The Oil Drum: Australia/New Zealand

Hello TODers,

First, my thanks for the keypost amd comment thread.

Do I need to remind you of EB's Peak Phosphorus text, and TOD's Peak Minerals keypost?

Recall my earlier postings on energy required for NPK: forty lb. bag has the energy-equivalent of 3 gallons of gasoline embedded into it.

Recall other posts that minutely detailed the P & K raw rock beneficiation process to finished form, and how much water and other chem-processes are required.

I still think we need a National Emergency Program to build millions of bird & bat shelters for later guano-harvesting, combined with widespread humanure recycling.

I expect most other mineral mines to be shutdown pretty quickly postPeak: so that the fuel and equipment can be used to sustain biosolar mission-critical P & K mines, Haber-Bosch for N, and to power the railroads, ships, and trucks for distribution globally.

As posted before: we are not talking about weightless internet packets, but billions of NPK tons to be far flung to enrich arable land around the planet. Priced guano lately?

I remain a fast-crash realist until we really start moving to universal Peak Outreach to leverage paradigm shift with 60-75% of us employed in relocalized permaculture. Food first, even if that means we all partake of the natural nightly darkness, so that machete' moshpits are minimized.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?