the phosphate rock; and
(f) cooling the mixture obtained during step (e) to 20° to 40° C. to obtain the desired product which contains almost all nutrient elements of phosphate rock.

A method for producing combined phophorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the organic reactant is bark waste.

A method for producing combined phophorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the organic reactant is peat or peat mud.

A method for producing combined phosphorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the organic reactant is waste fibre from a cellulose production plant.

A method for producing combined phosohorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the organic reactant is sawdust.

A method for producing combined phosphorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the organic reactant is the solid component of communal sewage.

A method for producing combined phosphorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the amount of water-soluble phosphorus in the fertilizer is regulated by the pH of the reagent mass.

A method for producing combined phosphorous fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the amount of water-soluble phosphorus in the fertilizer is regulated by calcium and phosphorus content of the reagent mass.

A method for producing combined phosphorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1 which the amount of water-soluble phosphorus in the fertilizer is regulated by the reaction temperature.

A method for producing combined phosphorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the amount of water-soluble phosphorus in the fertilizer is regulated by the duration of the reaction.

A method for producing combined phosphorus fertilizer and soil conditioner according to claim 1, in which the amount of water-soluble phosphorus in the fertilizer is regulated by the weight ratio of the fresh organic mass and the dry phosphate rock.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

by melo (melometa4(at)gmail.com) on Tue Sep 25th, 2007 at 03:35:33 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: crushed rock would be a good start (none / 1)

There you go ... Claim 6 goes along with the towns and cities populated at urban densities.

I've been accused of being a Marxist, yet while Harpo's my favourite, it's Groucho I'm always quoting. Odd, that.

by BruceMcF (agila61 at netscape dot net) on Tue Sep 25th, 2007 at 06:17:49 PM EST
[ Parent ]

Re: ETopia: a Canticle for Leibowitz (none / 0)

no way it could get that bad so quickly after peak oil

I didn't specify a timeline, so I don't understand why both you and Colman thought of "quickly". I am thinking of decades for the whole process.

only a tiny fraction of all transport is foodstuff. And this would get priority

Why do you think so? I am not at all certain. It could get priority after government gets priority, which only means that pressures will be stronger elsewhere. (A hefty recession after the creduction of production capacity in major industries, but this time permanent unlike in the thirties, wouldn't be pretty.)

Pesticides are a tiny volume of petrochemistry... Diesel for industrial machinery is again a tiny amount of total consumption.

It's not the amount that matters most. You forget about costs rising strongly for farmers. Couple that with the lending market one could expect.

_{*Lunatic*, n.

One whose delusions are out of fashion.}

by DoDo on Tue Sep 25th, 2007 at 05:57:34 PM EST
[ Parent ]

ETopia: a Canticle for Leibowitz | 151 comments (151 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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