What do you think?
Rate this book
The Devil's Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance
A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 • A Smithsonian Staff Favorite of 2023
The New York Times best-selling author on the source of great bounty—and now great peril—all over the world.
Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of one of the most fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.”
The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and “dead zones” in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war.
With The Devil’s Element, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time.
The New York Times best-selling author on the source of great bounty—and now great peril—all over the world.
Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of one of the most fertilizer, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.”
The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and “dead zones” in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war.
With The Devil’s Element, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time.
243 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 7, 2023
About the author
Dan Egan
4 books244 followersDan Egan is the author of The Devil's Element and the New York Times bestseller The Death and Life of the Great Lakes. A journalist in residence at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's School of Freshwater Sciences, he is a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. He lives in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, with his wife and children.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 291 reviews
July 28, 2024
A Chapter a Day selection that falls outside of my usual scope, hence the three-star middle-of-the-road rating.
Phosphorous is an essential but limited element, once cycling through land and water but now leeching into rivers, lakes, and streams causing a toxic, environmental mess called Blue Green Algae.
This was written for the layperson, it's easy to understand, with interesting anecdotes and a bit of science as well. I learned about a topic I knew nothing about. With that said though, I don't feel qualified to comment on the quality of the content, or even really my feelings on the presentation of it, because it was not so interesting to keep me acutely cognizant of the flow or intent. I unintentionally and inadvertently tuned out more often than I should have. The topic is not particularly of interest to me, and I was sick part of the time, but I wanted to try something new for me. I don't regret listening to it, I got enough good and interesting information to satisfy me for this occasion, although I did think there would be more of an action-based intent and purpose rather than the historical and educational direction it took.
Phosphorous is an essential but limited element, once cycling through land and water but now leeching into rivers, lakes, and streams causing a toxic, environmental mess called Blue Green Algae.
This was written for the layperson, it's easy to understand, with interesting anecdotes and a bit of science as well. I learned about a topic I knew nothing about. With that said though, I don't feel qualified to comment on the quality of the content, or even really my feelings on the presentation of it, because it was not so interesting to keep me acutely cognizant of the flow or intent. I unintentionally and inadvertently tuned out more often than I should have. The topic is not particularly of interest to me, and I was sick part of the time, but I wanted to try something new for me. I don't regret listening to it, I got enough good and interesting information to satisfy me for this occasion, although I did think there would be more of an action-based intent and purpose rather than the historical and educational direction it took.
November 12, 2022
This is perhaps the best ARC that I've ever had the opportunity to read, and it will be on my list of top books from the year. I requested this book as it so closely aligns with my PhD research about nutrient cycling in midwestern lakes (especially the contributions of consumers), and I flew through the book in about two days! Many science books lack a "narrative arc", but Dan Egan definitely delivered! The book starts with a modern issue and clearly explained the importance of phosphorus to all living things, and I think this will help "hook" readers from outside the sciences. Then, the book is chronologically organized examining phosphorus uses/mining over the years along with the cultural and scientific issues that were caused by these advancements.
As a scientist, I am already well aware of the issues caused to environments due to phosphorus loading. However, I was unaware of much of the history that was presented as well as the global conflicts that have been caused (and are likely to occur in the future). Dan Egan has provided us with a gem of a book that will expand the knowledge of nearly every reader. Furthermore, I was in awe as a reader that Egan conducted extensive research on phosphorus yet wrote the book to be approachable for non-experts. Seriously, a feat in science communication! Personally, I could see myself using this book in a college ecology or environmental science course in the future. I've also recommended it to all of my fellow graduate students.
Thank you so much WW Norton for this ARC!
As a scientist, I am already well aware of the issues caused to environments due to phosphorus loading. However, I was unaware of much of the history that was presented as well as the global conflicts that have been caused (and are likely to occur in the future). Dan Egan has provided us with a gem of a book that will expand the knowledge of nearly every reader. Furthermore, I was in awe as a reader that Egan conducted extensive research on phosphorus yet wrote the book to be approachable for non-experts. Seriously, a feat in science communication! Personally, I could see myself using this book in a college ecology or environmental science course in the future. I've also recommended it to all of my fellow graduate students.
Thank you so much WW Norton for this ARC!
April 9, 2023
Stop... READ THIS BOOK! Just read it.
So, I grabbed this book from the library without reading the description or looking at much beyond the cover. I'm a volume reader. I'll read just about anything, though I'm especially fond of science.
So, while I'm fairly science literate, in general, this was a case of me not knowing what I didn't know. I did not know *anything* about phosphorus. How is that even possible? I bet you don't either, and you, me, and all of us better understand this substance that is as vital as it is dangerous.
