Fertilizers and soil impoverishment
In the Swedish magazine Research and Progress an
article about our need phosphorus to agricultural crops to be able to give us a
proper food was published. It pointed out that the availability of elemental
phosphorus (which can not be substituted by anything else) is essential to the
ability of the planet to feed humanity.
Today, the fertilizer (consisting of nitrogen,
phosphorus and potassium) are used to fertilize our fields so that we can get
big harvests.
What will happen when
we reach "peak phosphorus"?
Without enough phosphorus in our food our bodies can
not produce DNA, which would mean that the amount of severe deformities and
genetic defects in the population would increase.
Another question: Where does the phosphorus we consume
end up?
Answer: The phosphorus
is excreted with our urine and then winds up in the sea, where we can not
recover it. A clear violation of theidea of recycling.
One thing overlooked by the article is that our soils
are also depleted of minerals as we eat the products of agriculture. Then these
minerals are rinsed out with our stool (which should be used as fertilizer on
the fields, so that we get the recycling going).
What humanity should do as soon as possible is
therefore to rebuild our entire sewer system, so that both urine (phosphorus)
and stool (with precious minerals) could be returned to our fields - The idea of
recycling needs to be realized.
Read the full article (in Swedish) at:
http://fof.se/tidning/2010/4/nar-fosforn-sinar-blir-det-svalt
Todde
Or read my free
translation here:
Peak phosphorus will result in starvation
Already around the year 2033 the world's production of
phosphorus will peak. Then it will decrease, according to Swedish researchers.
Lack of phosphorus fertilizers will make food more expensive and less nourishing.
It will result in Western Sahara becoming a ingredient in world politics.
Author: Per Snaprud -
Published: 2010-05-04
The world has become
dependent on cheap phosphate ore. This dependence could end in tragedy,
according to Jan-Olof Drangert, associate professor of water and sanitation at
Linköping University.
We have to change our
habits. If we sit with folded arms, we will suffer famines. It's that simple,
he says.
Phosphorus from mines
are included in all types of fertilizers. Since World War II cheap phosphorus
fueled the greatest agricultural expansion ever. During the same period, the
world population has almost tripled. The mining of phosphate ore has so far
been our salvation, says Jan-Olof Drangert.
In addition to
phosphorous the most common type of fertilizer also contain nitrogen and
potassium. The nitrogen is produced from the air. With the large amounts of
energy fertilizer plants can transform nitrogen into nitrogen compounds that
plants can easily assimilate. Phosphorus and potassium come from mines. The
world's supply of potassium will last for hundreds of years. The availability
of phosphorus is more limited. In some places the deposits are already completely
depleted.
The small Republic of
Nauru in the Pacific thrived on the export of phosphate ore during the last
century. For a short period, the country's GDP per capita was the second
highest in the world. Nouveau riche Islanders imported sports cars, including a
yellow Lamborghini - despite the fact that the road around the island is only
twelve miles long.
In recent years,
exports have plummeted. The easily accessible ore is gone, and the country is
in deep crisis. Similar scenarios are conceivable for the world at large. But
opinions differ about when phosphate ore will become scarce.
The reserves will
last for more than a hundred years, there is no doubt about that, says Michel
Prud'homme of the fertilizer industry's international trade association IFA
Paris.
He points out that
the increased demand for phosphate will lead to new investment in mining, which
in turn leads to increased production. This will cause falling prices of
phosphate in 2015, according to Michel Prud'homme, who is responsible for
questions of production and international trade at the IFA.
Jan-Olof Drangert and
his colleagues paint a darker picture. They have calculated that the total
world production of phosphate ore will peak in the year 2033. Thereafter decreases
in ore production will start. Some deposits lie deep under the sea. Others are
phosphate poor or mixed with high concentrations of toxic heavy metals such as
cadmium and uranium.
These gloomy forecasts
were based on data collected by the US Geological Survey, USGS, which estimates
world reserves of extractable phosphate ore to 16 billion tons. The real figure
is probably much higher, says Michel Prud'homme.
He has started a
project to deliver a new estimate of world reserves before the summer. One
difficulty is that many mines owned by fertilizer companies, for business
reasons may be reluctant to tell you how much ore that they have left.
The phosphorus issue
has many similarities with the discussion of peak oil - forecast that oil
production will reach a peak and then decline. Newly discovered reserves of oil
have repeatedly pushed the year of peak oil into the future, and critics say
the pessimists underestimate the market's capacity to promote innovations and
alternative energy sources. But an important point is different with phosphorus
compared to oil.
The element
phosphorus is essential to life. It forms the backbone of the DNA. Chemical
compounds containing phosphorus operates energy-consuming processes in all
living cells and fill a wide range of vital functions. It is absolutely
impossible to replace phosphorus with something else, says Dana Cordell.
She is researcher on
both the theme of water at Linköping University and the Institute for
Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia.
Recently, she presented a thesis about what the lack of phosphorus means for
the world's food supply.
Dana Cordell admits
that the exact prognosis of when the production of phosphorus decays may be
wrong. Other researchers have previously said that the decline would have
started already in 1989. But there seems to have been a temporary slowdown that
mainly depended on the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then the production
of phosphate ore has continued to increase.
Peak phosphor will
happen in about ten or twenty five years and the underlying problems are the
same. We need a dramatic change in the way we handle phosphorus, says Dana
Cordell.
Historically, manure
and other organic materials accounted for the largest increment of phosphorus
in the fields. In the 1840s came a supplement in the form of guano - droppings
from sea birds or cave live bats. The manure was discovered on the islands off
Peru. Merchant guano shipped to the Europe assets ran until the late 1800s.
