8/13/2019
Jeremy-Grantham-Starving-for-Facts--The-American-Magazine Dec12
1/3
By Vaclav SmilWednesday, December 5, 2012
Filed under: Science & Technology
Jeremy Grantham, a well-known presence in the
financial world, recently published a World View
column in the journal Nature in which he concludes
that, simply, we are running out of almost all
commodities whose consumption sustains modern
civilization. There is nothing new about such claims,
and since the emergence of a vocal global peak oil
movement during the late 1990s, many other minerals
have been added to the endangered list. Indeed, thereis now a
book calledPeak Everything. What makes
Granthams column published under the alarmist
headline Be Persuasive. Be Brave. Be Arrested (If Necessary)
worth noticing, and
deconstructing, is that he puts his claims in terms more
suitable for tabloids than for one of the
worlds oldest and most prestigious scientific weekly
magazines.
His direst example is the impending shortage of two fertilizers:
phosphorus (phosphate) and
potassium (potash). These two elements cannot be made, cannot be
substituted, are necessary to
grow all life forms, and are mined and depleted. Its a scary set
of statements. What happens
when these fertilizers run out is a question I cant get
satisfactorily answered and, believe me, I
have tried. Well, he could have tried just a bit harder: an
Internet search would have led him, inmere seconds, to World
Phosphate Rock Reserves and Resources, a study published in 2010
by
the International Fertilizer Development Center (IFDC) and
funded by the U.S. Agency for
International Development.
This detailed assessment of the worlds phosphate reserves (that
are the part of a wider category
of resources that is recoverable with existing techniques and at
acceptable cost) concluded that
they are adequate to produce fertilizer for the next 300 to 400
years. As with all mineral resource
appraisals (be they of crude oil or rare earths), the studys
conclusions can be criticized and
questioned, and the statement by the Global Phosphorus Research
Initiative is perhaps the best
my Grantham, Starving for Facts The American Magazine
http://www.american.com/archive/2012/december/jeremy-granth
12/9/2012
8/13/2019
Jeremy-Grantham-Starving-for-Facts--The-American-Magazine Dec12
2/3
document of that kind. But even the most conservative
interpretation of IFDCs assessment shows
that phosphates have a reserve/production ratio well in excess
of 100 years, higher than that of
many other critical mineral resources.
Grantham could have also checked the standard, and the most
often quoted, sourcebooks on the
worlds mineral resources, Mineral Commodity Summaries, published
annually by the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS). In the latest edition, he would have
found that the USGS made
significant revisions to its phosphate rock reserves data for
Morocco, Russia, Algeria, Senegal, and
Syria, and that it now puts the global reserve/production ratio
at about 370 years. Or he could haveconsulted the materials put out
by the International Fertilizer Industry Association, whose
members
include many of the worlds most prominent fertilizer producers,
traders, and shippers. The
association (emphasis in the original) does not believe that
peak phosphorus is a pressing
issue, or that phosphate rock depletion is imminent.
Nevertheless, it believes that efforts to
minimize phosphorus losses to the environment and optimize
phosphorus use should be
encouraged.
And that is precisely as it should be, because wasteful use of
all kinds of fertilizers is common and
optimizing the applications brings substantial monetary and
environmental rewards (phosphates
are a major cause of aquatic eutrophication, their worst effects
are persistent dead zones in manycoastal areas around the world).
Larger gains in reducing phosphate applications could be made
by
moderating typical per capita meat consumption, and a great
amount of the element can be
recovered from waste. In all Western countries, most fertilizers
are now applied to feed not food
crops, and hence moderating the current high rates of meat
consumption (commonly in excess of
100 kg per capita) would reduce the amount of needed fertilizer.
Such cuts would also have
environmental and health benefits.
An even more important option especially given the facts that
much of modern meat, milk, and
egg production is done in a concentrated manner, and that half
of the worlds population lives in
cities is now available thanks to advances in phosphorus reuse
from manures and municipal
wastes. Grantham could have talked to many experts in this
flourishing field, or could have simplyconsulted the SCOPE
Newsletter, which reports, several times every year, the latest
scientific and
commercial achievements regarding phosphorus recovery. In the
latest issue of this newsletter he
would have also learned that the world has, at the current rate
of consumption, about 600 years of
minable potassium reserves.
Grantham cannot dismiss all of this as just usual propaganda put
out by the fertilizer industry. That
a financier and asset manager whose expertise does not include
resource geology, soil science,
plant science, or agronomy comes to only one conclusion, namely
that the use of fertilizers
must be drastically reduced in the next 2040 years or we will
begin to starve, is as wrong as it is
understandable. Clearly, he was after sensational headlines and,
indeed, in his column he implores
scientists to engage in overstatement and to be arrested (if
necessary) in order to call attention tothe imminent perils he
describes. That the worlds leading scientific journal prints such
tabloid talk
is harder to comprehend. Do we not have science precisely in
order to provide us with the best
available evidence so we can understand the real challenges and
make well-informed decisions to
pursue the most responsible and the most effective
solutions?
Vaclav Smil does interdisciplinary research in the fields of
energy, environmental and
population change, food production and nutrition, technical
innovation, risk assessment,
and public policy.
my Grantham, Starving for Facts The American Magazine
http://www.american.com/archive/2012/december/jeremy-granth
12/9/2012
