Guest “insert joke p! $$ in here” by David Middleton
Hat tip for Kip Hansen…
Urea shortage is happening around the world
Raymond ZhongThis chemical is in short supply, and the whole world feels it
Farmers in India are desperate. Trucks in Korea had to idling. Food prices, already high, could rise even further.December 6, 2021
This is the story of one of the silent forces that keep the world running. It is a story about the alignment of the clocks of modern civilization, about how disturbances in one part of the planet can cause storms in another.
This is a story, naturally, about urea.
The price of the modest chemical – yes, the substance found in urine – is fly to levels not seen in more than a decade. During this time of everything is lacking and worry about inflation, that doesn’t sound too surprising. But urea is linked to a number of different causes of global economic disruption, showing how easily extreme weather and transportation uncertainty can cause supply shortages.
Everyone and every industry is going through shocks. In India, a shortage of urea has made farmers fear for their livelihoods. In Korea, that means the truck driver can’t start the engine.
Urea is an important agricultural fertilizer, so rising prices could eventually mean higher costs at tables around the world. Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations food price index was at its highest level since 2011. The coronavirus pandemic has caused a large number of people face hungerand rising food prices could put more people in trouble basic dietary needs. The prices of two other widely used plant foods are also skyrocketing.
A big reason for Fertilizer prices soar coal prices are increasing and nature Air. Urea in your urine is produced in the liver. This type of industry is created through a centuries-old process that turns natural gas or gas derived from coal into ammonia, which is then used to synthesize urea.
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Industrial urea is produced from ammonia, created using the Haber-Bosch process.
Ammonia
The production of ammonia is very important to world agriculture because from it all nitrogen-containing fertilizers are produced.Using ammonia
Fertilizer production is by far the most important use of ammonia. These include urea, ammonium salts (ammonium phosphate, ammonium nitrate, calcium ammonium nitrate) and ammonia solutions.An increasing amount of ammonia, although still small compared to other uses, is used as a concentrated solution to counteract the discharge of nitrogen oxides from power plants.
Annual ammonia production
Ammonia ranks second, after sulfuric acid, as the chemical with the largest payload. It is increasingly being produced in countries with low-cost coal and natural gas resources (China and Russia account for about 40%).[…]
Production of ammonia
The production of ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen takes place in two main stages:a) hydrogen production
b) ammonia synthesis (Haber Process)
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(a) Hydrogen production
Hydrogen is produced from a variety of materials, most of which are from natural gas, coal or naphtha. Ways of obtaining hydrogen from these materials are discussed separately.
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(b) Production of ammonia (Haber Process)
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Postscript
The Haber process is so important to our lives that it has won three chemistry Nobel Prizes, all of which went to German scientists, over a period of almost 90 years, a remarkable record. idea.
First awarded in 1918, to Fritz Haber, the chemist who developed the laboratory process. The second was Carl Bosch, whose outstanding technical skill made the process possible on a large scale, but who waited until 1931 to claim his prize.
In 2007, Gerhard Ertl was awarded the Prize for his work on catalysis of a gas-on-solid reaction. Among the series of reactions he studied, he obtained evidence of the adsorption of nitrogen and hydrogen molecules on the surface of iron and that these adsorbed molecules dissociated into atoms. death. These atoms then bond together in stages to form the ammonia molecule. It must be remembered that the conditions used in these studies (under 10-ten atm) is very different from the conditions used in industry, shift 150 atm.
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Haber Bosch’s process feeds half of humanity
About 25% of bulk chemical natural gas consumption is used as feedstock for fertilizer production, fossil fuels contribute to added value to our economy by growing crops. The Haber-Bosch process, which produces synthetic fertilizers from natural gas and atmospheric nitrogen, provides food for nearly half of the world’s population.
How has the war on fossil fuels fueled the shortage of urea?
The war on fossil fuels has largely been fought by trying to decapitate fossil fuel producers and force the replacement of fossil fuels with unreliable renewable resources (wind and Sun). The strategy is best summed up by Saule Omarova, whose nomination as Controller has been contested by at least five Senate Democrats.
Controversial President Biden, Chosen to be born in the Soviet Union The head of a key branch of the Treasury Department admits in a newly unearthed video that she “wants” the traditional fuel industries to “go bust.”
