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Device Mines Precious Phosphorus From Sewage
ckwu writes "Scientists predict that the scarcity of phosphorus will increase over the next few decades as the growing demand for agricultural fertilizer depletes geologic reserves of the element. Meanwhile, phosphates released from wastewater into natural waterways can cause harmful algal blooms and low-oxygen conditions that can threaten to kill fish. Now a team of researchers has designed a system that could help solve both of these problems. It captures phosphorus from sewage waste and delivers clean water using a combined osmosis-distillation process. The system improves upon current methods by reducing the amounts of chemicals needed to precipitate a phosphorus mineral from the wastewater, thus bringing down the cost of the recovery process."
It was a hard day down in the device mines. :(
Sewage is one thing, but if we can mine storm drains where the golf course runoff goes, that is where this device would be extremely useful.
No no, we could get all the phosphorus we need, now and forever, if we could just violate the law of conservation of mass! This is entirely a problem caused by bad legislation! We don't need more, we need congress to repeal the law of conservation of mass!
"I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
Soylent Brown.... shhhhh. it's made with poo!
It varies from municipality to municipality. Some directly drain into local streams, others go into sewer systems, and some have separate systems.
Storm drains generally separate from the sewage system; the cost of treating hundreds of thousands of gallons of extra rainwater would bankrupt most communities. That's why it's usually illegal to dump waste into the storm drains.
In 2012, the USGS estimated 71 billion tons of world reserves, where reserve figures refer to the amount assumed recoverable at current market prices; 0.19 billion tons were mined in 2011.[23] Recent reports suggest that production of phosphorus may have peaked, leading to the possibility of global shortages by 2040.[24] In 2007, at the rate of consumption, the supply of phosphorus was estimated to run out in 345 years.[25] However, some scientists now believe that a "peak phosphorus" will occur in 30 years and that "At current rates, reserves will be depleted in the next 50 to 100 years."[26] Phosphorus comprises about 0.1% by mass of the average rock, and consequently the Earth's supply is vast, although dilute
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phosphorus#Occurrence.
"Peak phosphorus" sounds like "peak oil", but there does appear to be a number of people afraid of future scarcity. However, the ability to cheaply precipitate phosphorus out of sewage waste (and hopefully, with a few tweaks, out of agricultural runoff also), could significantly reduce dead zones, especially the Gulf of Mexico dead zone. That seems reason enough to pursue this.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Or, perhaps retain storm drainage on golf courses so their fertilizer doesn't end up in streams to begin with. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R... If golf courses and farmers wouldn't mow and plow right down to the water and then over-fertilize, we could reduce phosphorus in streams a ton. If you're interested in the health of golf course sized stream in the US, I recommend checking out the EPA Wadeable Stream Assessment (I worked on the field work in Arkansas) http://water.epa.gov/type/rsl/...
The history of 'biosolids' (seriously, that's the PR-speak phrase for composted sewage solids) as fertilizer is a bit mixed.
Assuming you don't fuck up the composting (not always a safe assumption, once the system moves into volume production and management by people who have to make budget) the stuff is largely pathogen free; but that doesn't do anything about anything that microorganisms that thrive on sewage don't help you with. Heavy metals, some drugs, some hormones(synthetic or not), some endocrine disruptors, any random plastics that end up down the sink, and so on. The concentrations aren't apocalyptic; but if you plan on routine use as fertilizer, better hope that they don't build up in the soil...
So called 'class B' sludge, where they don't even bother treating for pathogens, is of course even more fun than 'class A' where you only have to worry about anything that bacteria won't eat.
but if we can mine storm drains where the golf course runoff goes
I was thinking, if we can mine golf courses . . .
It would certainly make the game more exciting to watch on TV.
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