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Peak phosphorus: Quoted reserves vs. production history
Posted by Gail the Actuary on October 9, 2008 - 8:58am
Topic: Environment/Sustainability
Tags: agriculture, depletion, fertilizer, hubbert linearization, original, phosphate rock, phosphorous, recyling, usgs [list all tags]
This is a guest post by James Ward. James has a background in science and engineering and is ASPO-Adelaide coordinator for ASPO-Australia. This post appeared previously on Energy Bulletin.
Abstract
By fitting a bell curve to historical phosphate production data, the best fit is obtained by assuming an ultimate recoverable resource of approximately 9 billion tonnes (of which about 6.3 billion tonnes have already been mined). This yields a peak in around 1990. Of course, the USGS claims an ultimate recoverable resource of some 24.3 billion tonnes (i.e. 18 billion remaining); however using this value yields a bell curve that is an inferior match to the historical data. A hypothesis is thus presented whereby phosphorus is considered in two broad forms: “easy” which is able to be mined quickly, but already peaked in 1990, and “hard” which has large remaining reserves and is yet to peak, but cannot be mined as quickly. (In reality there are probably many different forms ranging from very easy to very hard.) Just as with oil, estimates that lump all types of reserve in together will yield a theoretical peak that is high and distant, however the true system may involve periods of decline after exhausting easy-to-get reserves before other supplies come online to replace them. Ultimately we must develop a recyclable phosphorus supply if humans are to continue living on this planet.
Introduction
Phosphorus is absolutely essential to plant, animal and human life. Since the Green Revolution the global human food supply has grown to depend on high-yield agriculture using artificial phosphorus fertilizers. These are derived from finite, exhaustible reserves of guano (bird and animal droppings) and phosphate rock. For those of us who care whether our children will have food to eat, world phosphorus production is literally a life-or-death issue. White & Cordell have already made an excellent start at addressing this critical issue by applying Hubbert-type bell curves to gain insights into “Peak Phosphorus”. Their analysis assumes a known Ultimate Recoverable Resource (denoted RURR), and uses this value to constrain the set of bell curves being fitted to the data.
Calculations
If we assume a remaining resource of 18 billion tonnes of phosphate rock (in line with the stated USGS reserve estimate), and add to this the 6.3 billion tonnes that have already been mined, RURR is 24.3 billion tonnes[*]. Assuming cumulative production Q at time t conforms to the following basic relationship:
where a and k are positive constants, and are the fitting parameters.
It follows that the rate of production P is defined as the derivative
which is a symmetrical bell-curve, underneath which the area is equal to RURR. Figure 1 shows the annual and cumulative production predicted using this theory, based on RURR = 24.3 billion tonnes.
Figure 1
This is, for all intents and purposes, the result of White & Cordell’s model, however they use it to urge planning for a low-phosphorus future. However, recent experience of the Peak Oil and Climate Change debates demonstrates the reluctance among politicians, industry, and community to accept a need to plan for even imminent crises. Urging action on a resource peak as far away as 2033 would most likely elicit zero response. White & Cordell’s critical message could easily disappear over the planning horizon set by myopic governments. A far more urgent message is needed since the phosphate supply situation is almost certainly more pressing than suggested by White and Cordell’s prediction of a 2033 peak at production levels approximately 50% higher than today. This is shown by the compelling predictions obtained when one uses the historical performance of the system (world phosphate mining) to predict future behaviour rather than forcing the behaviour to accommodate the URR estimates of the USGS.
Statistically, the predicted curve for P matches historical production with a coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.882. For Q, the R2 term is 0.911. Visually, it appears that the model could be improved since neither the annual nor cumulative production curves provide a match to historical data. The high production peak of 220 million tonnes per annum in 2033 is therefore questionable.
By allowing the phosphate reserve to be adjusted down from the USGS estimate, we can obtain a better fit to the historical data set, for both annual and cumulative production. Figure 2 shows the curves obtained by assuming an ultimate reserve of 9 billion tonnes (including the 6.3 billion already consumed – i.e. only 2.7 billion remaining).
