Peak phosphorus will result in malnutrition
Already around the
year 2033 the world's production of phosphorus may 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
strong ingredient in world politics.
The world has become
dependent on cheap phosphate ore. This dependency could end in tragedy,
according to Jan-Olof Drangert, associate professor of water and sanitation at
Linköping University in Sweden. We need to change our habits. If we sit with
folded arms, we will suffer malnutrition. It's that simple, he says.
Phosphorus from mines
are included in all types of modern fertilizers. Since World War II cheap
phosphorus has 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.
In addition to
phosphorous the most common type of fertilizer also contain nitrogen and
potassium. Nitrogen is produced from the air. With 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 deposits are already depleted.
The small Republic of
Nauru in the Pacific thrived on exports 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. The country is in deep crisis. Similar scenarios are
conceivable in other countries. 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 this summer. One
difficulty is that many mines owned by fertilizer companies, for business
reasons are reluctant to tell you how much ore that they have left.
The phosphorus issue
has many similarities with 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 that
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 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 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 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 rose 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. Then small doses sufficient to replace phosphorus are lost
with every harvest. Elsewhere, the demand 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 populations 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 demand of fertilizers containing phosphorus
and other nutrients will increase significantly in the future.
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. Since then prices have 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 international
conflicts of phosphate ore have started. The known deposits are extremely
unevenly distributed. More than three quarters ofthe 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 in practice occupied since 1975. - Occupation
is 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 rock from Western Sahara at 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. The Swedish government supports the
right to self-determination for the west saharians and refers to a report on
the violations of human rights published by the Human Rights Watch organisation
two years ago. The report states that the Moroccan are secretly abusing and
torturing suspected Sahrawi activists, and they end up in prison after unfair
trials. Nevertheless, Morocco continues to ship out phosphate rock from Western
Sahara onto the world market. The largest customer is the United States. - The
political significance of phosphorus in this conflict will increase with rising
prices for phosphate ore, says Erik Hagen.
Today's handling of
phosphorus also creates serious environmental problems. Each ton of 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 landfills in Marocco harbor
enormous amounts of gypsum, which in the worst case can contaminate
groundwater.
The phosphorus that
ends up in fields may cause a different type of problem: eutrophication. For
several decades it was considered that emissions of nitrogen was the main cause
of runaway algae blooms and dead zones in the Baltic Sea. But a few years ago
the focus fell on phosphorus. The largest single source is leaching from
fertilized fields. The food we eat contains only a fifth of phosphorus mined.
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 collects the urine in a tank outdoors for later use as fertilizer. She also
fertilizes with compost from their dry toilet.
This type of
management is hardly an option for populations in major cities. It reduces wate
of large amounts of phosphorus and other nutrients in the cycle. One of the
environmental goals of the Swedish parlament is to recycle at least 60 percent
of the total phosphorus in wastewater to productive land by 2015. One easy way
to recycle phosphorus is to fertilize 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.
Swedish waterindustry
organizations have developed a list of requirements to get the sludge spread on
fields. The goal is to have certified sludge acceptable from an environmental
and health viewpoint. But opponents argue that certification will lull both
farmers and consumers into falsely believing 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 tested this technology
in Stockholm as part of their tests 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 expensive. Rising prices
of phosphate ore will favor new ways to recycle nutrients and conserve
phosphate ore. Dana Cordell stresses that several different measures will be
needed to supply the world with phosphorus into the future. - The chances of
success increase if we realize that we are indeed facing a serious problem.
You have just read an
article from the journal Research & Progress, written in april 2010.
You may also be interested in this article:
and maybe this one:
http://axiom1b.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-population-explosion-worlds.html
Todde november 2015
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