Why is it vital? Because it's required to make plants grow. It's one of the main ingredients in fertilizer, but it's a required part of soil for agriculture. There are many places to find phosphorus in different concentrations and forms. It is literally in our own bones and out waste, as well as that of other animals. (Hence the use of manure as fertilizer.). But just as ancient accretions have given us deposits of fossil fuels, so too there are concentrated deposits of phosphorus that we're burning through at an alarming rate. Because you can live without oil. You can't live without phosphorus if you want to grow, you know, food. And do you want the last remaining stockpile of the stuff to be in the hands of a small African country? Because that's where we're heading.
So, that's one side of things. The other equally scary flip side is that excesses of phosphorus in our environment, and most urgently in our water, is wildly toxic. And not just through drinking, but skin contact, and even breathing near toxic algal blooms--which are becoming increasingly common. It is seriously scary stuff!
Now, I'm having a fairly major reaction to learning about this, but I want to stress that Mr. Egan's book is not some kind of alarmist screed. If anything, the tone is quite reserved, and everything appears to be very much grounded in science. I think we all have so many other crazy scary things we're all worried about that this one kind of slid under the radar. Well, it's firmly on my radar now! My impulse is to say that I'm going to learn more, but I think Mr. Egan's book covered the territory quite well. So, for the moment, I'm going to sit and stew.
Stay tuned.
So, I grabbed this book from the library without reading the description or looking at much beyond the cover. I'm a volume reader. I'll read just about anything, though I'm especially fond of science.
So, while I'm fairly science literate, in general, this was a case of me not knowing what I didn't know. I did not know *anything* about phosphorus. How is that even possible? I bet you don't either, and you, me, and all of us better understand this substance that is as vital as it is dangerous.
Why is it vital? Because it's required to make plants grow. It's one of the main ingredients in fertilizer, but it's a required part of soil for agriculture. There are many places to find phosphorus in different concentrations and forms. It is literally in our own bones and out waste, as well as that of other animals. (Hence the use of manure as fertilizer.). But just as ancient accretions have given us deposits of fossil fuels, so too there are concentrated deposits of phosphorus that we're burning through at an alarming rate. Because you can live without oil. You can't live without phosphorus if you want to grow, you know, food. And do you want the last remaining stockpile of the stuff to be in the hands of a small African country? Because that's where we're heading.
So, that's one side of things. The other equally scary flip side is that excesses of phosphorus in our environment, and most urgently in our water, is wildly toxic. And not just through drinking, but skin contact, and even breathing near toxic algal blooms--which are becoming increasingly common. It is seriously scary stuff!
Now, I'm having a fairly major reaction to learning about this, but I want to stress that Mr. Egan's book is not some kind of alarmist screed. If anything, the tone is quite reserved, and everything appears to be very much grounded in science. I think we all have so many other crazy scary things we're all worried about that this one kind of slid under the radar. Well, it's firmly on my radar now! My impulse is to say that I'm going to learn more, but I think Mr. Egan's book covered the territory quite well. So, for the moment, I'm going to sit and stew.
Stay tuned.
July 28, 2023
I chose to read this book because the cover was pretty and I wanted to learn more about phosphorus... and was thoroughly disappointed. This is NOT a science book. This is a simplistic and shallow history book about fertilizer with some other historical stuff thrown in, and some current examples. Considering the title of the author's first book, I wonder if he had extra material from that book and just decided to toss together a mishmash of left-overs and re-hash a bit from the first book?
The writing is bland and uninspiring, with a lack of focus. The organisation erratic, especially within chapters. The author bounces between horrible things that happen if you play with phosphorus (but somehow doesn't bother mentioning the first striking match or "phossy jaw" or any of the other military applications which would also illustrate a "world out of balance"), historical bites not really tied into the narrative properly, and many tangents with little relevance - e.g. several pages were dedicated to Mary Anning only to get to the concept of corprolites, which were a lengthy prelude to digging up phosphate rich rocks. Not to mention the USA-centric sections about the evils of agriculture, the first machine washing powder, eutrophication of lakes, and algal blooms. I found the first part of the book more interesting than the rest i.e. I learned some things I didn't know (e.g. Dead "cannon fodder" at the Battle of Waterloo got shipped back to Britain and turned into fertilizer - poor buggers Ref: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...). This book also doesn't tell me anything new about the environmental hazards of agricultural run-off (I thought kids learnt this stuff in primary school?). The attempts at humour fell flat.
There is simply too much filler, and not enough substance about the titular topic - phosphorus. Phosphorus/phosphates have other functions besides making algae grow. If you know absolutely nothing about fertilizer or algal blooms, you might find something in here you haven't come across before. Otherwise, if you want to know about phosphorus, read the wikipedia article.