Figure 2
What we see in Figure 2 can only be described as a perfect match for the cumulative production history, and a very good match to the historical annual production figures, including the downturn of the 1990s. The goodness-of-fit is reflected in the R2 values, which are 0.973 and 0.999 for P and Q respectively.
The critical outcome of this analysis is that it suggests the 1990 downturn is a final peak, with no recovery. That indeed presents an urgent message for governments to act on securing renewable, recyclable phosphorus supplies and transitioning towards more appropriate (less wasteful) agricultural methods.
While it may be somewhat overzealous to suggest that the USGS estimate of remaining reserves should be brought down from 18 billion tonnes to a figure as low as 2.7 billion tonnes, it is compelling to see that this figure results in such a good fit to the historical data. This at least suggests that the USGS reserves should be called into question.
Perhaps the best way to frame the debate from here is to suggest that, like oil, the world has been endowed with a given quantity of “easy” phosphorus (e.g. rich island guano deposits in places like Nauru) that can be – and have been – mined quite rapidly, as well as a larger endowment of lower-grade phosphate rock. While the easy phosphate has passed its peak, the low-grade phosphate should be considered separately. Figure 3 shows an example forecast where the total area under both curves (equal to RURR) is 24.3 billion tonnes, but the “easy” phosphorus (purple) is 9 billion tonnes as in Figure 2. Assuming the production history is mostly related to easy phosphorus, the fitting parameters (a and k) for the “hard” phosphorus cannot be established. Therefore, the height and timing of the secondary peak are unpredictable.
Figure 3
Like unconventional oil, the reserves may be big, and given the crucial role of phosphorus in the world food supply, we can expect heroic efforts to bring new supplies online from low-grade sources. However, several significant questions remain:
How quickly can “unconventional” low-grade phosphate supplies be brought online to replace dwindling conventional supplies, and how will we grow food in the interim?
What is the environmental cost (e.g. waste rock, greenhouse emissions, landscape degradation, heavy metal contamination) of mining low-grade phosphate?
How economic will it be to continue mining low-grade phosphate rock as energy costs rise, and how high must the price of fertilizer be to sustain this?
What will we eat when the low-grade phosphate rock runs out?
This last question is really the main subject of White & Cordell’s website, where they are urgently recommending the rapid, widespread uptake of phosphorus recycling to prevent catastrophic starvation due to exhausting our finite fertilizer sources. Unlike oil (which is simply burnt), we have the opportunity to recover phosphorus by closing loops in our food-nutrient cycle. Furthermore, if we fail to learn how to recycle phosphorus, we will find agriculture disappearing – and us with it.
References:
White & Cordell (2008) Peak Phosphorus – the sequel to Peak Oil
http://phosphorusfutures.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1...
Historical data obtained from USGS minerals fact sheets:
http://minerals.usgs.gov/ds/2005/140/
[*] White & Cordell used tonnes of elemental phosphorus, not total phosphate rock, so their reserve and production figures were smaller than those used here; however, we are essentially talking about the same thing.
Related Post:
The Oil Drum reprinted an earlier Energy Bulletin post called Peak Phosphorous, written by Patrick Déry and Bart Anderson.
Thanks to James Ward for this post. This is a very worrisome issue that we should be watching closely. Figure 2 is especially worrisome. How can be assure ourselves of adequate supply to keep up agricultural production? Where are there low grade supplies? Is there a way we can produce them? How about recycling? Wouldn't recycling imply recycling all agricultural input?
I don't know if anyone reading this can answer this: I am aware that organic farming most probably can't sustain the production rates that "modern" agricultural practices can achieve... and I do know that specific controlled applications are being experimented with in an effort to conserve fertilizer usage... but how does the phosphate cycle work in organic farming? Would composting alone be sufficient for sustainable production? Is animal manure a neccesity? I've heard of "exhausted" fields coming back into production after years of rest... does the environment add phosphate (albeit at greatly lower rates) back into the fields (possibly through bug carcasses, bird droppings, etc.)?
You don't flush your poop down the river is how it would work.
I know that calcium in the average (Eastern) North Amercan farm soil has been reduced to about 25% and iron to about (?)10-15%(?) of what it was in pre-colonial days (or so the educated scientific guess says).
Can it be replaced (over time) just by going organic, or will people in the future need to haul sea-shells and fishbones inland in order to just survive?
