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Comment by UncleOxidant

18 hours ago

How many years can they maintain that without petroleum inputs?

Ammonia can be generated through electrolysis as feed-stock for Haber-Bosch to get nitrogen, so literally forever. The reason we use petroleum is because it's currently cheaper than solar PV electrolysis.

  • Sure, but it would take some time to transition to ramp up production to the scale required by world-scale agriculture. We're using petroleum for this because it was cheap & easy. Not saying we can't transition, but it will take time.

    • Right, but it's possible with existing tech and there's no scenario where oil disappears all at once. Its a highly geographically distributed resource.