The writing is bland and uninspiring, with a lack of focus. The organisation erratic, especially within chapters. The author bounces between horrible things that happen if you play with phosphorus (but somehow doesn't bother mentioning the first striking match or "phossy jaw" or any of the other military applications which would also illustrate a "world out of balance"), historical bites not really tied into the narrative properly, and many tangents with little relevance - e.g. several pages were dedicated to Mary Anning only to get to the concept of corprolites, which were a lengthy prelude to digging up phosphate rich rocks. Not to mention the USA-centric sections about the evils of agriculture, the first machine washing powder, eutrophication of lakes, and algal blooms. I found the first part of the book more interesting than the rest i.e. I learned some things I didn't know (e.g. Dead "cannon fodder" at the Battle of Waterloo got shipped back to Britain and turned into fertilizer - poor buggers Ref: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/...). This book also doesn't tell me anything new about the environmental hazards of agricultural run-off (I thought kids learnt this stuff in primary school?). The attempts at humour fell flat.
There is simply too much filler, and not enough substance about the titular topic - phosphorus. Phosphorus/phosphates have other functions besides making algae grow. If you know absolutely nothing about fertilizer or algal blooms, you might find something in here you haven't come across before. Otherwise, if you want to know about phosphorus, read the wikipedia article.
February 21, 2024
‘The Devil’s Element: Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance’ by Dan Egan is an unexpected treasure trove of science and history I didn’t know. I’ve been reading about the new blue-green algae infesting fresh water which is dangerous to dogs and people. I knew from news stories it had something to do with poop and fertilizer pollution. This book explains all. But the book begins with the history of the discovery of phosphate, and how useful phosphorus has been to farmers and to the military. Then, it thoroughly describes how people are once again killing off life in the oceans because of phosphorus pollution.
From the “Note to Readers”
”Many in the general public might not yet be aware of the phosphorus troubles the world is headed toward because of the element’s dual roles as a dangerously potent toxic algae booster and as an essential—and increasingly scarce—crop nutrient.”
I certainly was not aware!
I have copied the book blurb:
”A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 • A Smithsonian Staff Favorite of 2023
The New York Times best-selling author on the source of great bounty—and now great peril—all over the world.
Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of most fertilizers, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.”
The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and “dead zones” in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war.
With The Devil’s Element, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time.”
There are a lot of startling facts uncovered by the author, beginning with:
“One English newspaper reported in September 1819 that several ships had arrived in the port of Grimsby with their cargo holds loaded with bones, which was not unusual. [I am still wondering about this sentence!] But what was out of the ordinary was the bones were mixed with chunks of coffin. “”Those skilled in anatomy,”” the article stated, “”have no hesitation in pronouncing many of the bones to have belonged to human beings.””.
“In 1822 an author who identified himself only as a “”living soldier”” wrote a piece that appeared in London’s Morning Post asserting that more than a million bushels of human bones, many of them fallen soldiers, were being imported to England annually. So many human remains arrived from the continent so regularly that a special “”bone-grinding”” mill had recently opened in eastern England to handle the imports. “”It is now ascertained, beyond a doubt, by actual experiment, upon an extensive scale, that a dead soldier is a most valuable article of commerce,”” the soldier wrote, “”and for aught that I know to the contrary, the good farmers of Yorkshire are in great measure indebted to the bones of their children for their daily bread.””
“But the late 1820’s, at least three bone-crushing mills were operating in England, and farmers were spreading ten to twenty bushels of bones on an acre, a practice that agriculture experts of the time noted led to miraculous crop yields.”
At the time, no one knew why bones made such a good fertilizer. It was the phosphorus in the bones.
Phosphorus is also explosive.
“These nubs of pure phosphorus don’t belong in the natural world any more than, say, a Sytrofoam cup. That’s because phosphorus atoms in their natural state are bonded with oxygen atoms to create various compounds known as phosphates—molecules that are essential to every living thing on Earth. Phosphates are a critical component of DNA They help fuel the chemical reactions that release energy on the cellular level. They are the building blocks of cell walls and membranes, and they play an essential role in converting sunshine into Earth’s greenery.”
“But when phosphorus atoms do somehow shed their bonds with oxygen atoms, it is often only a temporary situation, one that typically ends explosively. All it takes for a nugget of pure phosphorus to burst into flames is for it to warm just a little above room temperature.”
In 1943, during World War II, British pilots bombed Hamburg.
“Civilians were hit by globs of phosphorus falling from the sky that caused their heads to burst into flames “”like torches.”” Some jumped into canals to snuff the chemical fires but they inevitably had to come up for air, at which point the phosphorus flames flared back to life, like wicked versions of trick birthday candles.