Saule Omarova, Biden’s pick as a currency actuary, was filmed calling coal, oil and gas “troubled industries” in which “lots of small companies… could end up going bankrupt. “.
“At the very least, we want them to go bankrupt if we want to solve climate change, right?” she said in the clip going viral.
The Cornell University law professor made the remarks in February during a “Social Wealth Workshop” event organized by the Jain Family Institute, a nonprofit research organization, Fox News. know.
The investment community is also fighting the War on Fossil Fuels…
Why energy prices are high and increasing.
The real source of today’s energy crisis is not the 2020 COVID incident, but, the collapse of oil prices in 2014.
In the early years of the last decade, China’s robust growth fueled a global commodities boom and kept oil prices hovering around $100 a barrel. This is a boon for energy investors in the short term. But the protest has sown its own seeds. Forms of energy extraction that were already very expensive when oil was trading at $60 a barrel suddenly became overwhelmingly profitable. Capital poured into the US shale industry. As a result, the supply of fossil fuels in the global market increases rapidly. At the same time, slowing global growth combined with advances in energy efficiency has reduced global energy demand.
Traditionally, OPEC would respond to such conditions by trying to stabilize global prices by pumping less oil. But Saudi Arabia saw opportunity in its lingering energy glut.
As a conventional oil producer, Saudi Aramco has a much lower breakeven price than US shale drillers. And as a sovereign government with $750 billion in foreign currency reserves, the Saudis can afford to sell energy at a loss for much longer than private companies. in the Permian basin. Thus, by continuing to sustain and allow global energy prices to fall, the House of Representatives of Saud can regain the global market share that vandals have brutally snatched from it.
As a result, oil prices fell 70% between mid-2014 and early 2016.
All of this has two long-term consequences for global energy markets that are so integral to today’s crisis. First, investors’ appetite for new oil and gas production has collapsed. Global capital craves stable returns, not 70% price swings.
Longtime shareholders of fossil fuel companies have pressured managers to cut investments in favor of dividends. Many such shareholders suffered heavy losses during the crash, and thus refused to handle risky new projects until they recoup their initial investments.
Second, a combination of advances in smelting technology and a glut of energy markets has made natural gas unprecedentedly abundant and cost-competitive compared to coal. As a result, utility companies began to replace coal-fired power plants with gas-fired power plants, and the global power system just become dependent on natural gas.
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Continued efforts by activists to bankrupt fossil fuel companies, coupled with demands from the investment community to “cut investment for dividend returns,” have led to an increase in production is not fast enough to keep up with the rising demand. And this is why we suddenly have a synthetic fertilizer crisis…
Nitrogen deficiency threatens to cut global crop yields -CF Industries
By Rod NickelNovember 4, 2021
4 (Reuters) – Nitrogen fertilizer shortages caused by soaring natural gas prices are threatening to slash global crop yields next year, said CF Industries, a major producer of nutrients for crops, said Thursday.
European gas prices have risen amid high demand, as economies recover from the pandemic, and with below-average gas inventories at the start of the winter heating season. Natural gas is a major input in the production of nitrogenous fertilizers, and higher costs have prompted some producers to cut output.
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“Gasoline prices in Europe have skyrocketed”… According to Three Easy Charts
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
https://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/statistical-review-of-world-energy.html
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/PNGASJPUSDM#0
The destruction of our entire coal-fired power plant infrastructure and irrational fear of nuclear power, coupled with the low capacity factor of wind and solar power has made the world today more dependent on natural gas for electricity production. Efforts to appease the oil and gas industry and the investment community’s need that we focus on investor returns rather than growth, while reducing the carbon intensity of our operations has driven prices. Natural gas is on the rise in regions of the world that are dependent on imported LNG. This has left us in a position where many countries will have to choose between freezing in the dark this winter or facing food shortages in the spring.
Norman Borlaug probably rolling around in his grave right now.
Have any questions?
References
Erisman, JW, Sutton, MA, Galloway, J., Klimont, Z. & Winiwarter, W. How a century of synthetic ammonia changed the world. Nat. Geosci.1,636–639 (2008)
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