Nitrogen Apocalypse

In the UK gas and electricity prices have increased enormously from the 1st April 2022. I will be paying an extra £2450 more per year, There are threats that there may be bigger increases in energy prices in October. These increases are pushing up inflation but may a minor issue compared to what will happen to food prices.

Take a look at a Youtube video series called Harrys Farm. He is reporting a 500% increase in the cost of nitrogen fertiliser and >100% increases in his other costs.  [ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mIBz5r29nw].  He is not sure what he should plant for next year, if anything. To avoid a loss he may be better letting the ground lie fallow.

Russia is threatening to cut off gas supplies to any country that does not pay in roubles. Germany is Russia’s biggest gas customer and. At the moment the German Government are whistling a defiant tune. That may have to change.

 German multinational chemicals giant BASF has warned of the drastic consequences if gas supply from Russia is interrupted, German newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine reported on Wednesday.

If gas supplies were to be cut in half, the Ludwigshafen plant – the largest chemical site in the world, which employs almost 40,000 people, would have to shut down, the paper quoted Michael Vassiliadis, chairman of a chemical trade union and a board member at BASF, as saying.

Ludwigshafen is a giant Haber-Bosch process plant. It uses enormous amounts of gas to produce nitrogen fertiliser and many other essential chemicals. 

If the gas supply was less than 50%, the site could no longer be operated stably and it would have to be shut down completely, Vassiliadis explained. If loss of the Russian gas was not compensated for, the effects on the chemical industry would be dramatic with the outage costing “hundreds of thousands of jobs over a relatively short period of time" and affect supply, he said.

The report in the Frankfurter Allgemeine points out that the chemicals industry cannot run without oil and gas, and without the sector the economy stops, as people are heavily reliant on it in their everyday lives. For example, petrochemical products account for 20% of clothing, 40% of cosmetic products and even 35% of aspirin, an essential in most families’ medicine cabinet.

At the moment European politicians are obediently follow America's instructions on Russia and the Ukraine. Expect a very different line from the castrati when food prices start to rise and shortages become common.