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A comment on USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to Plains Drought. Parent comment

Re:USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to... by colechristensen on Thursday May 14, 2026 @10:01AM (#48135541)
Nitrogen is pulled out of the air which is free but the process requires hydrogen which is acquired from disassembled methane, the price of which is a significant contributor.
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Re:USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to... by 8note on Thursday May 14, 2026 @03:57PM (#48140385)
US shale oil notably has a lot of natural gas - methane.

the methane isnt the issue, building and operating the processing plants is

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Re:USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to... by colechristensen on Thursday May 14, 2026 @04:40PM (#48140936)
Hard to find exact data but 60-80% of the cost to manufacture ammonia comes from the cost of natural gas. Feel free to look a price charts for both to see the correlation.
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Re:USDA Projects Smallest US Wheat Harvest Since 1972 Due to... by bluGill on Thursday May 14, 2026 @10:39PM (#48143914)
Long term yes, however the building in such a plant is very expensive in the short term. As such, no one is going to build a plant unless they actually think it will have reasonably high utilization.
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