Seaweed is a good amendment. Harvest it, put it on trains, send it to the farms.
I don't know about calcium, but I figure I feed my chickens oyster shells and then compost the egg shells, so I'm most likely IMPROVING the soil quality on my farm.
You are welcome to my calcium phosphate when I'm finished with it
sadly I feel most people would not like the idea of grinding up your bones for fertilizer. How ever my father does want to be dug into his own compost heap. No idea how I'll get that past the local council !!
I'll get him to put it in his will for a posthumous ( pro humus ) giggle !!
Seriously though I think we need a serious effort in place to stop the flushing of NPK down the loo. Be that home composting or centralized re-cycling. But who here will want to deal with their own "waste" ?
Could be combined with methane production to solve a cooking fuel issue.
Just had a thought. When it comes to recycling humans and human waste, we could have a massive problem with persistent pharmaceuticals which could build up in the consumers of the produce. Diclofenac is but one example of a persistent drug that kills vultures.
It seems that if we were to recycle people and human waste that we would become victims of the chemical industry.
Zebra mussels to the rescue?
Farmers that tend to their soil apply lime, which is a compound of calcium or calcium and magnesium. (Typically finely ground limestone.) They usually apply lime to adjust the PH of soil which in turn makes calcium as well as N, P, and K more available to plants. You can get garden size bags of lime at most any garden supply store/nursery. Lime stone isn't exactly "organic" but it is about as natural as you can get. First you need to test the PH of your soil as PH varies widely as well take into consideration what kinds of crops you are going to grow. A surprising number of crops like a slightly acid soil. Go to your local County Agent's office to get all the information you need, free.
Actually, that doesn't seem to be true. Peer-reviewed results indicate that organic farming can sustain production rates as high as current farming methods:
"The study compared a conventional farm that used recommended fertilizer and pesticide applications with an organic animal-based farm (where manure was applied) and an organic legume-based farm (that used a three-year rotation of hairy vetch/corn and rye/soybeans and wheat). The two organic systems received no chemical fertilizers or pesticides.
...
"First and foremost, we found that corn and soybean yields were the same across the three systems,"....the soil on the organic farms steadily improved in organic matter, moisture, microbial activity and other soil quality indicators."
Modern intensive farming isn't done because it's the best way; it's done because it's the cheapest way.
Modern intensive farming isn't done because it's the best way; it's done because it's the cheapest way.
There is some question about that as well. A fair number of people have suggested that seed producers make more money under the intensive farming model than they can under other models, and since they pretty much have a monopoly on telling farmers when and how to plant, they act on that monopoly to maximize their profits (at the expense of affordability.)
Sorry, but that doesn't make much sense to me. Seed producers need farmers as much as farmers need them. Your comment doesn't even fit some crops. For example, rice and sugar cane. No "seed producers" own the sugar cane varies currently grown in Louisiana. The same goes for most of the rice grown in Louisiana, too. Just who are these "fair number of people" and where have they said this?
Finally my observation is that the farmers are usually the driving force behind plant breeders. It is the farmer that tells the plant breeder he needs a variety that he can start harvesting a week earlier, one that sets its fruit higher to make it easier to harvest, and so on. I know this because I used to serve on a committee that allowed plant breeders and researchers to interact with farmers.
Don't know about rice and cane in Louisana but here in the vast midwest where most of the grains(corn,soybeans and wheat) your exposition is just not the way it is.
A bag of seed corn now runs in the neighborhood of $200 and depending on 'population' will seed about 2 and 1/2 acres. GMO can be even higher. The farmer is not in control...The seed companies are ..even to the extend of spying on farmers and taking them to court.
Read a few farmer forums and you will soon see the disdain that most farmers hold for the big Ag seed companies. They pretty much get whipsawed.
Airdale
Do some research into Monsanto. I'd say more but I'm afraid they'd sue me. ;-)
"Modern intensive farming isn't done because it's the best way; it's done because it's the cheapest way."
Good observation. Not only is modern intensive farming "cheap" it provides tons of cheap food.
Check out the chart at:
http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2008/10/blog-post.html
It is the most economical way for a handful of people to feed thousands cheaply.
