WEBVTT - Special Episode: Dan Egan & The Devil’s Element 0:00:38.320 --> 0:00:47.319 Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this podcast Will 0:00:47.400 --> 0:00:51.000 Kill You. You are listening to the latest episode in our 0:00:51.080 --> 0:00:55.160 tp w k Y book Club series. In this series, 0:00:55.400 --> 0:00:58.880 which is one of my favorite things about making the podcast, 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.360 we interview authors of popular science and medicine books, asking 0:01:03.400 --> 0:01:06.800 them all sorts of questions, from how did you get 0:01:06.800 --> 0:01:10.119 the idea to write this book? To what are your 0:01:10.160 --> 0:01:12.520 thoughts on the show? The last of us like how 0:01:12.560 --> 0:01:16.120 accurate is it? And a whole lot in between. 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And one last thing before 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:19.880 I introduce this week's book, and that is if you're 0:02:20.000 --> 0:02:23.639 enjoying the podcast, please take a moment to rate, review, 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:28.000 and subscribe. It really helps us out. Okay, now on 0:02:28.200 --> 0:02:31.560 to the book of the week. Environmental journalist and award 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.920 winning author Dan Egan joins me to chat about his 0:02:35.040 --> 0:02:38.960 recent book, The Devil's Element, Phosphorus and a World out 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.440 of Balance. I'd wager that for most of us, phosphorus 0:02:43.520 --> 0:02:48.120 doesn't factor into our everyday thoughts or vocabulary. But this 0:02:48.280 --> 0:02:51.720 element holds in it the key to life as we 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:56.160 know it and thus the power to ensure our continued 0:02:56.200 --> 0:03:00.480 survival or map the path of our ultimate col lapse. 0:03:01.160 --> 0:03:04.520 And that fork in the road is rapidly approaching where 0:03:04.560 --> 0:03:09.040 we either decide to deal with the massive phosphorus imbalance 0:03:09.120 --> 0:03:12.520 we have or just let the clock run out and 0:03:12.560 --> 0:03:16.960 see what happens. Not to be dramatic or anything, but seriously, 0:03:17.000 --> 0:03:19.040 this is not a problem that's just going to go 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:23.600 away without intervention. But what is this problem? Like, what 0:03:23.639 --> 0:03:28.760 do I mean by phosphorus imbalance? Great question. Phosphorus is 0:03:28.760 --> 0:03:32.240 an element found in all living things. It helps to 0:03:32.240 --> 0:03:36.520 make up our DNA, our bones atp and without it 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:40.920 life would not be possible. As a resource, phosphorus is 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:45.440 hugely important as a fertilizer and is widely used around 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:50.000 the globe in agricultural settings, helping us maintain the enormous 0:03:50.080 --> 0:03:53.880 global food supply we need. Over use of the element 0:03:54.000 --> 0:03:58.520 has led to this paradox where over exploitation of phosphorus 0:03:58.600 --> 0:04:01.800 for use as a fertilizer is leading to a global 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.600 shortage at the same time that too much phosphorus an 0:04:05.640 --> 0:04:11.000 agricultural runoff, is polluting waterways, promoting toxic algal blooms that 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:16.680 have tremendous implications for ecosystem and human health. When we 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.160 think of wars fought over natural resources past and potential, 0:04:21.720 --> 0:04:25.520 oil or water probably springs to mind before phosphorus would, 0:04:26.000 --> 0:04:29.840 But that might just be the future we're facing. In 0:04:29.880 --> 0:04:33.479 The Devil's Element, Egan takes readers through the past, present, 0:04:33.560 --> 0:04:37.720 and possible future of phosphorus. He shares the fascinating story 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.040 of when phosphorus was first discovered and how it earned 0:04:41.040 --> 0:04:45.040 its devilish nickname. He tells the tale of Peru's quote 0:04:45.120 --> 0:04:49.120 