Audacious Academia: A world without phosphate

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extinction6@reddit

Predictions differ as to when the world’s phosphate supplies will run out. Some say it will last another 345 years; others say 100.

It will be +4.0 C by 2100??

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boomaDooma@reddit

I classify this problem as "not in my lifetime".

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A problem I see with these types of articles is that it never poses the question of production vs distribution. Yes, phosphate may reach a crisis point and food may rise in price. But is it because we just have less phosphate or is it because the people in power, for example in the United States the farm owners (not to confuse them with farm workers), do not want to look for alternatives because 1) there is no political insentive because they're getting more or less bailed out by governments to keep them in alliance with certain political parties, and 2) now that they're not seeing the benefits, but are in a double bind of sorts because of the politial entanglement they find themselves in, simply double down and make the situation worse.

Again, it seems to me that growing food and meeting food demands is not the main problem, but rather the socio-political and economial structure doesn't allow for the optimal conditions for better distribution of goods and resources; and one might say "but phosphate is a limited resource", yeah and so is everything else, that's why - and maybe I'm wrong here - we have supply and storage chains. The question concerning prices and lack of food is not on the side of production, but distribution. If the structure doesn't change, then the content, no matter how good, never reaches it's objective, i. e. solving the phosphate shortage.

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RobertPaulsen1992@reddit

A rather short-sighted article. First, as others have pointed out, an increasingly erratic climate will put a swift end to the form of grain monocrop agriculture that has sustained civilizations for the past 8,000 years. Second, problems start long before phosphorus runs out, but as soon as easily-accessible reserves run out. It also fails to include the reliance on diesel-powered megamachinery to mine phosphate rock, and fuel the entire supply chain. Third, the proposed "solution" is - unsurprisingly - more technology. Utterly delusional at this point.

But hey, human urine and feces are pretty high in all macronutrients, including phosphorus. It's just a matter of repairing the nutrient cycle and let it become, well, cyclic once again. Human waste contains roughly the exact amount of nutrients needed to feed crops that, in turn, feed the human. It's all pretty simple, actually.

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TheRationalPsychotic@reddit

Mainstream news feeds people Ragebait and Misery but when it comes to The Planet the message is: Don't worry and keep consuming.

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Dragoncat_3_4@reddit

Do you wanna get hepatitis, rotavirus, Salmonella and Campylobacter in your food? Because this is how you get them in your food.

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RobertPaulsen1992@reddit

Well, I grow my own food and I've been using composted humanure (with charcoal powder and cuttings/trimmings for carbon) for over a decade - and it hasn't gotten me sick. I think it's pretty safe if you know what you're doing. And composting is fairly simple, to be honest.

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Dragoncat_3_4@reddit

Or you're just lucky one of those crunchy raw-milk-anti-modern-medicine schmucks hasn't shat in your compost yet.

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RobertPaulsen1992@reddit

Oh yeah, I'm very picky regarding who gets to shit into my compost. No city people, for instance. Too many chemicals and drugs in their systems.

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Livid_Village4044@reddit

Human crap requires a very HOT compost to kill the pathogens, or you can get very sick using it as crop fertilizer. See my comment further down.

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RobertPaulsen1992@reddit

Or very long composting periods. There's a fascinating book called The Humanure Handbook that contains everything one needs to know about the topic.

I live in the tropics, and here any excrement is broken down and composted incredibly fast.

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Livid_Village4044@reddit

I have the book and have read it.

The local ag extension recommends even hotter compost, and doesn't recommend it at all for growing food. My compost piles haven't been nearly hot enough.

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NaiveTrust345@reddit

My preference is for a couple pit outhouses near lots of nut trees.

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Jlocke98@reddit

The problem with human waste is micro plastics and PFAS

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Nom-De-Gruyere@reddit

Sure. But they are in the wider environment anyway. Using human waste gives you a concentrated waste stream in which you could do something to remove them. If you are already processing the waste into fertilizer then adding some steps to mitigate these things could be possible.

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Jlocke98@reddit

You speak like someone without a first principles understanding of how chemistry or water treatment works. There's a lot of peer reviewed research out there, no need for techno copium

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ChromaticStrike@reddit

I'm pretty sure a proper water treatment station deals with micro plastic from used water. The problem is that there's so much plastic thrown in the nature that they are there anyway. But if we talk about human waste treatment, dilluting it in water then going into a treatment station would deal with that specific problem.

NOW there's an additional problem no talked that is not dealt with, drug. You can find residue of drugs in urine and all and I don't think those are getting dealt with.

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Jlocke98@reddit

I'm talking about micro plastics in the sludge that would be used as fertilizer, not the effluent

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ChromaticStrike@reddit

Did you stop at the first sentence?

Your first comment talks about plastic in human waste, then you berate the replier, so I picked the first comment and tell you this is not a problem.

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Jlocke98@reddit

You mentioned:

"dilluting it in water then going into a treatment station would deal with that specific problem.."

