[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'W')e're both quoting from the same website www.fertilizer.org
You want to explain that JohnDenver?

[manu]

Maybe now more farmers will learn to compost properly. Get off the big corporate tit and farm for yourself.

[BlisteredWhippet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ludi', 'Y')ou can build bat houses and collect the guano.

Bat Houses

[Andrew_S]

Fertilizer supplies tight in North America too:
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')ill You Get Anhydrous This Spring?

Tight supplies plague the 2008 crop market, which could impact the spot market.
(12/3/2007)
Mike Wilson

Even with high prices, ammonia supplies remain very tight and will probably remain so this coming spring.

"If the spring goes the way the fall has gone, those who don't have their spring ammonia needs already booked may find it very difficult to get supplies," says Growmark's Joe Dillier. "We've got a very good chance of having the same thing that happened last fall happen next spring - meaning, once you get in season you can't buy it."
<snip>
His advice? Stay very close to your retailer and watch what's happening in the market. Farmers are very aware of grain prices, but they need to stay in contact with fertilizer pricing that same way. Unfortunately you can't just open the paper and find those prices. So stay close to your retailer and watch for changes in pricing.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', 'W')e're both quoting from the same website www.fertilizer.org
You want to explain that JohnDenver?

[shortonoil]

JohnDenver said:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'M')aybe, while we're waiting, you can explain how the human population increased by 27% while phosphate rock production dropped 25% from 1988-2008. The much hyped "Peak Phosphorus" seems to have passed by without causing so much as a ripple.

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('cube', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('JohnDenver', 'B')TW, here's the production stats for phosphate rock from the IFA (units: 1000 tonnes):

1999: 146 349
2000: 146 388
2001: 144 068
2002: 154 529
2003: 157 056
2004: 165 325
2005: 172 126
2006: 167 600

Hardly a picture of terminal decline.
Source

[efarmer]

Our DOE seems to be sponsoring phosphate intensive electrical vehicle batteries in addition to our agricultural dependence on phosphate sources. My understanding is 40 years minimum of current usage based on known deposits of phosphate rock. If it is a gating resource, (and I am convinced it is) I wonder why it is being pursued for automotive scale production of non IC vehicles?

http://www.uscar.org/guest/article_view ... cles_id=39

Link to DOE grant for lithium-iron-phosphate battery

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('efarmer', 'O')ur DOE seems to be sponsoring phosphate intensive electrical vehicle batteries in addition to our agricultural dependence on phosphate sources. My understanding is 40 years minimum of current usage based on known deposits of phosphate rock. If it is a gating resource, (and I am convinced it is) I wonder why it is being pursued for automotive scale production of non IC vehicles?

http://www.uscar.org/guest/article_view ... cles_id=39

Link to DOE grant for lithium-iron-phosphate battery

[PhebaAndThePilgrim]

Good day from Pheba, from the farm. The ice storm has subsided, and the ice has begun to melt. There are a lot of broken branches and down trees here.
Ten years ago nitrogen fertilizer was 50 percent less than it is now. We purchase about 3 to 4 thousand dollars worth of fertilizer per year. Each and every year that money purchases less and less fertilizer. We have fescue mix with clover, lespedeza, etc. We do not feed the fescue a great deal, just a minimum of nitrogen. We feed the clover and lespedeza for early spring growth so it can get ahead of the fescue.
Just for the math it takes one pound of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer to produce one bushel of corn. Now figure about 160 to 200 bushels per acre and do the math. (some farms in Iowa are now topping 220 bushels per acre.) That is a lot of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer to support a corn based system. This same system is now running a scam to produce fuel. The fuel is fed by nitrogen. Nitrogen is fed by natural gas.
We have a manure spreader and spread cow plops back on the field. This input of fertilizer is absolutely minimal in producing a good grass crop to feed our cattle. We now run about 30 head of cattle on 160 acres. When we have calves we have about 75 head on the place. Without the input of synthetic natural fertilizer the farm would support about 15 head of cattle. The 15 head would produce less natural fertilizer. Manu I would have to disagree with you on your assertion that farmers are being lazy by using synthetic fertilizers. Farmers have no choice.
For the farmer who wants to raise a small victory garden in the backyard, or even to grow an acre of tomatoes, then natural fertilizer might work. But wait, if I were to grow an acre of tomatoes, I would need a lot of natural fertilizer.
If I don't raise my own livestock, where would I get the fertilizer?
Do you have any ideal of the size of the compost pile that you would need to raise an acre of tomatoes?
As a farmer I can tell you that people just do not understand the basics of energy and fertilizer inputs in farming.
Okay, lets say you need fertilizer to raise tomatoes. What would you use. Cattle manure, chicken, fish emulsion? No matter what source you would use for an animal based fertilizer, that animal had to be fed something to produce the manure.
If the animal is grass fed, then the grass needed fertilizer. if the animal is grain fed, then the grain needed fertilizer.
Everything goes back to the first and second law of thermodynamics. There is no such thing as a free lunch.
There is not enough poop in the world to fertilize enough ground to feed 300 million people. Never mind feeding the world.
Looking at facts and figures on a computer screen is not the same as years and years of experience working the land. Please do not sell American farmers short.
If there was a way for a farmer to get away from spending thousands upon thousands of dollars on synthetic fertilizers they would do so.
When we drive we always look at our neighbor's fields to see how they are doing. This is called "gawking" by the way. And a city person behind us in a car gets very frustrated, very quickly.
This gawking is important to us. We can look at different crops and tell how a season is doing. We can tell who put nitrogen on their pasture and who did not. We can predict how the winter grain and hay prices are going to be by how well our neighbors are doing.
We have a neighbor who has a huge irrigation lake with the automatic irriation system. Summer before last we had a bad drought here. Crops just burned up in the field.
This farmer did not irrigate his crops. he let them burn up.
He could not afford the electricity to pump the water out of the lake. Energy costs are making farming more expensive than ever.
Also, we are having a problem in this area with the copper fittings being stolen from irrigation systems. Scrap prices are very high right now.
Pheba.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', 'M')ined phosphorus peaked in 1990 at 162,000 metric tons. By 2006 it was down to 142,000.