The death toll of Operation Gomorrah was put at about thirty-eight thousand. But a precise body count was impossible, given that in many cases there were literally no bodies left to count; in some cases physicians resorted to weighing pile of ash and estimating from there.”
History is fascinating, gentler reader. And so is science.
The book has chapters on how American States with bodies of water were poisoned with soap detergent that included phosphorus as an ingredient. Ffs! Soap detergent! I remember seeing Puget Sound, the body of water that was nearby in my childhood, had a lot of soap bubbles floating around docks. I did not know at the time I was seeing Puget Sound being poisoned by soap. Eventually state governments were able to legally stop P&G in the 1970’s from selling Tide detergent with phosphorus. Later, dishwasher soap with phosphorus was stopped. Fresh water and salt water oceans everywhere began to recover, the life poisoned by soap returning. But today, bodies of fresh water have become polluted with phosphorus again, this time from farmers. Growing crops with phosphorus fertilizer was excluded from the Clean Water Act of 1972. Blue-green algae loves fertilizer.
Gentler reader, I highly recommend ‘The Devil’s Element’. There are extensive Notes, bibliography and Index sections. But this book is not for the faint of heart. Truth is stranger than fiction, and often horrible.
From the “Note to Readers”
”Many in the general public might not yet be aware of the phosphorus troubles the world is headed toward because of the element’s dual roles as a dangerously potent toxic algae booster and as an essential—and increasingly scarce—crop nutrient.”
I certainly was not aware!
I have copied the book blurb:
”A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 • A Smithsonian Staff Favorite of 2023
The New York Times best-selling author on the source of great bounty—and now great peril—all over the world.
Phosphorus has played a critical role in some of the most lethal substances on firebombs, rat poison, nerve gas. But it’s also the key component of most fertilizers, which has sustained life for billions of people. In this major work of explanatory science and environmental journalism, Pulitzer Prize finalist Dan Egan investigates the past, present, and future of what has been called “the oil of our time.”
The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara. Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and “dead zones” in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war.
With The Devil’s Element, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time.”
There are a lot of startling facts uncovered by the author, beginning with:
“One English newspaper reported in September 1819 that several ships had arrived in the port of Grimsby with their cargo holds loaded with bones, which was not unusual. [I am still wondering about this sentence!] But what was out of the ordinary was the bones were mixed with chunks of coffin. “”Those skilled in anatomy,”” the article stated, “”have no hesitation in pronouncing many of the bones to have belonged to human beings.””.
“In 1822 an author who identified himself only as a “”living soldier”” wrote a piece that appeared in London’s Morning Post asserting that more than a million bushels of human bones, many of them fallen soldiers, were being imported to England annually. So many human remains arrived from the continent so regularly that a special “”bone-grinding”” mill had recently opened in eastern England to handle the imports. “”It is now ascertained, beyond a doubt, by actual experiment, upon an extensive scale, that a dead soldier is a most valuable article of commerce,”” the soldier wrote, “”and for aught that I know to the contrary, the good farmers of Yorkshire are in great measure indebted to the bones of their children for their daily bread.””
“But the late 1820’s, at least three bone-crushing mills were operating in England, and farmers were spreading ten to twenty bushels of bones on an acre, a practice that agriculture experts of the time noted led to miraculous crop yields.”
At the time, no one knew why bones made such a good fertilizer. It was the phosphorus in the bones.
Phosphorus is also explosive.
“These nubs of pure phosphorus don’t belong in the natural world any more than, say, a Sytrofoam cup. That’s because phosphorus atoms in their natural state are bonded with oxygen atoms to create various compounds known as phosphates—molecules that are essential to every living thing on Earth. Phosphates are a critical component of DNA They help fuel the chemical reactions that release energy on the cellular level. They are the building blocks of cell walls and membranes, and they play an essential role in converting sunshine into Earth’s greenery.”
“But when phosphorus atoms do somehow shed their bonds with oxygen atoms, it is often only a temporary situation, one that typically ends explosively. All it takes for a nugget of pure phosphorus to burst into flames is for it to warm just a little above room temperature.”
In 1943, during World War II, British pilots bombed Hamburg.
“Civilians were hit by globs of phosphorus falling from the sky that caused their heads to burst into flames “”like torches.”” Some jumped into canals to snuff the chemical fires but they inevitably had to come up for air, at which point the phosphorus flames flared back to life, like wicked versions of trick birthday candles.
The death toll of Operation Gomorrah was put at about thirty-eight thousand. But a precise body count was impossible, given that in many cases there were literally no bodies left to count; in some cases physicians resorted to weighing pile of ash and estimating from there.”
History is fascinating, gentler reader. And so is science.