unquote inexhaustible guano islands and the lessons we should have 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:53.040 learned from them. He explores the impacts phosphorus has had 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:56.760 on the Great Lakes and traces the increasingly frequent algal 0:04:56.839 --> 0:05:01.160 blooms in fresh water across North America to ethanol production 0:05:01.360 --> 0:05:04.719 in the Midwest, and he ends the book by turning 0:05:04.760 --> 0:05:09.880 to possible futures determined by our relationship with phosphorus. What 0:05:10.120 --> 0:05:13.880 might happen if we fail to correct this phosphorus imbalance 0:05:13.960 --> 0:05:18.000 and permit its continued over use. How can we begin 0:05:18.160 --> 0:05:21.839 to bring the scales back into balance and give ourselves 0:05:21.920 --> 0:05:26.279 more time to recapture phosphorus from the most polluted areas. 0:05:27.200 --> 0:05:30.880 The Devil's Element is an eye opening and gripping read 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.560 that will have you wondering how on earth we're not 0:05:34.880 --> 0:05:39.159 all talking about phosphorus all the time. So let's get 0:05:39.160 --> 0:06:09.279 to talking about phosphorus right after this break. Dan, thank 0:06:09.320 --> 0:06:12.400 you so much for being here today. The Devil's Element 0:06:12.640 --> 0:06:15.839 was such a fantastic and eye opening read and I 0:06:15.880 --> 0:06:21.880 am so excited to dig into this overlooked but incredibly important, essential, 0:06:22.040 --> 0:06:23.960 really element, phosphorus. 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:25.800 I'm happy to be here. Yeah. 0:06:25.839 --> 0:06:30.040 So, starting right at the beginning, what is phosphorus, Where 0:06:30.080 --> 0:06:31.800 is it found? What do we use it for? 0:06:32.800 --> 0:06:36.760 Well, phosphorus is an element, but it's not really found 0:06:37.120 --> 0:06:41.560 as as an isolated element in nature. It's always bound 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.000 with oxygen atoms to create phosphates, and phosphates are really 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.960 the backbone of our whole food system. It is a 0:06:50.000 --> 0:06:54.200 critical fertilizer that humans have become addicted to over the 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.760 past two hundred years, and it's worked miracles on the 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:01.200 crop lands. But the problem is we only have so 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:03.120 much of it, and we're burning through it at an 0:07:03.160 --> 0:07:07.719 unsustainable pace, and that's having that's gonna have consequences on 0:07:07.760 --> 0:07:11.080 our food supply in the coming years and decades, decades, 0:07:11.120 --> 0:07:14.160 I would say, but it has immedia consequences right now 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.080 because we're using it over using it to such an 0:07:17.080 --> 0:07:20.200 extent that we're following our waters. Because it's not good 0:07:20.240 --> 0:07:23.320 at just growing you know, soybeans and kernels of corn. 0:07:23.400 --> 0:07:26.680 It also when it hits water, grows algae and increasingly 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.760 it's it's spawning outbreaks of toxic algae. It's like we 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:35.160 turned on a gusher and we can't really turn it 0:07:35.200 --> 0:07:38.320 off now without you know, causing a lot of pain 0:07:38.360 --> 0:07:42.440 and suffering across the planet. At the same time, we 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:46.040 should be able to control the flow much better to 0:07:46.120 --> 0:07:49.080 eliminate the downside of phosphorus and enhance the upside. And 0:07:49.120 --> 0:07:51.320 the upside is it puts food on our tables. 0:07:52.640 --> 0:07:56.520 How did you first become interested in phosphorus and these 0:07:56.600 --> 0:08:00.240 like this phosphorus paradox and the monumental problems that the 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.239 world is facing with this element. 