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posted by martyb on Friday February 21 2020, @05:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the where-there's-muck,-there's-money dept.

Phys.org:

According to the online news agency ABC Nyheter in Norway, the phosphorous crisis is perhaps the least well-known emergency in the world today. The Norwegian research news website forskning.no says that many scientists are warning of a state of "peak phosphorus," comparable to the expression "peak oil."

[...] "Phosphorous is a finite resource, not only physically, but also politically," says Helness. "Most of it is found in the western Sahara occupied by Morocco, and in China. So, in political terms, it is desirable to identify alternative sources," he says.

Phosphorous is common in sewage water, and the aim of the project is to recover it for use as fertilizer. Currently, a sludge residue that remains after the cleaning of wastewater is used for spreading on fields to improve soil quality.

Save the sweet, sweet night soil. It is precious unto them.


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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 21 2020, @01:49PM (5 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 21 2020, @01:49PM (#960669) Journal

    The question is, where does reprocessing sewage into rich fertilizer fall on that spectrum?

    There must be some obstacle, cost or regulation, because one doesn't need to hype this as a crisis, if the scheme is straightforward and profitable.

  • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday February 21 2020, @05:19PM (4 children)

    by Immerman (3985) on Friday February 21 2020, @05:19PM (#960731)

    Probably. However, the modern (last few centuries) western aversion to using human waste as a fertilizer might well be enough all on its own. Given the choice, would you want to at food grown in human manure? Our culture has adopted an extreme anti-microbe mindset, despite increasing evidence that it's actually harming our health.

    There was probably good historical reason for that aversion - sewage is rich in microbial pathogens, germ theory didn't exist yet, and as populations exploded and farming centralized (i.e. most communities eat lots of food grown by other communities that don't share lots of other disease vectors with them) using human manure became a dangerous disease-transmitting vector. We could do it safely and effectively with modern knowledge and technology (heck, just cooking the sewage would render it safe - chemical contaminants notwithstanding) , but when's the last time the question was seriously revisited?

    Breaking mindsets is often a much larger problem than technological or economic hurdles. Consider eating insects - they're and extremely efficient and nutritious food source with a huge advantage over other meat sources in terms of environmental, ethical, bacterial, economic, etc. costs. It's already common among most the world's population, and many species are even considered delicacies... but just see what sort of reactions you get to the idea in the western world. Despite advocates trying for decades, you still can't pick up ground locust at your corner grocery store, much less any forms that make it more obvious what you're eating.

    As for a crisis - if we're reaching the limits of the cheap-and-easy phosphorous sources, then we do indeed have a problem on our hands. Best case scenario, food gets more expensive as we have to start getting phosphorous from more expensive sources - just as "peak oil" has driven up the price enough that we now mine hydrocarbons from tar sands and other such economically and environmentally expensive sources.

    And that's likely to mean that a lot of borderline sources that haven't been attractive are going to become a lot more so. And if the aversion is psychological rather than technical or economic? Well, suddenly growing dollar signs make a compelling argument.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by nitehawk214 on Friday February 21 2020, @06:40PM (2 children)

      by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday February 21 2020, @06:40PM (#960771)

      The problem is that pathogens that can infect humans live in human waste products. The waste products of animals tend not to harbor those things.

      There have been plenty of Hepatitis outbreaks from vegetables imported from countries where they shit in the fields.

      There probably is a way to treat human waste and convert it safely, but it probably is not currently cost effective to do so.

      --
      "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh
      • (Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday February 22 2020, @03:11AM

        by Immerman (3985) on Saturday February 22 2020, @03:11AM (#960917)

        Heat is excellent for sterilization. You think cooking sewage is really dramatically more expensive than mining phosphorous, synthesizing it into a bio-accessible form, and shipping it around the world?

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2020, @04:46AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 22 2020, @04:46AM (#960938)

        Last time I asked our honeywagon what they did with the stuff, he said they partially treat it at their facility and then sell the liquid and solid products to different companies. If I remember what he told me correctly, they told him that it is a minimum of 1 year of treatment, composting, and strict monitoring until the solids left at the end are considered safe enough to sell to their downstream companies.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday February 22 2020, @01:48AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday February 22 2020, @01:48AM (#960894) Journal

      Given the choice, would you want to at food grown in human manure?

      Sure. To be honest, I probably already eat some food grown with human manure, they just haven't gotten around to telling me that. And most of my plant-based food probably has help from animal manure.