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8,000 Tons of Piss

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Upale
  9/23/2022 18:13 EST

Venezuela has delivered a shipment of 8,000 tons of urea to Colombia at the port of Barranquilla. Urea is a chemical compound found in mammalian urine that is used world wide as fertilizer. I like it. The first intercambio between Venezuela and Colombia is piss.

mtbe
  9/24/2022 10:53 EST

Urea used as fertilizer is a chemical compound made from Ammonia and Carbon Dioxide.

Interesting this is in the news as Petro has stated he wants to rid agriculture of petroleum products.

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elgringuito
  9/25/2022 20:32 EST

Upale, at least it seems honest?

Tejano3
  9/26/2022 04:21 EST

@MTBE

Are you claiming urea, or it’s constituents, is a petroleum product?

JustSomeGuy
  9/26/2022 09:25 EST

Natural gas really.

“For nitrogen-based fertilizers, the largest product group, the process starts by mixing nitrogen from the air with hydrogen from natural gas at high temperature and pressure to create ammonia.”

https://www.fertilizerseurope.com/fertilizers-in-europe/how-fertilizers-are-made/

Tejano3
  9/26/2022 10:30 EST

@justsomeguy

I have worked at Ammonium Nitrate plants, and my last company developed hi-temp, hi-pressure pH sensors that were the only ones that could endure the conditions.

“Urea” normally refers to a natural product, often collected at massive pig farms, that I recommend against visiting. It is high in Ammonium compounds, and good fertilizer, but it’s incorrect to describe it as a petroleum product.

Ammonium nitrate, made in a plant, can develop through more than one process.

It would be a move away from petroleum-products to shift to organically produced urea.

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pocopelo
  9/26/2022 18:21 EST

Just recently came across the story of German chemist, Fritz Haber, who invented the process to synthesize ammonia from nitrogen and hydrogen gas that is essential for industrial scale production of fertilizers. Ultimately this saved millions from starvation. It lead to a Nobel prize in 1918 despite also being credited with the first development and use of chlorine gas in WW1. He died in 1934. Later the Nazis dusted off some of his research and wound up developing the infamous Zyklon B.

mtbe
  9/26/2022 18:59 EST

Having worked in Ammonia plants, many of them are built right next to Urea plants (or visa versa).

Venezuela has many Urea plants where Ammonia and CO2 are used in the process to manufacture it.

In the US, Ammonia Nitrate has been loosing favor over the last 30-40 years, and especially after that west Texas explosion.

JustSomeGuy
  9/26/2022 21:47 EST

Veritasium did a video about his career.

https://youtu.be/EvknN89JoWo

JustSomeGuy
  9/27/2022 00:15 EST

@Tejano3

Some of what you said isn’t accurate.
Urea usually refers to:
NH2—CO—NH2
There’s a double bond on the CO
It doesn’t matter how the molecule is created, it is still urea. Here is the reference for the structure:

https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/1176#section=2D-Structure

I’m not familiar with any other compound called urea.

Here is the structure of ammonium nitrate.
https://pubchem.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/compound/22985#section=2D-Structure

As you can see urea does not contain ammonium nitrate or any other ammonium compounds. It contains amino groups. They do mix chemicals though, you can mix in what you want, taking a little care that your mixture is stable.

Naturally occurring urea is not a petrochemical. Synthetic urea is often (alway?) made from natural gas.

Petrochemical:
noun A chemical derived from petroleum or natural gas.

https://www.wordnik.com/words/petrochemical

mtbe
  9/29/2022 14:14 EST

Interesting writeup in the news concerning fertilizer, gas and diesel:

https://news.yahoo.com/deep-peso-drop-caused-colombia-223305946.html

"To help reduce food costs, he said his administration is considering subsidizing fertilizers.

As the government phases out gasoline subsidies, it will try to mitigate the impact on the poorest, he added. It will do this by helping poorer Colombians who use motorbikes for their work, he said. The government will also keep the price of diesel fixed, since this affects food prices through trucking costs."

Not sure how he will help the poorest on motorbikes. The wealthy will just buy motorbikes. More likely, a black market will start up for motorcyclists selling gasoline to car owners...

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