{"id":54371,"date":"2020-07-25T10:19:48","date_gmt":"2020-07-25T15:19:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54371"},"modified":"2020-07-25T10:19:51","modified_gmt":"2020-07-25T15:19:51","slug":"phosphate-all-hopes-rest-on-morocco-with-75-of-remaining-reserves","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=54371","title":{"rendered":"Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"http:\/\/energyskeptic.com\/2020\/phosphate-production-and-depletion\/\">Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"425\" height=\"371\" src=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/energyskeptic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/phosphorous-conveyer-belt-61-miles-long.jpg?resize=425%2C371\" alt=\"This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is phosphorous-conveyer-belt-61-miles-long.jpg\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Source: The world\u2019s longest conveyor belt system. This record setting conveyor belt system can even be seen from space. atlasobscura.com. A winding system of interlinked belts, the extra-long conveyance system transports phosphate ore from a mining operation 61 miles to the sea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Preface<\/strong>. Phosphate is absolutely essential for high agricultural production, one of the \u201cbig 3\u201d nutrients that boosts maximum crop growth (along with nitrogen and potassium).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It\u2019s estimated that Morocco has of 75-85% of phosphate reserves that might last for 300-400 years.&nbsp; But that may not be correct, as Walan (2014) points out in the paper below.&nbsp; And even if true, Moroccan extraction can be disrupted by war, lack of water, energy shortages, and the difficulty of removing cadmium which is very toxic to plants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>China is the world\u2019s largest producer of phosphate rock (48% of the world\u2019s supply in 2013). It also uses a large amount of phosphorus to sustain its growing population. But China\u2019s reserves of phosphorus, a key element for growing food, could be exhausted within the next 35 years if the country maintains its current production rate (Liu 2016).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inevitably, the combination of rising cost and declining oil will force phosphate production to peak and then decline, even in Morocco (Bardi 2009).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Peak Phosphorus in the news<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jaere. 2020.&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2020-02-peak-phosphorus-sewage-valuable-muck.html\">\u2018Peak phosphorus\u2019 is upon us, and sewage is valuable muck<\/a>. Phys.org<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Mohr S.H., et al. 2013.&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/philica.com\/display_article.php?article_id=380\">Projections of future phosphorus production<\/a>. Philica Article number 380.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>***<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Walan, P., et al. 2014.\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.diva-portal.org\/smash\/record.jsf?pid=diva2%3A770437&amp;dswid=-8236\">Phosphate rock production and depletion: Regional disaggregated modeling and global implications<\/a>. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 93: 178-187.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Excerpts:<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/energyskeptic.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/phosphate-depletion-predictions.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Table 1. Main features of previous studies on phosphate rock depletion and production.<br>* Most countries\u2019 reserves will be depleted in less than 100 years.<br>** Reserve base is included in the highest reserve estimations<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves Source: The world\u2019s longest conveyor belt system. This record setting conveyor belt system can even be seen from space. atlasobscura.com. A winding system of interlinked belts, the extra-long conveyance system transports phosphate ore from a mining operation 61 miles to the sea. Preface. Phosphate [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[11836,130,11859,12398,13059],"class_list":["post-54371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-alice-friedemann","tag-china","tag-energy-skeptic","tag-morocco","tag-phosphate"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54371"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54372,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54371\/revisions\/54372"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}