The book has chapters on how American States with bodies of water were poisoned with soap detergent that included phosphorus as an ingredient. Ffs! Soap detergent! I remember seeing Puget Sound, the body of water that was nearby in my childhood, had a lot of soap bubbles floating around docks. I did not know at the time I was seeing Puget Sound being poisoned by soap. Eventually state governments were able to legally stop P&G in the 1970’s from selling Tide detergent with phosphorus. Later, dishwasher soap with phosphorus was stopped. Fresh water and salt water oceans everywhere began to recover, the life poisoned by soap returning. But today, bodies of fresh water have become polluted with phosphorus again, this time from farmers. Growing crops with phosphorus fertilizer was excluded from the Clean Water Act of 1972. Blue-green algae loves fertilizer.
Gentler reader, I highly recommend ‘The Devil’s Element’. There are extensive Notes, bibliography and Index sections. But this book is not for the faint of heart. Truth is stranger than fiction, and often horrible.
February 29, 2024
Fast moving, eye opening book. Every other page I was like, wow, who woulda thunk it?
I have to confess I never gave phosphorus much thought, which is embarrassing because, as a Florida resident, I should have been more aware of the causes of Lake Okachobee’s disastrous algae blooms and the effects of these on the waters of both the gulf and the Atlantic. (Note: moral of this story: Army Corp of Engineers should never have been allowed to even touch this area, same goes for the Mississippi. If areas tend to flood, just don’t build on them. Duh.)
Lots of fascinating information, some of it a bit tangential to the topic, but a captivating book, though not a little disturbing.
I have to confess I never gave phosphorus much thought, which is embarrassing because, as a Florida resident, I should have been more aware of the causes of Lake Okachobee’s disastrous algae blooms and the effects of these on the waters of both the gulf and the Atlantic. (Note: moral of this story: Army Corp of Engineers should never have been allowed to even touch this area, same goes for the Mississippi. If areas tend to flood, just don’t build on them. Duh.)
Lots of fascinating information, some of it a bit tangential to the topic, but a captivating book, though not a little disturbing.
June 21, 2023
You’ll probably never see pure phosphorus, instead you will usually see it in the form of phosphate (a phosphorus atom bound to four oxygen atoms). Many bodies of water across the US now have phosphorus algae blooms because the Clean Water Act doesn’t hold Big Ag properly accountable for fertilizer running off Big Ag’s land. Drinking algal blooms can not only kill your dog, but it in Botswana 356 elephants died from drinking such contaminated water. Blue-green algae is also known as cyanobacteria. Much fertilizer gets washed away by rain before it can be taken up by the plant roots – it then goes into streams, ponds, lakes, and rivers and befouls them. Big Ag knows the planet is in no danger of running out of potassium and nitrogen, but phosphorus is a very different story. Isaac Asimov wrote in 1959 that “for phosphorus there is neither substitute or replacement.” This leads to the phosphorus paradox - the planet is running out of phosphorus while we are “overdosing our waters with it”. “Seventy-five percent of the rock fertilizer in the US still comes from Florida.” In around thirty years the Florida phosphorus will be mined out and then the US will become dependent on the world’s supply.
Phosphorus is known as the Devil’s element because phosphorus can kill you (it’s an active ingredient in rat poison) and it can explode. Pure phosphorus is unstable and can burst into flames if it gets slightly above room temperature. Two rogue states are famous for illegally using white phosphorus on civilians – Israel in Gaza on Palestinians, and the US used white phosphorus in both Vietnam (as part of Napalm) and as straight burning white phosphorus in Fallujah – charming sadistic war crimes these rogue states were never punished for. This book’s author says that Putin is REPORTEDLY using phosphorus in Ukraine but is too centrist to dare point fingers at Israel and the US for their PROVEN illegal use of phosphorus on civilians.
Phosphorus History: Farmers long noticed how things grew better where living creatures defecated or died – Homer even writes about it. The Incas realized that the off-shore islands were covered with a terrific fertilizer called guano and they had a death penalty for those who disturbed guano making birds. Explorer Humboldt was the first to bring back guano to Europe to see how effective guano was as a fertilizer and saw it outperformed horse and pig manure. The problem with guano was that it took around eight months for a ship to go get more in South America and come back. Nevertheless, in 1841, six million pounds of seabird feces arrived in England, and in 1842, forty million pounds arrived. So, Peruvians were clearly exporting “good shit” to England more than a century before drug-addled Londoners were calling Peruvian cocaine “good shit”.
At the time, in London one pound of guano was worth eight pounds of wheat. Harvesting that much guano was a dangerous job for Peruvians and so it ended up being done by Chinese coolies. It was a harder job than working on railroads or plantations. Getting guano dust in a miner’s lungs could easily lead to their death after they vomited up blood. Guano mining was so much fun that fifty guano miners once joined hands and jumped to their deaths; I’m sure that was good for morale. Those Peruvian deposits only lasted a few years (1840-1880 and done by 1890). A replacement for guano was desperately needed.
