* Why Honeycrisp apples are so expensive - YouTube || https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4eQX2vZ_Zg
* The Story Behind Honeycrisps, America's First Brand-Name Apple || http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/food/a20018/honeycrisp-pri...
And look, hope for better apples on the horizon!
* Washington Apple Growers Sink Their Teeth Into The New Cosmic Crisp : The Salt : NPR || http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/05/03/525421226/was...
- They're not hardy (trees need support, apples are thin skinned, and they ripen at different times)
- A university holds a patent on the tree (only $1 per tree, tho)
A Pink Lady apple is actually a Cripps Pink, grown and picked in accordance with certain quality standards. Anyone can sell a Cripps Pink, but only licensees of Brandt's Fruit Trees Inc can sell a Pink Lady.
Anecdotally, UMN has one of the best agriculture research programs in the world, and it's entirely based around figuring out how to grow really anything when first frost is early September (Minnesota).
If they're shipping Pink Ladies from New Zealand, and there's an efficient market, can't we imply that it's a better allocation of resources to get Pink Ladies from New Zealand? I mean, they're probably cheaper _even though_ they're getting shipped halfway across the world. What the market is saying is that: the highly skilled population of Germany is probably better off doing more advanced things than growing apples.
We are depleting oil reserves at about 5 million times the rate they formed.[1] Corollary: oil price reflects an off-books depletion factor of roughly 5 million-fold. The price is vastly too low.
Our fossil fuel consumption translated to present total biomass production (NPP, or the "photosynthetic ceiling"), is a very substantial fraction of all plant growth, I believe about 40%. We currently account for 20% of NPP consumption without utilising biomass as fuel.[1]
The history of why extractive natural resources are costed on a labour-required basis only (and some very questionable economic and legal theories support this) is an interesting accident of history, religion, law, geology, business, oil, and more. I've been digging into that, though have further to go. The short answer is that we'd started using the stuff long before we understood its creation, and by the time we understood we pretended not to care.[2]
The history of oil price response to overextraction in particular is mesmerising, with the booms at Titusville, Spindletop, and East Texas especially. The latter saw price per barrel fall from a $1 target, to $0.13, and then further to $0.02/bbl, before the national (and effectively global) production quota system managed by, of all organisations, the Texas Railroad Commission, was established in 1931. That lasted until 1972, after which you may be aware oil's price fluctuated somewhat.[3]
Similar issues exist for other strategic minerals, as first grasped during WWII, leading to the creation of the Harbord List, now the U.S. Strategic Mineral Reserve.[4]
(Oil is also subject to strategic reserves. You may be aware of an incident involving the U.S. Naval Strategic Petroleum Reserve a few years back, the Teapot Dome scandal of the Harding administration.[5])
Until the early 20th century, only direct labour was considered as a cost of production.[6]
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Notes:
1. https://dge.carnegiescience.edu/DGE/Dukes/Dukes_ClimChange1.... See also https://redd.it/2cvap7 and https://redd.it/1x9maq
2. Partial expansion here https://redd.it/5w1zw3 and here https://redd.it/5rnjg0 In particular, the religion and Young Earth Creationist associations are fascinating.
3 Daniel Yergin, The Prize, chapter 13 generally, though also the history of monopolies and cartels: Standard Oil, As-Is Agreement, Seven Sisters, National Producers, OPEC. http://www.worldcat.org/title/prize-the-epic-quest-for-oil-m...
For oil price, BP's Annual Statistical Review. See:
http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/4defd684cadcbbe55e0...
Current report: http://www.bp.com/en/global/corporate/energy-economics/stati...
4. E.g., http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article33647.html
5. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teapot_Dome_scandal
6. Alexander Hamilton Church, Production factors in cost accounting and works management, 1910, p. 9.
https://archive.org/stream/productionfactor00churrich#page/8...
https://www.c2es.org/technology/factsheet/FreightTransportat...
Ocean transport is roughly 20x more fuel efficient per tonne-kilometer as overland trucking.
Rail is the new element, it's essentially dry ships, though aabout half the efficience of marine transit.
It's important to know that when considering the factor of 5 million you toss out there.
The cost is what's required to create it.
The price is what it exchanges for.
These are three independent attributes.
Generally, though, sustainability comes when cost <= price < value.
https://www.reddit.com/r/dredmorbius/comments/48rd02/cost_va...
The horrors of oil being all used up and energy cheaper than ever.
I asked you to complete the information required to back up the claim and you rejoined with some aside about how there were multiple ways to interpret one of the words in my question.
My framing is sloppy (because I only talk about the future value of oil rather than the cost of obtaining the equivalent), but I think the point survives it, because the value of oil would drop to the cost of obtaining the equivalent.
I'm not sure if you're aggreeing with me, disagreeing with me, or purple the unicorn umbrella ran ran syzzygy!!!
If you've got a specific question or point you'd like to make, please make it or ask it.
But to clarify, my statements above are made in all earnestness and as my best-faith effort to model and understand the world I see.
You?
Natural gas as feedstock to the Haber-Bosch process and coking coal in steel production, for reducing ore, are both much more formidable. They account for a large fraction the consumption of both (15% in the case of coal), and substitutes are difficult.
The story of where Earth's crustal iron comes from, when, and how, particularly as banded iron formations, is another interesting story.
For example, the Newtown Pippin: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/05/dining/it-s-crunch-time-fo...
edit: if you can downvote, you can answer the question. I did my fair share of hard thinking about this, I come prepared, so until anyone has anything, this stands, and you'll either have to step up or live with that.
It could also be a quality concern about doing stuff like picking food super raw and waiting for it to ripen in transit, which seems less than ideal.
But your point about the efficient market is certainly valid FWIW.
Different apples need different climates. That cultivar originated in Australia. It needs a long hot growing season.
With the realization that I just hated Red Delicious apples, I tried a few other varieties. I really like Fuji apples too.
When a new variety is on sale, sometimes, I like to buy a bag and try them out.
Personally, I like thicker skins but only on Jazz apples, which are tart and sweet. Red delicious are inferior in that the thick skin indeed covers an undesirable mouthful of mush.
Their availability might depend on location, though. I only see them in Toronto for 2-3 months every year.
One day, Royal Gala started showing up and I basically just ate those exclusively until this new wave of "designer Apples"
Honey Crisp Apples are the best tasting apples I have ever eaten but they cost almost triple the price. Pink Ladies are also phenomenal. My 6 and 10 year old like them better then candy.