Provided that the massive amounts of energy input required is also very cheap. In Ecological Economical terms, it is very expensive to use modern intensive farming.
Ooopps. Now I've gotten on topic for a peak oil board. :)
Whoever is giving these guys - points is a moron.
Modern farming is done the way it is done because its the way the Ag corporations can make the most money. Since they control what is taught at land grant schools, this is what county extension agents tell farmers to do.
Farmers aren't stupid though. You will see changes as oil prices go up.
Modern intensive farming does not produce higher yields (if you know what you are doing) and whether it is cheaper is highly debatable.
The Rodale Institute has been doing side by side comparisons of organic and non-organic farming for decades. Yields are just as good.
Modern practices are optimized for corporate cash extraction. Farmers get only a tiny portion of the cost we pay for food and they turn that over to other corporations for inefficient inputs. Mechanized agriculture does lower the cost (and is sustainable - very little biofuel is need to run tractors) but things like fertilizer and pesticide use actually cost the farmer a lot of money.
The large amount of materials that has to be shipped around, extracted, etc. also increase the true cost. We also subsidize farming which lowers the apparent cost of food without lowering the actual cost; and we export subsidized food destabilizing the farming practices in other countries (look what we did to Jamaica, for example) at US taxpayer expense. There are other externalized costs like pollution.
I haven't seen an really good true accounting of the costs of food production by different means but it is very unlikely that it will favor our current wasteful practices. And rising energy costs affect the non-sustainable practices.
Farmers are tricked by propaganda compaigns into using practices that favor the petrochemical and genetic engineering corporations and then the soil is trashed and the beneficial insects and other natural pest controls are destroyed and if they try to switch back they have a transition period where it is worse. Only a tiny portion of agricultural research goes to legitimate farming practices. And the companies that make money off our farmers make sure they see the subset of studies that favor them. Advertising, in disguise, is substituted for education.
Organic food costs more because there is a high demand and perceived value and less competition, moderately higher labor costs (but lower insurance), not relying on subsidies, organic inputs harder to come by, greater transport costs to specialty markets, smaller farms with higher fixed costs, certification costs, cost of adhering to strict standards, smaller markets with higher markup, lack of externalized costs, and farmers need some incentive to take the risk of transition.
Hi Whitis,
I wish it was kosher to bump the 'points' score of your comment to about 1000, because you absolutely NAILED it.
Thanks to the wonders of modern communication the use of intensive propaganda campaigns is now standard operating procedure for big projects like the so-called "green revolution," and the sad fact is that really good liars can fool all the people some of the time.
A pretty good piece of advice is to proactively search for hype, and rejoice when it is found, because it is valuable evidence, an unerring tell-tale, the "softening-up barrage" that precedes an invasion.
In the case you describe the invasion was of our farmland. It once belonged to and supported myriad families with healthy food, with enough left over to support small towns and cities. Now it is owned by corporations and the financial sector, and produces industrio-crops of dubious nutritive quality. Oh let's just say it; the bastards are slowly poisoning us.
It's worse than a pity. It is a crime of genocidal proportion.
The hype proclaims that mechanized chemical farming has been an unparalleled success, when in truth it is a lethal disaster.
The plain truth is that we can feed ourselves, all six billion of us, if we are willing to get dirty and sweat a little bit (okay, sweat a lot.) But, thanks to an incessant avalanche of propaganda such noble activity has been stigmatized to the point that the vast majority of people would actually be ashamed to personally grow the food that they eat.
Compost animal manure? Butcher a cow? Gut a fish? Oh, dear!
We are not ashamed of breathing or drinking, but we have bought into the lie that toiling in the soil is humiliating.
Today is October 12, pretty late in the season one might say, especially for this latitude, but my organic garden is still producing copiously. In fact to prove it to myself I just popped outside and harvested a quick breakfast of broccoli, tomatoes, sweet green peppers, lemon cucumber and kale, with a little cilantro and basil to jazz it up.
I live in the tiny hamlet of Hamburg, Illinois, right at the water's edge of the Mississippi river (yeah, we got flooded this June, including my garden, but that's another story.)