Then phosphate ore sailed
up as a seemingly inexhaustible source. Since then, the ore gradually have
become increasingly important. Today, farmers spread over six times more
phosphate from mines than from the barns on their fields. The mining companies'
sales of phosphate have been estimated at tens of billions of dollars per year,
and 90 percent goes to the production of food.
In Europe and North
America more than half a century of intensive fertilization has saturated many
soils with nutrients. Therefore, small doses sufficient to replace phosphorus are
lost with every harvest.
Elsewhere, the urge
for phosphorus will increase. In 2050 the world will have over two billion more
mouths to feed, and large parts of Africa have phosphate poor soils. But the
biggest changes will occur in Asia, according to the UN agency for food and
agriculture, FAO. This is mainly due to China's and India's growing population
eating more and more meat. Meanwhile, large-scale cultivation of energy crops
is growing throughout the world. All this leads to the same conclusion: the
need for fertilizers containing phosphorus and other nutrients will increase
significantly in the future. Sulfur may also be in short supply, according to
some analysts.
Two years ago, the price of phosphorus rose sharply
from a relatively stable level. Several factors combined. High oil prices and
concerns about climate sparked the cultivation of energy crops. China - the
world's largest producer of phosphate ore - imposed high export taxes to
protect their access to fertilizer. In addition, the fertilizer industry for
several years invested too little in their facilities. Phosphate ore prices
have increased by more than 800 per cent in 18 months. Then prices started to
fall back.
The bubble resulted
in a few articles on phosphorus in the mass media and scientific journals. Arno
Rose Marin, a researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, believes that
the issue deserves far more attention than that. He has long sought to
stimulate debate about a looming shortage of phosphorus. It seems as if the
United Nations has not understood the problem. This is at least as important as
the climate, says Arno Rose Marin.
Already there are
international conflicts on phosphate ore. The known deposits are extremely
unevenly distributed. More than three quarters of reserves are located in four
countries: Morocco (including Western Sahara), China, Jordan and South Africa.
Some of the world's largest deposits are in Western Sahara, a former Spanish
colony which Morocco has occupied since 1975. This occupation has been very
profitable for Morocco, says Erik Hagen, who for many years has been covering
the Western Sahara on behalf of the Norwegian organization Norwatch.
He expects that Morocco
will export phosphate ore from Western Sahara to a value of over one billion
crowns this year. That is more than ten times what the EU pays Morocco to fish
off the northwest coast of Africa. Sweden was the only member state that voted against
the fisheries agreement. The Swedish government supports the right to
self-determination of the saharians. The Moroccans are abusing and torturing
suspected Sahrawi activists, and they end up in prison after unfair trials.
Nevertheless, Morocco
continue to export phosphate ore from Western Sahara on the world market. The
largest customer is the United States. The political significance of phosphorus
in this conflict will increase in pace with rising prices for phosphate ore,
says Erik Hagen.
Today's handling of
phosphorus also creates serious problems for the environment. Each ton
phosphate produced from phosphate rock produces approximately five tons of
gypsum as byproduct. The gypsum is difficult to use because it contains
radioactive substances from the ore, principally uranium and thorium. Therefore
harbors enormous amounts of gypsum in landfills, which in the worst case can
contaminate groundwater.
The phosphorus that
ends up in fields can cause a different type of problem: eutrophication. For
several decades it was considered that emission of nitrogen was the main cause
of runaway algae blooms and dead zones in the Baltic Sea. But since a few years
the focus has fallen on phosphorus. The largest single source is leaking from
fertilized fields.
The food we eat
contains only a fifth of the mined phosphorus. The rest is lost on the long
road from the mine to the fork. It should therefore be possible to economize
better. One way is to eat less meat. Carnivores consume more than twice as much
phosphorus as vegetarians, says Dana Cordell, who is a vegetarian. In her house
she has a urine-separating toilet and collect the urine in a tank outdoors for
later use as fertilizer. She also fertilize with compost from their dry toilet.
This type of management is hardly an option for the population in the major
cities. This eliminates large amounts of phosphorus and other nutrients from
the cycle.
One of the
environmental goal of the Swedish parlament is that at least 60 percent of the
total phosphorus in wastewater will be recycled to productive land by 2015. One
easy way to recycle phosphorus is to fertilize the fields with sludge from
sewage treatment plants. The problem is that the sludge also contains drug
residues, flame retardants, heavy metals and other toxins from both households
and industries.
The industry organization Swedish waters has led
efforts to develop a list of requirements, the sludge to be spread on fields.
The goal is that certified sludge should be acceptable from environmental and
health viewpoints. But opponents argue that the certification lull both farmers
and consumers into a false belief that the sludge is clean and safe.
There are alternative
ways to capture nutrients from wastewater. In sewage treatment, problems
sometimes arise when yellowish deposits of the mineral struvite clogs pipes and
pumps. The mineral contains nitrogen and phosphorus bound to magnesium and is
excellent as a fertilizer. Several treatment plants in the world are now
testing to precipitate struvite by pouring magnesium oxide in wastewater. It
works surprisingly well, says David Heldt who a few years ago technology tested
at Sjöstadsverket in Stockholm as part of their thesis at the Royal Institute
of Technology.
The advantage is that
the precipitated mineral is almost completely free from other contaminants
found in water. The disadvantage is that the method is pricey.
Rising prices of
phosphate ore will favor new ways to recycle nutrients and conserve phosphate
ore. Dana Cordell stresses that many different measures will be needed to save
the world from future phosphorus deficiency. The chances of success increase if
we realize that we are indeed facing a serious problem, she says.
Fashion Cordells
research was supported by the Australian Department of Education and the
Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists.