0:08:03.400 --> 0:08:05.400 You know, I was like everybody else, they didn't know 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:06.960 how to spell it. I didn't know what it was. 0:08:08.160 --> 0:08:10.560 But it was doing some research for a book that 0:08:10.680 --> 0:08:13.960 came out in twenty seventeen called Death in Life for 0:08:14.000 --> 0:08:15.920 the Great Lakes, and one of the chapters in that 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.080 book dealt with Lake Erie and its history, how it 0:08:19.160 --> 0:08:22.440 was declared America's dead seed back in the nineteen sixties, 0:08:22.880 --> 0:08:26.520 and how we resuscitated it with basically the Clean Water Act. 0:08:26.680 --> 0:08:30.040 And what the Clean Water Act did was it put 0:08:30.120 --> 0:08:32.800 the screws to industries that were polluting the lake. And 0:08:33.440 --> 0:08:37.480 the big problem at the time was detergent synthetic soap. 0:08:38.160 --> 0:08:40.560 It was largely in the fifties and sixties. When you 0:08:40.600 --> 0:08:43.400 buy a box of tide or whatnot, it was almost 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:47.480 a box of phosphorus. And once they figured out that 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:52.480 that was causing Lake Erie to turn, you know, distressingly 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:57.400 green and killing much of the aquatic life, they decided 0:08:57.440 --> 0:08:59.200 to do something about it. And so when I was 0:08:59.240 --> 0:09:02.920 doing this research, I was like, WHOA. The Great Lakes 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:06.840 book was largely a product of like ten or twelve 0:09:06.920 --> 0:09:09.640 years of reporting that I did at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 0:09:10.200 --> 0:09:12.640 and I enjoyed doing that book, but I kept thinking, boy, 0:09:12.679 --> 0:09:14.640 it'd be fun to write a book from scratch, And 0:09:14.679 --> 0:09:17.040 when I came across phosphorus, I thought I'd love to 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.360 do a book on it. I ended up doing that 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:22.199 and it was quite a challenge, but it was enjoyable 0:09:22.240 --> 0:09:22.679 as well. 0:09:23.800 --> 0:09:28.280 So you mentioned the Clean Water Act and how powerful 0:09:28.360 --> 0:09:31.200 it was in that it really did kind of slow 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:35.400 the progress of pollution in some areas. But as you 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.280 point out in your book, this Act included a giant 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:43.040 loophole for agriculture. Why was that loophole left in and 0:09:43.120 --> 0:09:46.680 what consequences did or does it continue to have? 0:09:48.520 --> 0:09:51.160 Well, it made sense at the time because once they 0:09:51.200 --> 0:09:54.000 figured out that, you know, our waters from coast to 0:09:54.080 --> 0:09:56.680 coast and really around the world were turning green because 0:09:56.720 --> 0:09:59.640 of what we were overdosing them with phosphorus detergents which 0:09:59.640 --> 0:10:02.640 would just flow right through the wastewater whatever wastewater treatment 0:10:02.679 --> 0:10:05.480 plants existed at the time and into the water. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:09.440 So so once we realized that what was going on, 0:10:09.559 --> 0:10:13.400 that really spurned the Clean Water Act, and they came 0:10:13.440 --> 0:10:17.319 down heavy on industry because that was the major. 0:10:17.040 --> 0:10:22.640 Polluter of phosphorus at the time. With the detergents. Agriculture 0:10:22.720 --> 0:10:27.640 was largely largely left alone because in regulatory parlance, you know, 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.480 they refer to it as point source and non point source, 0:10:30.520 --> 0:10:33.480 and point source is basically anything that comes out of 0:10:33.480 --> 0:10:36.040 a pipe or a smoke stack. And the Clean Water 0:10:36.120 --> 0:10:39.880 actilated the Clean Clean Air Act, it really required that 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:44.920 we stopped polluting wantonly from these pipes and smoke stacks, 0:10:44.920 --> 0:10:48.839 and if not eliminated completely, then you know, severely limit 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.480 the amounts that we were discharging, and that worked, and 