Bone Fertilizer: The Battle of Waterloo was over in ten hours and it killed 50,000 (one person died per second). After the battle, scavengers pulled everything of value off the dead including clothing, belts, boots, and their teeth (for making dentures) and then the corpses were turned into bone manure (very effective fertilizer). Bone fertilizer didn’t always work because soil needed an acidity to make it work. This led to acid-bone fertilizer and soil sampling to find which nutrient was most lacking in a field. Then along comes Fritz Haber who creates a fertilizing ammonia NH3 and Carl Bosch who creates a way to scale up production of NH3. The Haber-Bosch process today feeds half of world. “New Zealanders today rely on airplanes and helicopters to help spread a staggering two million tons of fertilizer across their countryside annually, forests included.”
Phosphorus running out: The world mines 250 million tons of phosphorus rock annually. By the 1970’s the vast phosphorus deposits of the Banaba Islands had played out. Spain’s dictator Franco was then mining phosphorus in the heart of Spain’s Saharan colony. Spain leaves Western Sahara in 1975, and Morocco immediately occupies Western Sahara which is where we are today. Morocco had lots of phosphorus and didn’t want any more competition from Western Sahara’s large phosphorus reserves, so it went full Tonya Harding on Western Sahara to intentionally and illegally neutralize, its competition.
Western Sahara Reserves: 70 to 80% of the world’s reserves now are in Morocco and Western Sahara (a country Morocco has occupied since the 1970’s). Yes, Morocco has super cool architecture, furniture and music, however it’s king controls all these reserves, much of it stolen. Morocco of course should turn over Western Sahara to the Sahrawis so they can return to their ancestral home that won’t happen and through his simple land theft, the Morocco’s king, Mohammed VI, now controls the vast majority of world phosphate trade. Mohammed VI is also known as M6; “under M6’s rule you can be imprisoned for speaking ill of Islam, speaking ill of the king, or for engaging in homosexuality.” Cementing its role as a carefree world vacation spot, two female Scandinavian hikers were beheaded by Islamic extremists in Morocco in 2018. No doubt those female Scandinavians probably stumbled upon a group of Islamic extremists in full drag and lipstick singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”.
Irreplaceable Phosphorus: While manure is manufactured daily, guano takes lots of time to make more, but phosphorus rock reserves are a one-time resource – use it now and it’s gone forever. When those rock deposits go, how will the billions of people now alive (only thanks to the Green Revolution where high yielding plants demanded heavy doses of fertilizer) eat? Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution never considered that one of the key needed ingredients would soon be in short supply leading to a potential die-off – remember before the Green Revolution when FDR was President, this planet had pretty much maxed out at two billion people. Oops… “Life can multiply until all the phosphorus is gone and then there is an inexorable halt which nothing can prevent” said Isaac Asimov right before Morocco invaded Western Sahara. Realize phosphorus is far more critical for humans being alive than oil.
US detergents used to have lots of phosphorus in them, “P&G’s Tide was nearly 50 percent phosphate by weight.” That was terrible for local water supplies. Lake Erie’s problems with pollution led to bans on phosphorus detergents and the Clean Water Act of 1972, but there was a catch – environmental law gave Big Ag a free ride. A sustainable guideline for dairy farming is each grazing cow “requires two to three acres of pasture” this is both for what the cow eats as well as the ground being able to absorb the dropped manure. However most dairy farms don’t have grazing pastures, feed the cows grain, and each cow produces 18x the waste one human does. This manure is often not treated and heads to waterways leading to algae blooms, dead zones and asphyxiating fish. And Wisconsin regulators cannot demand phosphorus discharge reductions from Big Ag because it gets an “nonpoint” exemption. Annual toxic algae blooms cost “the United States more than $4 billion in damage to fisheries, recreation, and drinking water supplies.”
Ethanol: Ethanol is a losing idea: “40% of the corn grown in the United States is now used to make ethanol.” So, you are taking 16 million acres out of US food crop production to create ethanol which offers only one-third the energy of gasoline, is extremely corrosive to car engines and every gallon of ethanol requires about 20 pounds of corn. The government’s ethanol mandate is killing the Mississippi River basin due to fertilizer run-off on these ethanol producing lands. The author calls Iowa “ethanol-addicted” and a top Iowa researcher thus says, “Iowa has a dominant role in this Gulf hypoxia, if we solve Iowa, we solve the Gulf.” The health of the Gulf won’t improve until a US President finally stops the counter-productive ethanol gravy train.
Florida’s Lake Okeechobee: This lake is overladen with phosphorus due to surrounding dairies and crop-growing farmers within the watershed. “In 1960, Florida had fewer than five million residents. Today it has some twenty-two million.”
