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Page added on April 7, 2012
We’re Not Going to Run Out of Oil Based Fertilizer
I had thought that worries over the supplies of oil based fertilizers (or fertilisers) were confined to the kookier ends of the Peak Oil conspirators along with the weirder part of the environmental movement. Sadly, I find that it has invaded the editorials of seemingly respectable newspapers like London’s The Guardian. The point being of course that as we don’t use oil based fertilisers, have never used oil based fertilisers, we’re most unlikely to ever run out of oil based fertilisers.
The paper is complaining about the way in which in England many of us like to have a nice green lawn. It’s certainly true that in various dry parts of the world this isn’t a very sensible thing to try to achieve but in England, if you just leave England be then a lawn is what you generally get on a piece of flat land. So complaining about them seems slightly odd. But it gets worse:
Meanwhile, keeping the sward green and encouraging it to grow requires – as well as copious water – regular applications of oil-based fertiliser.
As above, we don’t actually make fertiliser out of oil. We take methane (the majority part of natural gas) and use the CH4 to fix the nitrogen (N) from the air to make ammonia (NH3) which is then the precursor for the various fertilisers themselves like ammonium nitrate (NH4NO3) say.
We don’t even use oil to provide the energy (and it is an energy intensive process) for this. Partly because we’ve just piped natural gas into the plant anyway so why not use that, partly because some parts of the process (mixing up the C and the O to get CO and CO2) are exothermic in themselves.
The only time oil does ever enter into the equation is when the IRA or similar tries to mix the ammonium nitrate with derv to make a great big bang: and while that may indeed be a tradition in some parts of the world it has little to do with lawns or fertilising them.
Oh, and yes, this natural gas we use, yes, this is the same stuff as shale gas that we’ve just found a couple of century’s worth of underneath Blackpool.
So back to this running out of oil based fertiliser thing. Can we put this nonsense to rest, please? We don’t use oil based fertiliser, have never used it and almost certainly never will either so we’re really most unlikely to ever run out of it.
Further, it is just about possible that in some future century we will run out of natural gas to make fertiliser with. But that’s OK, we already know how to make it out of coal gas and if that doesn’t appeal we can do it with the electricity from windmills and solar cells. All we need is wind or sunlight plus some water: and if we ever run out of any of those three we’ve got far greater problems to worry about than our lawns.
7 Comments on "We’re Not Going to Run Out of Oil Based Fertilizer"
dsula on Sat, 7th Apr 2012 6:59 pm
>> if you just leave England be then a lawn is what you generally get on a piece of flat land
haha. Tell that to a lawn fanatic. But in general I agree, lawns are not to worry about.
Norm on Sat, 7th Apr 2012 8:41 pm
it is good to see some explanations, which help explain how things work.
If we did run out of lawn fertilizer, then we could go outside and take a leak on the grass.
One of the ways to have more fertilizer products, that is kind of gross so nobody talks about it, would be to capture some of the urine output (instead of just flushing it down the sewer). Perhaps start with some special urinals, at truck stops. :o|
Mike on Sat, 7th Apr 2012 10:04 pm
Which dumb ass thought oil was in fertiliser? can someone one point out the one peak oiler that thought that? But anyway, everythings fine, it’s made out of another fossil fuel that will never run out so all is good. I can clearly see the MSM is (badly) attempting to put out straw man pieces to make the peak oil movement look silly. Which can only mean we have them on the rocks lads, the more shit articles like this we get the better. Good work,
DragonSpawn on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 1:03 am
I don’t suppose it takes any oil to drill the natural gas wells…
I don’t suppose it takes any oil to build the plants that process the natural gas into fertilizer…
I don’t suppose it takes any oil to transport the fertilizer to the end user…
I don’t suppose it takes any oil to apply the fertilizer to the farm field…
I don’t suppose I’ll ever see an honest article in Forbes concerning Peak Oil…
I don’t suppose I give a shit…
BillT on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 2:21 am
Dragon, you are correct. Forbes is a Corporate Propaganda Machine that keeps the sheeple doped with dreams and lies. The may be trillions of cubic feet of gas in the ground, but there will still be trillion when we stop harvesting it. When there is no oil to mine, refine, transport and machine the new parts to the pumps, wells, refineries, chemical plants, it will ALL end. Think about what we had before coal. (Coal will not be available to power steam because what is left is impossible to mine without oil driven machines to move mountains.) That is where we are headed before the end of this century.
MrEnergyCzar on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 3:44 am
I’d be concerned about being able to keep mining Potash cheaply which is needed to grow food…. kind of more important than lawns….
MrEnergyCzar
BillT on Sun, 8th Apr 2012 7:47 am
MrEnergyCzar, you are correct. I think most lawns will evolve into vegetable gardens before too long.