difficult assignment for you?

Question

Energy is used in the manufacture of fertilizers, to grow crops. We then extract food energy from these crops
a)Trace the energy path through the various steps in this process.
b)If more thermal energy is put into the process than food energy is gained from the process, should we abandon the practice of manufacturing fertilizers?

please give me a hint or idea how to do this assignment.

thanks

Answer 1

In this situation we consider the term "Energy" in broad aspects.

Energy is used in the manufacture of fertilizers ->to grow crops->animal life(including us) consume for our own energy requirments.

a) there are complex energy paths followed in this process, in a simple step it is a cycled reaction(as for Energy can neither be created or destroyed) fertilizers increase the fertility of the soil which inturn increases the yield of crops, these are consumed by man is inturn used for various process,after this it takes countlessly numerable forms and transforms into various energy forms, and these energy forms are inturn becomes a part of fertilizer.

b)Manufacture of fertilizers in only to increase the "yield" of crops.If we divide energy consumption and energy production.Demand is for the energy consumption,in order to meet the demands, we use the fertilizers .there is no meaning to abandon the process of the practicing the manufacture of fertilizers though energy gained in the process is less than energy used for the manfacture of the food

Answer 2

A) There are to many paths to list, as I do not know at what place you are starting.
B) The energy used to produce a fertilizer will always be greater than that which is recovered. However, it is the only way to convert this energy to a human usable form. For example, would you benefit more from eating fertilized corn, or eating the ammonia used in making the fertilizer?

Answer 3

energy is used to make fertilizers, crops harness energy from the sun to grow on the fertilizer, and we eat the crops to get the energy that they got from the sun. we can't eat the fertilizer or the energy used to make it, but without the fertilizer we can't get that energy from the sun. so we use energy we can't eat to make energy that we can eat. in the end everything comes from the sun and nuclear reactors.