Source: AMNY

What is your favorite coffee drink to order from Starbucks? If the answer is a 'Soy Latte,' then you are in luck as the price of Soy milk might drop dramatically. Why? According to an article in Bloomberg News titled "Two Ships With U.S. Soybeans Head to China With Trade War Lingering" two ships are headed to China filled with just under 135,000 tons of Soybeans:

Two more vessels loaded with U.S. soybeans have departed for China, signaling that buyers may be getting more desperate for supplies amid the prolonged trade war between the nations.

Star Laura and Golden Empress were loaded during the week ended Oct. 11. Star, which left the Gulf of Mexico, is destined to arrive at China’s Qingdao port at the end of the month, and Golden Empress, which left from the Pacific Northwest, is expected to arrive in December, according to vessel data compiled by Bloomberg. Government data shows 65,431 metric tons of U.S. soybeans were inspected or weighed for export through the Gulf of Mexico that week, and 69,298 tons through Puget Sound.

This reporting comes amidst a growing trade war emerging between China and the United States. As I wrote in a previous blog post, China has essentially closed doors on Soybean demand, which has driven up the storage of soybeans in the United States. Which ultimately means that Soybean farmers are going to unload a large amount of Soybeans onto the market. Products like Soymilk will come down in price? Possibly.

With that being said, after reading the article above, I could not help but thinking the following question:

How many gallons of Soy milk could be made with 135,000 tons of Soybeans?

How many Soy Lattes could be made with 135,000 tons of Soybeans?

In the paragraphs below, the analysis of determining the total amount of Soy milk and Soy Lattes which could be made with 135,000 tons of Soybean will be carried out using dimensional analysis.

How many Soybeans are in a gallon of Soy Milk?

The first question which needs to be answered is the total amount of Soy milk which can be made with a 135,000 tons of Soybean. Following the standard methodology employed by myself in previous blog posts, the following question is inserted into the Google search engine: How much soybean is required to make a gallon of soy milk? The answer to which is shown below:

If the first choice is selected from 'instructables.com' with the following recipe (with great pictures) which makes a total of 2 quarts + 2 pints of Soy milk shown below:

Source: Instructables.com

The above recipe is great for making Soy milk for the simple instructions which are accompanied by good pictures. Although, for the purpose of this blog post, the measurements of 2 quarts + 2 pints of Soy milk made with each batch calls for two separate unit conversions: 1) first, converting quarts to gallons and 2) converting pints to gallons.

For the sake of finding a conversion factor from weight of Soybeans to gallons produced, lets return to the Google search page shown above. The second hit on the Google page is shown below:

The second choice is titled "Blog: Laura Soybeans" which is from the Chambers Family Farms. The blog post titled "How much milk can I make?" give the following conversion factor shown below:

Source: Laura Soybeans

The conversion factor for which the search was for indicates that to make 1.8 gallons of Soy milk, a pound of Soybeans will be needed. With the conversion in hand, the next step is to convert 135,000 tons to pounds. Again, typing into Google the following question: How many pounds are in a ton? Yields the following answer shown below:

According to Google, there are 2000 pounds in a ton. Now, with the two vital pieces of information in hand, the calculation to determine the number of gallons of Soy milk possible with 135,000 tons is achievable as shown below:

Wow. Converting 135,000 tons of Soybean to gallons of Soy milk would yield a total of 486,000,000 gallons -- 486 million gallons. That is no small amount to be sending over to China in hopes of unloading the load at Port. What kind of monetary loss is associated with the rejection on China's part? How much money do the U.S. farmers lose if China rejects the equivalent of 486 million gallons of Soy milk? Only time will tell.

The second question which was asked at the beginning was considering taking the total load of Soybeans (135,000 tons) and converting them to Soy Lattes coffee drinks at Starbuck's. How many could be made with 135,000 tons of Soybeans? The answer is in the analysis below.

How many Soy Latte's can be made?

In order to start the analysis of determining the number of Soy Latte's with 486,000,000 gallons of Soy milk, the amount of Soy milk needed for each drink needs to be known. Following the method of searching for a conversion factor above, type into Google the following question: How many ounces in a gallon of milk? The answer is shown below:

Why are we searching for 'ounces' when we have gallons? A drink commonly requires only small amounts (ounces) of milk not gallons. Therefore, to determine a conversion factor for the amount of Soy milk required in each drink type into Google: how much soy milk is required to make a soy latte at starbucks? The answer is shown below:

Click on the first link shown gives the following recipe shown below:

Source: WikiHow

Which calls for 6 ounces of Soy milk for a Soy Latte. That is the conversion factor which was needed to determine the number of Latte's in a given amount of milk. The total number of Soy Lattes which can be made with 486,000,000 gallons is shown below:

Oh my goodness. The calculation indicates that with 135,000 tons of Soybeans, a coffee maker could make a total of 10 billion Soy Lattes.

Conclusion...

As you may expect from the analysis above, the process of using dimensional analysis to shed light on enormous numbers (values) reported in the news is exciting and illuminating. Reading over statistics (numbers and values) is easily accomplished without thinking into the true dimension or magnitude of the statistic. Although, when the statistic is sent through and analysis such as that above, the statistic can take on a new meaning to the reader.

Imagine two large ships transporting that enormous amount of Soybeans across the seas in hope of selling them to China. To me, that is a giant bet. Especially, since in my previous blog post, I indicated that essentially China has shut their doors to the possibility of purchasing or accepting any Soybean shipments from the United States. I guess that the alternative is to lose the product altogether by storing enormous amounts in storage space meant for other crops throughout the season. Which would throw off the balance of agriculture. Regardless, the amount of Soybean impacted by the trade dispute has been shown (in the present analysis) to be no small amount. Hopefully a resolution is found soon for the agricultural sector's sake.

Related Blog Posts:

Parameters: How many sticks of butter are contained in 7.5 million pounds of butter?

South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster asks lawmakers for $1,228,000,000 For Recovery from Hurricane Florence?

Boston Natural Gas Explosion Reveals Old Piping Needs Replacement - Enough To Travel To Colorado?

A Forecaster Predicts That Hurricane Florence Will Drop Enough Rain To Fill 18,400 Mercedes-Benz Superdomes

Hurricane Harvey Drops Enough Rain On Houston To Fill 560 Dallas Cowboy Stadiums

How Much Water Is Contained In All Oceans Around The Globe?

Storm Raises Water Level In Lake Cachuma By 31 feet, How Much Water Is That?

How To Make Sense Of Water Flowing At 100,000 Cubic Feet Per Second

Can 11 Trillion Gallons Of Water Fill 14,000 Dallas Cowboys Stadiums?

How Much Rain Did The East Coast Receive From Hurricane Matthew?

How Much Rain Did Haiti Really Receive?

How Much Rainfall Has Dropped On Louisiana?

How Big Was The "Water Bomb" Of Rainfall In Macedonia?

How Much Rain Did Huauchinango (Mexico) receive?

How Much Rain Did Elliot City (Maryland) Really Receive?

If The Mosul Dam Breaks, The City Of Mosul Would Be Under 65 Feet Of Water?