Al is a major element in the solar system. Most rocks have Al2O3 on the order of 3-10 wt.%. That includes chondrites (the major class of meteorite) which have plenty of feldspar, a mineral that’s like 20 wt.% Al2O3, and calcium-aluminium inclusions (CAIs), which are as their name suggests, Al-rich.

How about you only have to work 28.8 hours a week?

Haber will obviously continue to be used and work but as long as there’s a fossil fuel price to make it happen expect more extreme storms, fires, droughts, floods, ocean acidification, and possibly methane clathrate release triggering a runaway greenhouse effect like during the Paleocene-Eocene thermal maximum.

I think it’s the degree of bullshit that increases gradually. To speak from experience, when you are a grad student you get a feeling like there’s corruption but overall your project seems like it’s important and making a real contribution (hopefully). You also don’t have to worry about where the money is coming from. Sometimes the grant as a whole is total bullshit but there is enough discretionary spending included that great science comes out of it. But you don’t realize this until you’re writing grants, and by then you’re maybe too deep in the game to pull out. Essentially, you end up becoming a manager once you get tenure. There is no epiphany; it’s more like a slow creep.

There is no alternative if you actually want to do science and don’t have millions of dollars to buy labs and materials and instruments. Science gets done in spite of everything she is describing.

The use of corn-based feed for animals seems to be a universal trend. In Europe it’s done less than in the US, but it’s an option everywhere and driven by prices. And those prices do not consider the CO2 cost to the ecosystem.

https://www.dairyherd.com/news/european-cows-eat-more-foreign-corn-global-glut-erodes-price

Literally impossible, due to energy/biomass transfer up the food chain. The bottom will always be the most efficient.

Picture illustrating this

Sometimes. Sometimes it’s an intro sentence that already has 2 citations and just needs a 3rd, and you just find a paper with more measurements and the same conclusions.

And nobody on the internet is asking obvious questions like that, so counterintuitively it’s better at solving hard problems. Not that it actually has any idea what it is doing.

EDIT: Yeah guys, I understand that it doesn’t think. Thought that was obvious. I was just pointing out that it’s even worse at providing answers to obvious questions that there is no data on.

Pre-Columbian Meso-Americans were already exploiting nitrogen fixing bacteria with the milpa (corn, beans, squash). Anyway the point is if your yield is dependent on how much fertilizer you produce industrially then the sky is the limit for how much coal to burn.

Right, those are all irreplacable parts of global capitalism and its ruling oligarchy.

Haber Bosch is basically just squeezing nitrogen and oxygen together with a catalyst to make ammonia. To generate high pressures you need energy which you get by burning hydrocarbons. Legumes and bacteria can also do this, which is why crop rotation and letting fields lie fallow has been done for centuries. But you can’t let your field lie fallow if you have to compete with other firms who are burning coal to make fertilizer…

Monoculture is terrible for the ecosystem. Fertilizer runoff causes algal blooms and dead zones in the ocean. Multinational agricultural conglomerates force developing world farmers to purchase their GMO seeds sue them for copyright infingement if they try to use their seed stock in the next season. Rainforests are being burned down to make room for pastures of methane emitting cattle and monocultured palm oil plantations. The Haber-Bosch process is responsible for 5% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Should I go on? At what point am I supposed to like this?

Yeah see here you go. Response to “meat is bad” is “meat is fucking awesome.”

Evidence for meat is bad: I mean just drive by a factory farm. Look at any of the standard practices of the industry. Objectively horrific by any standard.

Evidence for meat is awesome: bro check out this sick bacon weave. Guy Fieri. Etc. all of it divorced completely from the process, and acknowledging meat only as an industrial product that comes packaged as a block or cylinder.

It’s an absurd argument. Nobody is arguing that meat isn’t delicious. We’re saying that everything about its production is awful.

I love how people try to make this some kind of cultural issue about picking restaurants or providing options. Anybody who spends 5 minutes looking into the industry will realize it goes against basic human decency.

This is literally what happens when a volcano erupts. Magma solidifes at the top and creates a plug, which builds pressure until it explodes.

Open access fees are generally like $4000 per article. Now find a grad student or postdoc (the people actually writing these articles) who has that kind of money to spend because they “believe in free and open access to information.”

Unless it’s cloudy

Continental drift had been proposed way before this. The mechanism was unknown.

Well, capitalism has been hinted at here, but as far as I can see, nobody has suggested that we try to change society so that it’s less oppressive. I realized a while ago that profit doesn’t motivate me, and it sounds like you might have as well. I suggest (in addition to following the excellent medical advice) that you seek out your local socialist organization. Life doesn’t have to be this depressing.