The garden is raised beds, totalling 144 s.f. (13.3 s.m.) and provides all the veggies our family of three can eat. It took two weeks of hard work to set up, two hours a day to water and weed at first, and now a half hour per day to maintain. I would have had storables (peas, beans and corn) but the flood got 'em. Next year that won't happen because I've raised those beds another three feet (using recycled sand bags from the levy... what a cheapskate I am!)I used ZERO chemical fertilizers, pesticides or powered equipment.
Now the point of this is not to brag up my garden. It's to remind folks that anyone south of Minneapolis with a couple hundred square feet of open space could do the same thing... if they weren't ashamed to do so. Northward of there you'll need a little more space, and some simple form of green housing with some of the plants.
So what do I need Archer Daniel Midlands for anyhow? Cheerios, Twinkies, Micky D's french fries and bio-diesel?
Agreed. The only drawback I know that partly more land is needed for the same output.
And it may need more (wo)manpower (what not necessarily is a disadvantage).
Hello James Ward [keypost author] and Gail,
I have much to say on this topic but I need to get to sleep.
For those interested in what I hope to be discussing sometime later: any meaningful discussion of industrial phosphorus[P] has to include sulfur and the huge amounts of energy required for this chemical beneficiation process. Sulfur is predominantly sourced from sour crude and sour natgas: thus the postPeak implications are enormous to P flowrates, besides insufficient Fuels to globally move this I-NPK to the final topsoil square foot.
Have you asked yourself why O-NPK [mammal urine and bird & bat guano] is so valuable? I am not a chemist, so those TODers who are will add much more to this discussion than me if they study the following links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superphosphate
------------------------
In the 1840s, scientists found that coprolites could be dissolved in sulfuric acid to produce what became known as superphosphate.
In 1840, Justus Von Liebig wrote, "The crops on the field diminish or increase in exact proportion to the diminution or increase of the mineral substances conveyed to it in manure." Von Liebig was the first to discover that phosphate of lime in bone meal could be rendered more readily available to plants by treatment with sulfuric acid. Sir John Bennett Lawes about the same time discovered that phosphate rock underwent the same reaction and could be used as a source ingredient.
Simply put, insoluble tricalcicphosphate is converted to soluble monocalcicphosphate by reaction with sulphuric acid.
Superphosphate can be created naturally in large quantities by the action of guano, or bird feces, resulting in deposits around sea bird colonies which can be mined. The most famous mining site is the island of Nauru in the South Pacific much of the "soil" from which was mined, creating temporary wealth for the inhabitants, but destroying their environment.
------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus
------------------
The white allotrope can be produced using several different methods. In one process, calcium phosphate, which is derived from phosphate rock, is heated in an electric or fuel-fired furnace in the presence of carbon and silica[1]. Elemental phosphorus is then liberated as a vapour and can be collected under phosphoric acid. This process is similar to the first synthesis of phosphorus from calcium phosphate in urine.
-----------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uric_acid
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Uric acid is also the end product of nitrogen catabolism in birds and reptiles. In such species, it is excreted in feces as a dry mass. While this compound is produced through a complex and energetically costly metabolic pathway (in comparison to other nitrogenated wastes such as urea or ammonia), its elimination minimizes water loss. It is therefore commonly found in the excretions of animals—such as the kangaroo rat—that live in very dry environments. The Dalmatian dog has a defect in uric acid uptake by liver, resulting in decreased conversion to allantoin, so this breed excretes uric acid, and not allantoin, in the urine.
-----------------------------
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urine
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Urine is a transparent solution that can range from colourless to amber but is usually a pale yellow. Urine is an aqueous solution of metabolic wastes such as urea, dissolved salts, and organic compounds.
------------------------
In short, natural processes in lifeforms create the ideal O-NPK for plant uptake. Higher lifeforms evolved to optimize this plant-animal synergy. I-NPK replicates this process, but at a huge energy cost which will be postPeak impossible to have high global flowrates.
That is just another reason for ramping O-NPK recycling everywhere. Have you hugged your bag of NPK today?
Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
Plus I think that cow manure has the highest % of fixed P of any domestic farm animal.
Bob,
Thanks for helping to keep us aware of this issue. There are a lot of problems that it would be more convenient if they just went away, and this is one of them (so is peak oil, shortages of fresh water, and our overwhelming amount of debt).