Phosphorus loss: Up to 50% of phosphorus is lost during mining, transport and refining. It’s also lost by erosion and through discarded food and it ends up in our rivers. There should be draconian restrictions on phosphorus applications. “Phosphate is a biological accelerant.” China didn’t have the phosphorus problem the West had because it has long had a “sophisticated network to spread composted human waste across their croplands.” And so, China doesn’t have a problem with sewer systems and needing to plunder the world for more phosphorus. Farmers took carts to urban markets filled with foodstuffs and returned to their fields with urban wastes for thousands of years. In 1909, US soil scientist Franklin King studied Asian waste treatment and saw how in Japan waste was turned into fertilizer in only five to seven weeks and as much phosphorus was returning to the land as was being taken. King concluded that there will one day come a time when the US will have to do likewise.
Slaughterhouses produce more than meat (and PTSD for its workers) – “Hides become car seats, wallets, shoes, and sofas. Fat is processed into soap, body creams, lipstick and toothpaste.” Organs make insulin, steroids and blood thinners. Boiling bones makes gelatin which makes marshmallows.
Our future: Most of the phosphorus we excrete is in our urine, yet instead of capturing and exploiting it, or using it to write our name in snow, we flush each batch away along with a few gallons of drinking water. Imagine 3,000,000 tons of phosphorous annually globally flying out of human posteriors and front bits in the West (that would make a nice animated GIF), while almost none of it is captured or exploited. If it were, it would not be hard for the West to halve the need for mining phosphorus worldwide. This was a great book for me to read about a critical subject; I learned a lot.
Phosphorus is known as the Devil’s element because phosphorus can kill you (it’s an active ingredient in rat poison) and it can explode. Pure phosphorus is unstable and can burst into flames if it gets slightly above room temperature. Two rogue states are famous for illegally using white phosphorus on civilians – Israel in Gaza on Palestinians, and the US used white phosphorus in both Vietnam (as part of Napalm) and as straight burning white phosphorus in Fallujah – charming sadistic war crimes these rogue states were never punished for. This book’s author says that Putin is REPORTEDLY using phosphorus in Ukraine but is too centrist to dare point fingers at Israel and the US for their PROVEN illegal use of phosphorus on civilians.
Phosphorus History: Farmers long noticed how things grew better where living creatures defecated or died – Homer even writes about it. The Incas realized that the off-shore islands were covered with a terrific fertilizer called guano and they had a death penalty for those who disturbed guano making birds. Explorer Humboldt was the first to bring back guano to Europe to see how effective guano was as a fertilizer and saw it outperformed horse and pig manure. The problem with guano was that it took around eight months for a ship to go get more in South America and come back. Nevertheless, in 1841, six million pounds of seabird feces arrived in England, and in 1842, forty million pounds arrived. So, Peruvians were clearly exporting “good shit” to England more than a century before drug-addled Londoners were calling Peruvian cocaine “good shit”.
At the time, in London one pound of guano was worth eight pounds of wheat. Harvesting that much guano was a dangerous job for Peruvians and so it ended up being done by Chinese coolies. It was a harder job than working on railroads or plantations. Getting guano dust in a miner’s lungs could easily lead to their death after they vomited up blood. Guano mining was so much fun that fifty guano miners once joined hands and jumped to their deaths; I’m sure that was good for morale. Those Peruvian deposits only lasted a few years (1840-1880 and done by 1890). A replacement for guano was desperately needed.
Bone Fertilizer: The Battle of Waterloo was over in ten hours and it killed 50,000 (one person died per second). After the battle, scavengers pulled everything of value off the dead including clothing, belts, boots, and their teeth (for making dentures) and then the corpses were turned into bone manure (very effective fertilizer). Bone fertilizer didn’t always work because soil needed an acidity to make it work. This led to acid-bone fertilizer and soil sampling to find which nutrient was most lacking in a field. Then along comes Fritz Haber who creates a fertilizing ammonia NH3 and Carl Bosch who creates a way to scale up production of NH3. The Haber-Bosch process today feeds half of world. “New Zealanders today rely on airplanes and helicopters to help spread a staggering two million tons of fertilizer across their countryside annually, forests included.”
Phosphorus running out: The world mines 250 million tons of phosphorus rock annually. By the 1970’s the vast phosphorus deposits of the Banaba Islands had played out. Spain’s dictator Franco was then mining phosphorus in the heart of Spain’s Saharan colony. Spain leaves Western Sahara in 1975, and Morocco immediately occupies Western Sahara which is where we are today. Morocco had lots of phosphorus and didn’t want any more competition from Western Sahara’s large phosphorus reserves, so it went full Tonya Harding on Western Sahara to intentionally and illegally neutralize, its competition.