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.319 it worked really well for a couple of decades. Agriculture 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.559 was left alone because they thought this non point pollution, 0:10:58.040 --> 0:11:00.959 which is basically you know, stuff just coming off the 0:11:01.040 --> 0:11:06.680 landscape was too diffuse and not significant enough to really, 0:11:07.000 --> 0:11:10.120 you know, warrant some heavy regulating. But that was in 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.200 nineteen seventy two, and you know, fifty years later we 0:11:13.360 --> 0:11:16.880 farm a lot differently than we did at that time. 0:11:17.320 --> 0:11:19.800 And I'm going to talk specifically here about you know, 0:11:19.880 --> 0:11:24.720 the capos, the concentrated animal feeding operations or factory farms. 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:26.880 You know, it used to be that a herd of 0:11:26.920 --> 0:11:30.120 one hundred cows was a big deal. Well, now I 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:33.320 live in Wisconsin, America's dairyland. It's not uncommon to have 0:11:33.840 --> 0:11:36.360 eight thousand or ten thousand head of cattle. And you know, 0:11:36.400 --> 0:11:39.079 they do more than produce milk. They make manure and 0:11:39.120 --> 0:11:41.480 they do it just like milk every day, and it's 0:11:41.480 --> 0:11:45.720 got to go somewhere. And historically, you know, the rule 0:11:45.760 --> 0:11:48.600 of thumb is it takes an acre to sustain a cow. 0:11:48.679 --> 0:11:53.480 And this is the beauty of the phosphorus molecule. It 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:56.720 doesn't go away. So in simple terms, a cow in 0:11:56.760 --> 0:11:59.640 a pasture would eat grass. The cow would poop that 0:12:00.600 --> 0:12:03.800 would have the phosphorus from the grass in it, and 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:07.520 it would replenish the crop land. So it was like 0:12:07.559 --> 0:12:12.720 a virtuous cycle, a never ending loop. Cow poops, grass grows, 0:12:12.800 --> 0:12:15.000 cow eats grass, cow poops, and on and on and 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.440 on and on. Well, we don't have the acreage to 0:12:18.520 --> 0:12:21.040 sustain you know, these these that's why they call them 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:26.600 concentrated feeding operations. They're basically today the cows aren't typically 0:12:26.679 --> 0:12:28.800 out in past year. They're they're in a barn being 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:33.160 fed grains from you know, wherever, and and the amount 0:12:33.200 --> 0:12:38.360 of manure that they create is substantial. It's bogglingly huge. 0:12:39.320 --> 0:12:42.560 A rule of thumb is one cow produces about as 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.240 much waste as eighteen times as much waste as a human. 0:12:46.600 --> 0:12:51.439 The difference is human waste goes through treatment and you know, largely, 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:55.360 and cow manure just goes on the land, whether the 0:12:55.440 --> 0:12:59.680 land needs that nutrient infusion or not. And if it's overdosed, 0:12:59.679 --> 0:13:02.319 it does what everything else does, is it flows downstream 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.400 when it rains, and it ends up in our water. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:07.120 As they said before, then it's not growing crops we want, 0:13:07.160 --> 0:13:08.800 but it's growing toxicolgy. 0:13:09.840 --> 0:13:12.040 And I want to circle back to some of these 0:13:12.080 --> 0:13:16.320 downstream effects and the consequences of these algal blooms and 0:13:16.360 --> 0:13:18.960 so on. But I kind of want to talk about 0:13:18.960 --> 0:13:22.079 the title of your book as well, the Devil's Element. 0:13:22.559 --> 0:13:25.080 Where does that name come from? And you know, does 0:13:25.120 --> 0:13:28.600 it relate to when people first recognize the significance of 0:13:28.679 --> 0:13:31.440 the substance. There are so many good little stories that 0:13:31.520 --> 0:13:34.800 you share in your book about this name and sort 0:13:34.840 --> 0:13:36.760 of the magic of phosphorus. 