Hello Gail,
Thxs for responding. The O-NPK industry started with manual labor long before our use of FFs and I-NPK, and will eventually go back to manual labor once the short single pulse of FFs are mostly exhausted. There are No Substitutes to these Elements.
When the Hubbert downslope really starts hitting, possibly around 30 million barrels/day C+C: We could see 50% or more of the remaining energy going to this I/O-NPK process. That won't leave much energy for other things or other tasks--that is why I think we need to move 60-75% of the labor force to relocalized permaculture.
Totoneila,
I don't quite understand what you want to say.
Anyway, the only solution to keep the "white gold" available as long as possible is: rigorous recycling worldwide.
In fact this is not such a new idea, for example Germany has a long record of research, application and discussion on re-using the sludge from wastewater plants as fertilizers.
As far as I understand the main issue is that this apparently "bio-fertilizer" isn't that clean and healthy as one might think, as it also contains an unpredictable cocktail of hazardous substances that have been flushed down in the sewer system.
This lead to bad experiences, for example in one case farmland soil got contaminated with cadmium to levels prohibitive for food crops. Therefore during the past decade(s) the usage of sludges went rather backwards: Due to specific laws in Germany and Austria fertilizing with sludge is limited to certain crops, in Switzerland it is prohibited entirely.
However with the increasing PP conscience new research is being activated (e.g.: http://www.phosphorus-recovery.tu-darmstadt.de/ )
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/03/07/7533
link to story about suldge
Electric cars will make polution problem by a magnitude worse. unless we police the seperation of waste streams and recycling.
I do regret saying that, it gets worse .
I wish I had been on the terra pertra but that ended days ago. charcoal soils, coke soils ? compost your shit by the 30 gallon drum which gets picked up and replaced with a drum of black soil that you piss on it and then this drum gets picked up and you get paid.
Composting toilets help reduce the contamination from all manner of non-shit that gets flushed down regular toilets, not to mention industrial waste. Where I live, you are allowed to have a composting toilet but required to have a flush toilet. This seems pretty wasteful on one hand but it does give you a place to dump the water used to clean the floor and the strange lifeforms from the back of the refrigerator that you might be unsure about composting. However, many existing bathrooms don't have room for both - but many residences have multiple bathrooms.
In the US, I think you aren't allowed to grow food crops on land that has been fertalized with raw "night soil" for a couple years. But composting at high temperature (humanure) makes it safe for food crops.
Ugh!!! Finally I can share some of the joys of living with the phosphate industry in central Florida and my thunder is stolen!
Phosphate refining uses a LOT of sulfur. The phosphate ore (or matrix) is washed with sulfuric acid to dissolve out the calcium. This makes calcium sulfate or gypsum in massive amounts. For every ton of phosphoric acid produced, some 4.5 tons of gypsum is made. We have about a billion tons of this phosphogypsum and another 30 million tons is made every year. Recovery of the sulfur from the gypsum is difficult and energy intensive at best. Just to make it more challenging, the phosphogypsum is slightly radioactive. Any radium in the phosphate ore is chemically similar to the calcium and follows the same path. The phosphogypsum here in central Florida is about 26 picocuries (or about twice the radioactivity as brazil nuts). The EPA requires phosphogypsum to be stored in massive piles, called gyp-stacks. The one across the road from my office is officially the tallest point in Florida at 325 above MSL. These are truly massive structures.
Also produced in modern phosphate production are phosphate clays and sands. I do not know much about the sands, but the clays are known around here as ’slimes’. They have the consistency of mashed potatoes and will remain plastic for years without giving up the water stored in their pores.
The energy usage in the mining operations is incredible. The drag line machines are multi-story buildings that ’walk’ and swing a bucket able to swallow up the largest SUV. All the ore is loaded into hopper trains and transported to the chemical processing plants. As the ore gets mined out, the operations are moved further and further south. However, the processing plants remain in the same places. The transportation needs are now some twenty miles long from the mines to the chemical plants.
The industry here is also dying. My neighbor now has to drive forty or fifty miles to work each direction since the plant he worked at closed. Industry consolidation is now the big thing. A lot of good information can be found here: http://www.fipr.state.fl.us/
In short: the phosphate industry uses lots of sulfur and energy while mining ores that are not as rich, located deeper underground and are further away from the chemical plants.
