Hello Geckolizard,

My earlier post just considered the I-NPK beneficiation energy required vs ready-to-apply O-NPK guanos. Now think about how much more transport energy is present day required:

Olden days**
Virtually minimal with free wind in sails; just the one-way return trip from a guano island back to the seaport, then inland to the final square foot topsoil dispersion.

Modern day**
Get sulfur moved from Athabasca oilsands, plus Potash[K] moved from Saskatchewan, plus raw ore phosphate[P] rock moved from Morocco, plus natgas Haber-Bosch ammonia[N] moved from Russia or Trinidad-->all four Elements then meet in Louisiana to be processed to the specific finished product [DAP, MAP, MOP, TSP, MIRACLE-GRO, VIGORO, etc].

Then, load the product on a truck, RR, river barge, or ship to then send to final destination for topsoil application. This is a simplified example, but it is easy to see how the total embedded transport energy over many, many miles can be huge.

Ok, now this gets more complicated, but I'll follow...

Consider Peak Oil: it's not necessarily how long that oil lasts, but the flow rate that counts...

So, less oil (and natural gas, because we're running into that wall too) means less energy...

And less energy means that the flow of things derived from energy (even if it has absolutely nothing to do with oil/gas) also is reduced.

Less N, P, K from around the world because the 'energy flow' (i.e. energy needed for transportation) is restricted by energy;

Less food because the 'energy flow' (i.e. energy needed to run tractors, water pumps, etc) is less;

Less water because the 'energy flow' (i.e. energy needed to pump wells from aquifers) is less;

Less synthetic fertilizer (I-NPK) because the 'energy flow' (i.e. energy needed to create the chemicals needed for fertilizers) is less...

I guess it is all about flows. If you have 3 million people living in a city, and only enough food to feed 1.5 million is flowing in, you have problems. If you have only enough heat or electricity to heat and provide for 1.5 million, you have problems. If you only have enough water for 1.5 million, again, problems.

Flows...

Yep,Yep,Yep--it's not the size of beerkeg, it's the size of the tap.

Imagine if every bottleneck beer's aperture was even smaller than this o

Yikes!