Good News For People On Dialysis

[Paul]

  Just watching an old episode of QI (TV celebrity panel game) on Dave (yes, in Britain we have a TV station called "Dave") and they had a question about urinating on tomatoes. Turns out the reason that this is a good idea is that the world is running out of phosphorous.

So let us all look gladly towards the day when it is all gone, so that we can throw away our blockers and eat a few of the foods that are currently forbidden to us!

WooHoo!

     

[Michael Murphy]

Problem is no phosphorus will kill you as surely as too much phosphorus.

[Paul]

I wasn't being serious, but you raise a good point. I have no doubt some scientist has calculated how long it will be before all the phosphorus is gone. So that is exactly how long life on earth has left to exist.

[Charlie B53]

I doubt that the phosporus is 'Gone', merely changed into another chemical form not as readily available.

Here in Mid-Missouri we see the farmers adding chemicals to the ground to improve crops.  They have some pretty specialized trucks, pretty big ones, tankers with huge flotation tires, and a wide row of crazy hollow 'plows' in back.  These things drive across the fields raking these hollow plows through the ground all the while injecting 'liquids' into the soil.  Sort of subsurface watering with these chemical solutions.  Adding whatever it is to the soil that the next crop needs to improve it's production.

Pretty neat!

Then again, some fields are left 'fallow', others are planted with something to grow, not for harvest, but to be tilled back into the soil.  That plant itself becoming the nutrient for the next cash crop.

There is a whole lot to agriculture that this simple Mechanic will never know.

[Paul]

Yeah but the reason the show gave for urinating on tomatoes was to fertilize the ground with the phosphorus in the urine (probably won't work with my urine) because the phosphorus they use in those chemical fertilizes you speak of soon won't be available (soon is a relative term, not sure if he meant it in terms of the human lifespan, mankind's existence, or the life of the planet).

[Simon Dog]

The title of this thread is an oxymoron.

[Paul]

Yeah but the reason the show gave for urinating on tomatoes was to fertilize the ground with the phosphorus in the urine (probably won't work with my urine).

Just thought: Those of us on blockers should probably poop on the tomatoes.   

[Michael Murphy]

Actually I looked up the study and the solution may be the extraction of phosphorus from animal dung which holds more phosphorus.  There is also more in the ground phosphorus but it is mixed with cadmium making it currently not useful as fertilizer.
A refining process would need to be developed for the creation of pure phosphorus.

[Paul]

Well, I'm guessing it will be expensive to break down cadmium phosphate into its constituent parts and remove all the cadmium. Particularly as you have to be certain you have removed all the cadmium, as it is seriously toxic and a carcinogen, so if it doesn't poison you outright, it will get you with cancer. So $20 per cabbage anyone? Corn, $30 a cob? Let's hope they start allowing us to eat plants grown in animal poop again, the worst you can get from that is a nasty disease.

Not to oversell the dangers of cadmium, but it is a long time since I passed chemistry at college, and I checked on Google to make sure I was not confusing it with another element. Google made it sound even more scary than I remembered.

(quote:Google) "Cadmium is a toxic metal that occurs naturally in the environment. Humans are exposed to cadmium mostly through plant-derived food. There is no safe margin of cadmium exposure and the need to lower human exposure is desperate. Cadmium produces a number of health problems and is a known carcinogen."

(quote:Global Heeling Center) "Cadmium is of no use to the human body and is toxic even at low levels. The negative effects of cadmium on the body are numerous and can impact nearly all systems in the body, including cardiovascular, reproductive, the kidneys, eyes, and even the brain. Cadmium affects blood pressure. Cadmium affects prostate function and testosterone levels. Cadmium induces bone damage Exposure to cadmium can affect renal and dopaminergic systems in children."

And on top of all that, it gives you cancer!

Anyone want to put it on your tomatoes?   

[Michael Murphy]

A refining process would remove the cadmium and just leave the phosphorus.  It is a process that will be developed as the price of phosphorus rises the cost of refining becomes more cost effective.

[Charlie B53]

As long as we have people, and cows, we will have poop and the resulting fertilizers.

I don't know about today but historically many areas of very populated Asia is was quite common for PaPaSan to squat and poop in his garden.

Monroe Washington Prison Honor Farm Diary collects the cow poop and fills a methane digester.  The methane produced feeds a diesel generator making ALL the electricity for the Dairy, and the Prison Honor Farm, AND the excess is sold to the local electrical utility company.  The resulting fertilizer is used on the fields to enhance the grass growth.

Many local sewer districts have fertilizer as a by-product of sewage treatment.  As the solids cannot be discharged into the rivers.

Poop happens, everywhere.

[Michael Murphy]

Yes it does which is why I watch where I step.  However it’s a closed system, in other words as the output is created  some of the input is lost.  Not all would be collected, some would be absorbed in the animals body and be disposed out of the system.  While this collection will work for a while ultimately additional source of phosphate must be found. 

[Charlie B53]

I think I'm beginning to catch on.  The phosphorus in the animal flesh that we then eat and need to take our binders being removed from the soil.

Which is why our 'fertilizer, containing some percentage of the, is re-introduced to that same soil.  Hopefully making the phos go full circle.  Or at least a larger percentage of it.

Maybe we need to think about extracting some things from sea water.  Isn't that where most everything ends up?