{"id":98786,"date":"2019-11-19T15:42:43","date_gmt":"2019-11-19T23:42:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/peak-phosphorus"},"modified":"2019-11-19T15:42:43","modified_gmt":"2019-11-19T23:42:43","slug":"peak-phosphorus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2019\/11\/peak-phosphorus","title":{"rendered":"Peak phosphorus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/peak-phosphorus3.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Peak phosphorus<\/b> is a concept to describe the point in time when humanity reaches the maximum global production rate of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phosphorus\" title=\"Phosphorus\">phosphorus<\/a> as an industrial and commercial <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Raw_material\" title=\"Raw material\">raw material<\/a>. The term is used in an equivalent way to the better-known term <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_oil\" title=\"Peak oil\">peak oil<\/a>.<sup id=\u201d cite_ref-Cordell2009_2-0\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-Cordell2009-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup> The issue was raised as a debate on whether a \u201cpeak phosphorus\u201d was imminent or not around 2010, but was largely dismissed after <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/USGS\" class=\"\" title=\"USGS\">USGS<\/a> and other organizations increased the world estimates on available phosphorus resources.<sup id=\u201d cite_ref-Edixhoven2013_3-0\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-Edixhoven2013-3\">[3]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Phosphorus is a finite (limited) resource that is widespread in the Earth\u2019s crust and in living organisms but is relatively <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Scarcity\" title=\"Scarcity\">scarce<\/a> in concentrated forms, which are not evenly distributed across the Earth. The only cost-effective production method to date is the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mining\" title=\"Mining\">mining<\/a> of <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phosphorite\" title=\"Phosphorite\">phosphate rock<\/a>, but only a few countries have significant reserves of it. The top four are <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Morocco\" title=\"Morocco\">Morocco<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/China\" title=\"China\">China<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Algeria\" title=\"Algeria\">Algeria<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Syria\" title=\"Syria\">Syria<\/a>. Estimates for future production vary significantly depending on modelling and assumptions on extractable volumes, but it is inescapable that future production of phosphate rock will be heavily influenced by Morocco in the foreseeable future.<sup id=\u201d cite_ref-Walan2014_4-0\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-Walan2014-4\">[4]<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n<p>Means of commercial phosphorus production besides mining are few because the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phosphorus_cycle\" title=\"Phosphorus cycle\">phosphorus cycle<\/a> does not include significant gas-phase transport.<sup id=\u201d cite_ref-Neset_5-0\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-Neset-5\">[5]<\/a><\/sup> The predominant source of phosphorus in modern times is phosphate rock (as opposed to the guano that preceded it). According to some researchers, Earth\u2019s commercial and affordable phosphorus reserves are expected to be depleted in 50\u2013100 years and peak phosphorus to be reached in approximately 2030.<sup id=\u201d cite_ref-Cordell2009_2-1\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-Cordell2009-2\">[2]<\/a><\/sup><sup id=\u201d cite_ref-Lewis_6-0\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-Lewis-6\">[6]<\/a><\/sup> Others suggest that supplies will last for several hundreds of years.<sup id=\u201d cite_ref-ifdc.org_7-0\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-ifdc.org-7\">[7]<\/a><\/sup> As with the <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Predicting_the_timing_of_peak_oil\" title=\"Predicting the timing of peak oil\">timing of peak oil<\/a>, the question is not settled, and researchers in different fields regularly publish different estimates of the rock phosphate reserves.<sup id=\u201d cite_ref-Edixhoven_8-0\u201d class=\u201d reference\u201d><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Peak_phosphorus#cite_note-Edixhoven-8\">[8]<\/a><\/sup>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Peak phosphorus is a concept to describe the point in time when humanity reaches the maximum global production rate of phosphorus as an industrial and commercial raw material. The term is used in an equivalent way to the better-known term peak oil.[2] The issue was raised as a debate on whether a \u201cpeak phosphorus\u201d was [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":449,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,1635],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-98786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-futurism","category-materials"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/449"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98786\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}