0:13:37.240 --> 0:13:40.840 Yeah, it's been called the Devil's element for centuries, and 0:13:41.120 --> 0:13:43.120 you know, more recently people think of it because it 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:46.400 was the thirteenth element discovered back in I think it 0:13:46.440 --> 0:13:50.120 was sixteen seventy nine in Hamburg, Germany, and it was 0:13:50.160 --> 0:13:57.120 discovered by alchemist who was trying to isolate the Philosopher's Stone, 0:13:57.200 --> 0:13:59.880 this mythical material that they believed at the time could 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:07.480 transmute base metals into silver and gold platinum. And the 0:14:07.520 --> 0:14:10.120 idea at the time was that all metals are slowly 0:14:10.160 --> 0:14:13.199 evolving to a more precious state, and what we need 0:14:13.240 --> 0:14:16.000 to do is just find out what's causing that evolution 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.880 and speed it up so you could turn lead into 0:14:19.880 --> 0:14:22.360 gold and get rich. So this guy, his name was 0:14:22.400 --> 0:14:26.800 hennig Brand, operating out of Hamburg, Germany in the late 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:30.160 sixteen hundreds. He thought it could be derived from the 0:14:30.240 --> 0:14:32.840 human waste stream. So he did a lot of tinkering. 0:14:33.240 --> 0:14:36.840 And these guys were serious laboratory operators at the time. 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:41.480 I mean, they had equipment that we can't even replicate 0:14:41.480 --> 0:14:44.840 today in terms of how high they could keep heat 0:14:45.040 --> 0:14:47.840 for weeks on end. We can do it on an 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:52.600 industrial scale, but we don't have the earthenware today that 0:14:52.680 --> 0:14:55.560 they did. And so, through a bunch of urine and 0:14:55.600 --> 0:14:58.960 a bunch of hocus pocus, he eventually baked out of 0:14:59.040 --> 0:15:03.040 these of the human waste stream these waxy, glowing nuggets. 0:15:03.040 --> 0:15:05.960 And this was phosphorus. It had been cleaved from its 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.800 oxygen atoms and it was in its elemental form, and 0:15:08.880 --> 0:15:12.120 it was a real bewitching substance at the time because 0:15:12.160 --> 0:15:14.960 it glowed in the dark and if you like smudged 0:15:14.960 --> 0:15:17.080 it on a wall, you would leave a streak that 0:15:17.120 --> 0:15:22.880 glowed in the dark. But unfortunately, if these little nuggets, 0:15:22.920 --> 0:15:27.000 you know, not much bigger than like a marble, heated 0:15:27.040 --> 0:15:31.200 to just above room temperature, maybe eighty fahrenheit, they combusted 0:15:31.280 --> 0:15:34.960 and burned it, you know, ferociously hot. And that's really 0:15:35.000 --> 0:15:38.120 where it got its name, the Devil's element. And there 0:15:38.160 --> 0:15:41.400 was really no practical application in the late sixteen hundreds 0:15:41.480 --> 0:15:43.880 or early seventeen hundreds for this other than it was 0:15:43.960 --> 0:15:47.520 just a curiosity. You know, it didn't turn anything gold, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:52.600 you know, turned out urine can't turn anything gold. Maybe 0:15:52.600 --> 0:15:57.480 a snowbank, but that's about it. So it was it 0:15:57.600 --> 0:15:59.800 just became a curiosity for a while. And then you know, 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:05.120 as is you know, as how it goes with humanity. 0:16:04.920 --> 0:16:07.360 We eventually figured out how to weaponize it, and at 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:10.400 first we were using it as match tips, Lucifer match tips. 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.760 That may be another reason for the term devil's element, 0:16:14.560 --> 0:16:18.000 but eventually we made bombs with it, firebombs and cndiary bombs. 0:16:18.400 --> 0:16:24.000 And coincidentally, Hamburg, which is phosphorus hometown, was basically burned 0:16:24.040 --> 0:16:26.720 to the ground in nineteen fifty three by the Allies 0:16:26.800 --> 0:16:32.400 dropping incendiary bombs that were largely made of phosphorus, and 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:36.360 so the name persists today because the stuff is dastardly. 