Hello TODers,
Can't go to sleep until I post a link to OCP. Please read the various webpages to get a grasp of the huge scale of the operations, giant equipment size, the various ore grades, the beneficiation flowcharts, etc:
http://www.ocpgroup.ma/english/jsp/qui_sommes/ocp_bref.jsp
http://www.ocpgroup.ma/english/jsp/metiers/exploitation_miniere.jsp
http://www.ocpgroup.ma/english/jsp/metiers/transformation_chimique.jsp
They claim 75% of the world's reserves [in the first link]. Imagine if KSA's Ghawar oilfield held 75% of the world's crude! IMO, postPeak Morocco may be the most strategic real estate on the planet.
We are evolved to sit in the dark, we just can't handle starvation.
Whow, what a surprise, Morocco will save us all!!!
Didn't you realize that this is nothing but a corporate website advertizing their products? The phosphate resources in Moroco are nothing new.
But I am surprised that such sites still manage to impress even a two year TOD reader (sorry for the cynism). Be it the lessons from the New Economy Hype or from the Subprime Crash - maybe mankind will never learn it and Smart Storytellers will always find someone to fool.
Let us try to be a little nicer to fellow posters who are doing their best to be helpful.
Yes, OCP is a big player, but the total is way too small, and likely to get smaller in the next few years. We need some sources besides Morocco, and we need to do recycling as well.
Okay, I wrote "sorry for the cynism" and I hope I didn't hurt Totoneila. I didn't mean to criticize him personally, but I am generally quite sensible when I realize that PR, ads or other misleading information is being taken for true. A result of such behaviour is happening right now with the subprime crisis and its consequences...
As I have posted previously, I first heard peak phosphorus discussed by the McGill biologist N. J. Berrill around 1958. He was interested in the theory that the availability of phosphorus might ultimately limit population growth. Berrill sponsored the biologist Julian Huxley for a lecture series at McGill during the late 50's. About that time I learned that peak phosphorus was addressed in the 1928 Aldous Huxley novel Point Counter Point. Aldous probably obtained some of his scientific ideas from his brother Julian.
http://books.google.com/books?id=acBlt9gBPDoC&pg=PA57&lpg=PA57&dq=phosph...
or http://tinyurl.com/4dftog
Get a grip.
Those lying geologists tell us;
Peak oil-world consumption 30Gbpy, world USGS Reserves 2275 Gboe( include tar)--depletion in 75 years. I think we really only have 1200 Gb or 40 years, but then I'm a peak oiler.
Peak nitrogen--not an issue, nitrogen in the atmosphere is unlimited and can be made from (renewable)electricity by Haber Bosch reaction.
Peak phosphate- consumption 150 mtpy, USGS Reserves 18 Gt --depletion in 120 years
Peak potash- consumption 33 mtpy, USGS Reserves 8.3 Gt--depletion in 250 years
If we only use manure and treated sewage(organic farming), crop yields are 30-50% per acre of what we have now. But we produce far too much food--the average american eats 3900 calories per day plus pets, cattle, etc., in India people eat about 2400 calories per day(60% of US).
It is likely that a sustainable organic agriculture can support the current world population even without extracted resources.
(I'm suggesting that Peak Fertilizer is a DISTRACTION.)
This is OT, IMO; the panic de joir is Peak Credit.
Hello Majorian,
Your Quote: (I'm suggesting that Peak Fertilizer is a DISTRACTION.)
I don't think 50,000 kids under five dying each day agree with your assessment:
http://www.flatrock.org.nz/topics/odds_and_oddities/ultimate_in_unfair.h...
We, the global pop., have got a lot of work to do quickly if we are going to go all organic. As it is now: People can't afford sufficient I-NPK plus they are not recycling sufficient O-NPK. See Haiti, Zimbabwe, Somalia, Nepal, Pakistan,...
UN FAO says approximately one billion are suffering from food insecurity.
Consumption 150 mtpy: that is with huge equipment and huge energy. How many tons do you get with just manual labor? Also, you need sailboats to move