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91 comments on Ammonia and Biofuels

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Todd on September 29, 2006 - 11:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I think a bigger question is, "Does large scale, monocrop agriculture have a long term future so as to justify the cost?"  For a variety of reasons, including aquafir depletion, I am not convinced that the agricultural status quo can be maintained even out to 2050. Would the money be better spent transitioning production ag away from its current paradigm?

Still, an interesting essay.  A technically elegant idea.

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NeverLNG on September 29, 2006 - 2:13pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
This site is about peak oil, of course.  But quite likely our civilization is also at peak water, peak coal, not to mention peak soil (industrial monoculture has ruined much of world's farmland), and peak trash-- where are we going to put all that plastic crap we make out of oil and natural gas?
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Leanan on September 29, 2006 - 2:25pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
where are we going to put all that plastic crap we make out of oil and natural gas?

We're probably going to end up burning it for heat.

There are already people doing it.  Someone at PeakOil.com was bragging about how they were burning PVC pipe in their wood stove.

I hate to think about what kind of emissions that would generate...

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davidsmi on September 29, 2006 - 3:08pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
ugh, it's an ugly picture - and what happens when 6 - 8 billion of us start doing the same thing?
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mshortridge on September 29, 2006 - 8:12pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
I have often had the vision that as suburbs begin to shut down, people will see their neighbors' abandoned houses as a handy fuel source--vinyl siding and all.  The houses with fire places and wood stoves will be the last ones standing having devoured the others.
I live in a lovely older wooded area near DC and I can't help pondering the fate of the mature trees all around the area when the NG and grid go down.  Americans clear cut most of New England with 2 man saws before 1880.  The last dribbles of gasoline from the pumps may wind up in chainsaws rather than Priuses.  
-Matt, new e-bike rider, DC
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Valuethinker on October 1, 2006 - 3:45am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
It's certainly already the case that in some Midwestern Cities where derelictions are common (Mother Jones has a piece this month about mortgage scams in Cleveland, leading to abandonments), that houses are already being stripped for scrap aluminum siding and copper to ship to China (Buffalo houses were being broken into and this was being done).

I imagine those 'mcMansions' going the way of some of those neighbourhoods in Detroit: just the odd lonely house standing amidst deserted lots with rubble in them-- maybe with huge razor wire fences on the survivors (South Africa is a bit like this in places).  Homeless people sheltering in the ones that remain.

Some people in the society will always have access to fuel and transport.  They will cluster in protected zones or parts of cities.

Plastic is harder to recycle.  Burning it strikes me as the height of folly-- what if your kids get a whiff?

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Valuethinker on October 1, 2006 - 3:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
Of course they'll be cut down.

After D-Day, the Germans (a garrison of about 8,000) were dug in Jersey (British island off the French coast) until V-E Day.  The local population (about 20,000) nearly starved as all supplies were cut off.  Eventually a Red Cross Convoy was organised from England to provide some food to the locals.

Same thing happened in Holland from September 1944 to May 1945.  The Dutch had assisted the Allied paratroopers, and the German occupation authorities simply cut off all food and fuel transport, through one of the coldest winters of the Century.

If someone wasn't living in their house, the roof and furnishings were stripped for firewood, ditto the trees.

This is why up until modern times there were severe penalties for cutting down trees on private or common land: down to losing a hand, whipping or permanent scaring.  Primitive societies have always had social means to control deforestation.

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