0:16:36.840 --> 0:16:39.720 When those bombs dropped in the nineteen forties, you know, 0:16:39.760 --> 0:16:42.400 they would burn through anything that they hit, you know, 0:16:42.480 --> 0:16:47.200 whether it was a roof of a home or somebody's skull. 0:16:47.280 --> 0:16:49.200 I mean, it was really really bad stuff. But if 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:53.880 it hit water, it stabilized immediately, and so it looked 0:16:53.920 --> 0:16:56.440 like it looked like fireworks when you just see those 0:16:56.440 --> 0:17:00.920 globules just kind of coasting from the clouds down into 0:17:00.960 --> 0:17:03.680 you know, I had a Fourth of July celebration. That's 0:17:03.680 --> 0:17:05.240 what it looked like. But when it hit the water, 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:11.320 it wasn't like ash that just disappeared. It solidifies and stabilizes, 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:15.200 and so unfortunately today it looks a lot like amber. 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:19.560 And the region around Hamburg is rich with amber because 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.520 it used to be, you know, a conifer forest and 0:17:22.560 --> 0:17:25.560 all the resin you know, over time it became amber. 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.840 So there's there's long been amber hunters on the shore 0:17:29.400 --> 0:17:32.520 of the Baltic Sea or the Elbe River. And sometimes 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.000 when people grab and think is amber is not it's 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.840 one of these unburned chunks of phosphorus and they put 0:17:39.880 --> 0:17:43.919 it in their pocket and boom. I opened the book 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.680 with a guy who was beach combing on the Baltic 0:17:47.720 --> 0:17:49.760 Sea and he picked up what he thought was a 0:17:49.760 --> 0:17:53.640 fossilized oyster shell and put it in his pocket, and 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:58.959 his pant leg just exploded and or his pocket just 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:01.679 burst into flavor. Since he had to go into the 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.600 sea and this was December to put the flames out 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.240 and every time he came back out, it would flare 0:18:07.359 --> 0:18:09.080 up again. And they were going to take him away 0:18:09.119 --> 0:18:12.159 in a helicopter, but they thought he'd take the helicopter down. 0:18:12.240 --> 0:18:15.240 They didn't know what was going on, and they finally 0:18:15.240 --> 0:18:17.640 took him away in an ambulance packed with wet towels, 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:21.200 and he survived, but he sustained about burns to about 0:18:21.280 --> 0:18:26.359 forty percent of his body. And that's not It doesn't 0:18:26.359 --> 0:18:29.119 happen every day, but it's not uncommon. You can google it, 0:18:29.160 --> 0:18:31.200 and there's warning signs on the beaches and on the 0:18:31.320 --> 0:18:35.440 river banks in that region of Germany to stay away 0:18:35.480 --> 0:18:38.600 from things that look like amber. You know they're using it. 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:41.119 They use it today too. It's not supposed to be 0:18:41.280 --> 0:18:46.560 used as ancendiary bomb. It burns so hot and so 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:50.680 brightly that it's used to eliminate the night sky or 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:54.040 to create smoke screens. It's not supposed to be dropped 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:59.200 on people, but it is, and the consequences of that 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.280 are and it'll burn to the femur and then some 0:19:02.720 --> 0:19:07.119 so and through a skull, and yeah, the devil's element. 