USGS

Large quantities of phosphorus necessary to support our population is available to farmers from three places--mineral in decline, delivered ocean biota (sea-bird guano, anadromous fish like salmon and lamprey that are born in fresh water and migrate to the ocean), and land mammals (especially grazers and browsers) that deliver phosphorus on the hoof to humans.

All else is recycled through the food system and stored temporarily in the soil.

[EnergyUnlimited]

Pheba,
OK you gave us some good ideas about the subject.
However how all that was done in the past?
At the beginning of XIX century there was still about 1 billion peoples on the world and no synthetic fertilizer at all.
How these were fed?

NB. You insist that poop based fertilizer could feed 300 millions at most.

[EnergyUnlimited]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '
')You're fretting about a supposed shortage of the 11th most common mineral element in the crust, comprising a full .1% of all the crust. Upgrading that is trivial.

[Dezakin]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Dezakin', '
')You're fretting about a supposed shortage of the 11th most common mineral element in the crust, comprising a full .1% of all the crust. Upgrading that is trivial.

[cube]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('EnergyUnlimited', 'P')heba,
OK you gave us some good ideas about the subject.
However how all that was done in the past?
At the beginning of XIX century there was still about 1 billion peoples on the world and no synthetic fertilizer at all.
How these were fed?

[JohnDenver]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Phebagirl', ' ')
There is not enough poop in the world to fertilize enough ground to feed 300 million people. Never mind feeding the world.

[efarmer]

Thanks EnergyUnlimited for your phosphate numbers workup. The quick lookI did seemed to indicate only the lithium was targeted for recovery. LiFePO4 batteries are a very exciting prospect and I do hope the phosphate input is to augment a recirculating pool.

Toxco website:

Lithium Battery Recycling Process:
Toxco’s lithium battery recycling facility is located on 11 acres adjacent to the Columbia River near picturesque Trail in southern British Columbia. With over 70,000 manufacturing square feet, Toxco Trail was the company’s first recycling facility. The facility inventories incoming lithium battery waste. The waste is then stored in earth covered concrete storage bunkers. Residual electrical energy is removed from larger, more reactive batteries. If necessary the batteries then begin Toxco’s patented cryogenic process and are cooled to -325°F. Lithium, although normally explosively reactive at room temperature, is rendered relatively inert at this temperature. The batteries are then safely sheared/shredded and the materials are separated. Metals from the batteries are collected and sold. The lithium components are separated and converted to lithium carbonate for resale. Hazardous electrolytes are neutralized to form stable compounds and residual plastic casings and miscellaneous components are recovered for appropriate recycling or scrapping. If the batteries contain cobalt this is also recovered for reuse.

[cudabachi]

I just harvested my first corn crop on my place in Venezuela and rest assured that I'll soon be incorporating cow, chicken, and hog manure into my ferterlizer program.

That commercial stuff is expensive.