Jamesian Philosophy Refreshed

  Beyond the usual concern that the total or partial closure of the Strait of Hormuz drives up the price of the stuff we put in our cars, there is a concern only slowly bubbling to public consciousness -- that it will also drive up the cost of fertilizer and accordingly of food. The traditional route for the manufacture of fertilizer is through what chemists call the Haber-Bosch process, which makes ammonia, which can be used as a fertilizer in itself or can be combined with other stuff for more elaborate fertilizers.  There has been a lot of talk about moving beyond Haber-Bosch, finding alternative ways of making  ammonia and growing the world's food, in part precisely because natural gas is an input, and relatedly because CO₂ is a major byproduct of that process. A move toward alternative processes is a move toward a low or net zero carbon emissions world. It is certainly possible that even a partial blockage of Hormuz will kick-start the implementation of alternatives...

  Ladies and gentlemen, behold the much-discussed Strait of Hormuz. The white space above is water, the greenish space is land.  To the left, the Persian Gulf -- to the right (east), the Gulf of Oman.  To the north, Iran.  To the south, Oman. At its tightest point, there are just 21 nautical miles between Oman and Iran. That is even smaller than the mileage between England and France at the narrowest part of the Channel. Within that span, only an even smaller portion is actually useful for large vessels such as oil tankers, about two lanes, each two miles wide, separated from each other by a 2 mile buffer zone.   Until a few days ago, roughly 20% of the world's oil supply was passing with regularity through the Strait of Hormuz.  The name of the strait comes from nearby Hormuz Island, and the name of that island may come from a corruption of the name Ahuramazda, the Supreme deity in Zoroastrian religion.   The closure of that strait for any l...