You're just glossing over any actual details about what process could be used to clean up the sludge in an economically feasible fashion.

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ChromaticStrike@reddit

Anything you say dude, a detail that constitute a full comment of... One line.

Heh.

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OldTimberWolf@reddit

Wastewater treatment engineer here. Microplastics are partially removed in modern wastewater treatment plants, depending on the level of sophistication of the treatment plant.

Nanoplastics are generally not. Need reverse osmosis, incredibly expensive to build and operate.

There’s PFAS in both liquid effluent and biosolids. GENERALLY the PFAS ends up in the biosolids, but it varies.

Treating for PFAS in either liquid effluent or biosolids is also incredibly expensive to build and operate.

And just because micro and nano plastics and PFAS are widely distributed does not mean it makes sense to apply in ways that it makes it into our food supply.

Very difficult problems with very expensive solutions. Easy to say we should do this or that, but the rate paying or tax paying public will have to pay double or more than they do now to address.

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Livid_Village4044@reddit

Any advice on composting my own crap? It's full of N-P-K.

You need a HOT compost to kill the pathogens, and mine have not gotten nearly hot enough, so I put the crap down the septic. You can get dysentery and other fun things from your own crap.

I do use my piss, at least the concentrated piss, which is up to 15% N. Diluted 5-1 in the compost, and 10-1 directly on crops.

Wood ash for K, from my wood stove, and dried, ground deer bone for P. I want my supply chains inside my homestead to the extent possible.

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OldTimberWolf@reddit

You can get some lime and do lime stabilization, but resulting pH will be high and need to be brought back down or factored into soil chemistry

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Livid_Village4044@reddit

Lime in the compost, if adding my crap?

I have forest soil, which was 4.5 pH, I over-limed it to 7.5 pH. I then added a small amount of aluminum sulfate, but haven't had the pH tested since. The parent material is quartz with some shale. Very old since this is in Appalachia (southwest Virginia).

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OldTimberWolf@reddit

Lime your crap before you compost, get a better kill of pathogens.

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Livid_Village4044@reddit

My thanks.

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Livid_Village4044@reddit

Wood ash, as you must know, is up to 20% K, but raises pH. So far, I've just been using imported organic fertilizer and my own piss.

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RobertPaulsen1992@reddit

I was thinking more about small-scale local applications in the form of compost toilets. I wouldn't use the shit of city people in my garden, no offense.

If you're a bit conscious about exposure to pollutants (and don't live next to a refinery or landfill), the microplastic/PFAS load shouldn't be too high.

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propargyl@reddit

Australia's Barossa Valley and McLaren Vale wines use sewerage effluent. SA Water claims that 1 in every 3 litres of effluent is reused for agriculture and parks.

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youcantexterminateme@reddit

Yes. Probably disproven but the fall of rome has been theorized to be caused by this

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NyriasNeo@reddit

"The article estimate that we have at least 100 years left of phosphate to mine."

Lol .. few people are going to worry about 100 years. Most cannot look past next week's food and next month's rent.

Talking about 100 years, where not even our children is going to be alive, is a sure way of making people care LESS, not more.

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Pretend-Bat9620@reddit (OP)

This way of looking at things is the very reason your children may experience starvation. It isn't the cope you think it is.

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Davidat0r@reddit

He's not saying he doesn't care. He's merely pointing out what is basically an established fact of our society.

We're one coal sack away from going into a climate cataclysm and yet we keep burning fossil, we doubled up our plastic production... I mean, we are THAT stupid, yes.

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NyriasNeo@reddit

Who says it is coping? I am just pointing out a fact of our society. And yes, this is the main reason why we are in this mess in the first place. Why do you think "drill baby drill" won?

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youcantexterminateme@reddit

So where does it go? I guess farmed animals and human shit. Or washed off into the sea?

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StatementBot@reddit

The following submission statement was provided by /u/Pretend-Bat9620:

This article talks about the limited supply of phosphate rock for producing fertilizer. Phosphate is the second most important nutrient for plants, and unlike nitrogen, cannot be extracted from the atmosphere. This is related to collapse because when we run out of phosphate rock, without a replacement, agricultural yields could drop and food would become more scarce and expensive.

The article estimate that we have at least 100 years left of phosphate to mine.

To extent the supply, researchers are trying to find phosphate efficient plants. But we may have bred this out because these plants might not have maximized yields.

Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1sc0k02/audacious_academia_a_world_without_phosphate/oe7ftxk/

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Pretend-Bat9620@reddit (OP)

This article talks about the limited supply of phosphate rock for producing fertilizer. Phosphate is the second most important nutrient for plants, and unlike nitrogen, cannot be extracted from the atmosphere. This is related to collapse because when we run out of phosphate rock, without a replacement, agricultural yields could drop and food would become more scarce and expensive.

The article estimate that we have at least 100 years left of phosphate to mine.

To extent the supply, researchers are trying to find phosphate efficient plants. But we may have bred this out because these plants might not have maximized yields.