0:19:08.840 --> 0:19:11.240 Let's take a quick break. We'll be back in just 0:19:11.320 --> 0:19:31.440 a few Welcome back, everyone, I've been chatting with Dan 0:19:31.560 --> 0:19:35.399 Egan about his book The Devil's Element, Phosphorus and a 0:19:35.440 --> 0:19:39.520 World out of Balance. Let's get back into things. As 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.359 you mentioned, we talked a little bit about this this 0:19:42.440 --> 0:19:46.040 phosphorus paradox where there's both a shortage and an over 0:19:46.280 --> 0:19:49.800 use or pollution issue. And in your book you discuss 0:19:49.880 --> 0:19:52.600 some of the issues with the shortage, and you know, 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:56.600 what will happen as the world runs out of its 0:19:56.680 --> 0:19:59.840 phosphorus supply. What are some of the estimates for when 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:03.680 that might happen, either within the US or you know, 0:20:03.840 --> 0:20:04.640 just the globe. 0:20:05.760 --> 0:20:07.840 Well, let me rewind just a little bit to just 0:20:08.200 --> 0:20:10.800 explain that. You know, ever since we've discovered it, we've 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:13.880 craved it, and we've found new sources, and we've inevitably 0:20:13.960 --> 0:20:17.840 run out of those sources. I mean, it started in antiquity, 0:20:18.240 --> 0:20:20.960 when you know, farmers just intuited that, you know, you 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.400 put certain stuff on crops and it makes them grow better. 0:20:24.400 --> 0:20:28.440 And you know, commonly that was manure, animal and otherwise 0:20:28.880 --> 0:20:32.800 humans included. But there was only so much manure in 0:20:33.440 --> 0:20:36.919 you know, sixteen in the sixteen hundreds, So the British 0:20:37.000 --> 0:20:39.960 were really were they were really under the gun to 0:20:40.480 --> 0:20:43.200 keep their crops productive, because you know, it's an island 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.680 nation with limited crop lands. And they eventually figured out 0:20:47.720 --> 0:20:50.119 that bones, and they didn't know why, but bones worked 0:20:50.160 --> 0:20:52.800 really well and that set them propelled them into some 0:20:53.119 --> 0:20:56.760 really weird places, including so the Battle of Waterloo was 0:20:56.800 --> 0:21:00.280 in eighteen fifteen, I believe, and in the five ten 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:02.840 years after that the British went over and looted that 0:21:02.880 --> 0:21:07.240 whole battlefield. They haven't found any bones. They found one 0:21:07.640 --> 0:21:10.600 set of remains. It was like a curiosity a few 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.520 years ago, but it's just been widely held that there 0:21:13.560 --> 0:21:15.960 are no bones at Waterloo because the British took us 0:21:16.000 --> 0:21:20.760 back to England, ground them and especially built mills and 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:23.240 spread them on the crops to grow turnips and wheat. 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:25.480 But there was only so many bones to go around. 0:21:25.560 --> 0:21:31.200 So then we chased after new substances and turned out 0:21:31.320 --> 0:21:34.680 bird poop is a spectacular source of phosphorus, and that 0:21:34.840 --> 0:21:38.280 sent the British and later the United States to the 0:21:38.280 --> 0:21:41.439 western coast of South America, to these desert islands off 0:21:41.480 --> 0:21:45.399 of Peru that are just basically mountains of dried bird poop. 0:21:46.080 --> 0:21:48.919 And at the time they thought that their mountains were 0:21:48.960 --> 0:21:51.639 there were so many of these islands and mountains of 0:21:51.640 --> 0:21:54.760 bird poop that it was an inexhaustible resource. And this 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:57.480 is talking. We're talking like the eighteen forties to the 0:21:57.520 --> 0:22:00.480 eighteen eighties. By the eighteen eighties and nineties, we'd run 0:22:00.480 --> 0:22:02.600 out of it, and that sent us on the hunt 0:22:02.600 --> 0:22:05.239 for more. And now chemists were involved, and they had 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:07.240 figured out that it was phosphorus, so they could just 0:22:07.280 --> 0:22:10.880 find phosphorus rich material use it as crops, and that 0:22:10.960 --> 0:22:15.560 led us to sedimentary rock deposits. They're relatively scared scarce, 0:22:15.600 --> 0:22:18.040 and they're scattered around the globe, and that's what we've 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:21.480 been relying on ever since, like say the