Attended a great lecture on "Der Schatz im gelben See - Rohstoffquelle Abwasser" by Dr. Martin Denecke at the University of Essen (Hygiene & Kulture series, see streaming version on-line at http://www.uni-due.de/ios/aktuelles.shtml#e3sl_ios) tonight with fascinating calculations on how important separation of urine and faecal material is to close the loop and win back all the valuable phosphorous and nitrogen we are wasting each time we flush our badly designed toilets, worth millions of Euro...
See MoreMay 12 at 10:43pm ·
Thomas Henry Culhane
Did you know that we will run out of mined phosphorous, the sin qua non of agriculture, in the next century? Did you further know that 36% of the P comes from China, 32 % from Morocco, 8% South Africa, 7% from the U.S., 5 % from Jordan and 12% from the rest of the world? And did you further know that the amount that can be recovered from Germany's urine waste alone is 30,000 tons per year, worth 500 Euros per ton? The conclusion: the countries that harness their pee potential will knock the piss out of the other producers! :)
May 12 at 10:48pm ·
Eric Santiestevan
Did you see the Scientific American from two months ago? Included a piece on what we are running out of (including P, and most alarming for me, biodiversity).
May 12 at 11:36pm ·
Thomas Henry Culhane
Hi Eric, I've known about the biodiversity crunch (6th largest extinction event in 3.5 billion years) for a long time and it haunts my waking hours. Part of our current work in Tanzania and Kenya is to make a last ditch effort at replacing deforestation causing firewood and charcoal with organic waste fed biogas and use the effluent as an ... See Moreaccelerated reforestation fertilizer. There is so much N, P, K in our waste streams that we don't need any fossil fuel fertilizer at all, and the biogas systems, being active bacterial breeders, create a soluble fertilizer claimed to be superior to most others so it is a win win. As Hillary Clinton said when she introduced Todd Stern as Climate Change Special Envoy and US AID head, halting deforestation is key to protecting biodiversity. Since they now get it in this administration, we need to move fast and capitalize on the good will and creative thinking. Mining waste more effectively forms the bulk of my career aspirations these days, with the other part being finding more effective and entertaining ways to communicate the solutions that are out there and merely need to be implemented. Join me in this crusade, won't you?
May 12 at 11:53pm ·
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