eighteen eighties 0:22:21.480 --> 0:22:25.639 eighteen nineties, and in the United States, our main deposits 0:22:25.680 --> 0:22:28.439 are in Florida, and we are, you know, on course, 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.359 we're burning through them at such a pace that we're 0:22:31.359 --> 0:22:34.200 not going to we could run out in three decades 0:22:34.280 --> 0:22:36.000 or four decades. At that point, we're going to be 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:39.440 dependent on other countries for our nutritional security, which is 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.600 a big deal. It's probably a bigger deal than energy 0:22:42.880 --> 0:22:45.919 security because there's workarounds to oil, but there is no 0:22:46.000 --> 0:22:49.160 workarounds to phosphorus. It's in every living cell on the planet, 0:22:49.720 --> 0:22:54.199 no phosphorus, no life, no crops, And it just so 0:22:54.280 --> 0:22:56.960 happens that seventy to eighty percent of the known reserves 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:02.760 left are in and the occupied territory of Western Sahara. 0:23:02.800 --> 0:23:05.720 And that's a pretty volatile place right now and could 0:23:05.720 --> 0:23:09.240 become more so as countries like the United States and others, 0:23:09.720 --> 0:23:12.639 you know, start scraping for phosphorus to put on their 0:23:12.640 --> 0:23:14.880 crops to feed they're. 0:23:14.640 --> 0:23:20.960 Citizens, in addition to these Peruvian guano deposits. And it 0:23:21.000 --> 0:23:23.560 does seem like, at least in recent decades, there's been 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:27.760 like restoration of some of those areas where hopefully there 0:23:27.760 --> 0:23:31.240 can be a more sustainable cycle of this, but there's 0:23:31.240 --> 0:23:34.880 also been exploitation, not just of phosphorus as a natural resource, 0:23:34.920 --> 0:23:39.480 but of people that live in these areas where phosphorus 0:23:39.560 --> 0:23:42.400 is located. And you shared one of these stories in 0:23:42.440 --> 0:23:45.359 your book. Would you mind taking us through that again. 0:23:46.200 --> 0:23:50.639 Yeah, Well, the indigenous people of the Western Sahara, you know, 0:23:50.840 --> 0:23:54.080 they are nomadic people, and you know, I had been 0:23:54.200 --> 0:23:56.800 for a long time, and we're all the way up 0:23:56.920 --> 0:24:04.919 until the nineteen seventies when Spain opened up a phosphorus mine, 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:09.639 a phosphate rock mine on their land, and then Spain 0:24:09.720 --> 0:24:14.159 pulled out real soon thereafter, and Morocco occupied it and 0:24:14.240 --> 0:24:18.120 has controlled the mind ever since, and much of the 0:24:18.520 --> 0:24:23.320 native population of the area has been, you know, basically 0:24:23.560 --> 0:24:28.560 warehoused in these tent camps. They were supposed to be, 0:24:28.760 --> 0:24:30.879 you know, they were talking over one hundred thousand people. 0:24:31.119 --> 0:24:34.240 It was supposed to be a temporary situation when Morocco 0:24:34.320 --> 0:24:38.560 came down and occupied the territory in the nineteen seventies, 0:24:38.640 --> 0:24:45.040 right mid nineteen seventies, and the native people sought refuge 0:24:45.080 --> 0:24:48.680 in nearby Algeria, and it was just at the time, 0:24:48.720 --> 0:24:50.960 the thinking was just let's hold tight and we can 0:24:51.000 --> 0:24:54.520 go back home in a matter of months. And I 0:24:54.640 --> 0:24:58.480 talked to a young woman whose mom was born in 0:24:58.480 --> 0:25:01.240 the camp and whose grandmother was put in the camp 0:25:01.359 --> 0:25:04.159 when she was in her teens, I believe. And so 0:25:04.200 --> 0:25:07.640 you've got generations and generations of these people growing up, 0:25:08.080 --> 0:25:10.479 you know, exiled from their land, and nobody really had 0:25:10.520 --> 0:25:13.960 an interest in that land until they found the Phosphorus. 0:25:14.520 --> 0:25:17.720 And so there was a low grade war that went 0:25:17.760 --> 0:25:21.720 on from the mid nineteen seventies to the late nineteen nineties. 0:25:22.240 --> 0:25:27.000 And it's the UN broker a very fragile peace that 0:25:27.160 --> 0:25:30.560 is kind of fraying. Now there's been guerrilla attacks on 0:25:30.600 --> 0:25:33.760