Western Sahara Reserves: 70 to 80% of the world’s reserves now are in Morocco and Western Sahara (a country Morocco has occupied since the 1970’s). Yes, Morocco has super cool architecture, furniture and music, however it’s king controls all these reserves, much of it stolen. Morocco of course should turn over Western Sahara to the Sahrawis so they can return to their ancestral home that won’t happen and through his simple land theft, the Morocco’s king, Mohammed VI, now controls the vast majority of world phosphate trade. Mohammed VI is also known as M6; “under M6’s rule you can be imprisoned for speaking ill of Islam, speaking ill of the king, or for engaging in homosexuality.” Cementing its role as a carefree world vacation spot, two female Scandinavian hikers were beheaded by Islamic extremists in Morocco in 2018. No doubt those female Scandinavians probably stumbled upon a group of Islamic extremists in full drag and lipstick singing “Oh What a Beautiful Morning”.
Irreplaceable Phosphorus: While manure is manufactured daily, guano takes lots of time to make more, but phosphorus rock reserves are a one-time resource – use it now and it’s gone forever. When those rock deposits go, how will the billions of people now alive (only thanks to the Green Revolution where high yielding plants demanded heavy doses of fertilizer) eat? Norman Borlaug and the Green Revolution never considered that one of the key needed ingredients would soon be in short supply leading to a potential die-off – remember before the Green Revolution when FDR was President, this planet had pretty much maxed out at two billion people. Oops… “Life can multiply until all the phosphorus is gone and then there is an inexorable halt which nothing can prevent” said Isaac Asimov right before Morocco invaded Western Sahara. Realize phosphorus is far more critical for humans being alive than oil.
US detergents used to have lots of phosphorus in them, “P&G’s Tide was nearly 50 percent phosphate by weight.” That was terrible for local water supplies. Lake Erie’s problems with pollution led to bans on phosphorus detergents and the Clean Water Act of 1972, but there was a catch – environmental law gave Big Ag a free ride. A sustainable guideline for dairy farming is each grazing cow “requires two to three acres of pasture” this is both for what the cow eats as well as the ground being able to absorb the dropped manure. However most dairy farms don’t have grazing pastures, feed the cows grain, and each cow produces 18x the waste one human does. This manure is often not treated and heads to waterways leading to algae blooms, dead zones and asphyxiating fish. And Wisconsin regulators cannot demand phosphorus discharge reductions from Big Ag because it gets an “nonpoint” exemption. Annual toxic algae blooms cost “the United States more than $4 billion in damage to fisheries, recreation, and drinking water supplies.”
Ethanol: Ethanol is a losing idea: “40% of the corn grown in the United States is now used to make ethanol.” So, you are taking 16 million acres out of US food crop production to create ethanol which offers only one-third the energy of gasoline, is extremely corrosive to car engines and every gallon of ethanol requires about 20 pounds of corn. The government’s ethanol mandate is killing the Mississippi River basin due to fertilizer run-off on these ethanol producing lands. The author calls Iowa “ethanol-addicted” and a top Iowa researcher thus says, “Iowa has a dominant role in this Gulf hypoxia, if we solve Iowa, we solve the Gulf.” The health of the Gulf won’t improve until a US President finally stops the counter-productive ethanol gravy train.
Florida’s Lake Okeechobee: This lake is overladen with phosphorus due to surrounding dairies and crop-growing farmers within the watershed. “In 1960, Florida had fewer than five million residents. Today it has some twenty-two million.”
Phosphorus loss: Up to 50% of phosphorus is lost during mining, transport and refining. It’s also lost by erosion and through discarded food and it ends up in our rivers. There should be draconian restrictions on phosphorus applications. “Phosphate is a biological accelerant.” China didn’t have the phosphorus problem the West had because it has long had a “sophisticated network to spread composted human waste across their croplands.” And so, China doesn’t have a problem with sewer systems and needing to plunder the world for more phosphorus. Farmers took carts to urban markets filled with foodstuffs and returned to their fields with urban wastes for thousands of years. In 1909, US soil scientist Franklin King studied Asian waste treatment and saw how in Japan waste was turned into fertilizer in only five to seven weeks and as much phosphorus was returning to the land as was being taken. King concluded that there will one day come a time when the US will have to do likewise.
Slaughterhouses produce more than meat (and PTSD for its workers) – “Hides become car seats, wallets, shoes, and sofas. Fat is processed into soap, body creams, lipstick and toothpaste.” Organs make insulin, steroids and blood thinners. Boiling bones makes gelatin which makes marshmallows.
Our future: Most of the phosphorus we excrete is in our urine, yet instead of capturing and exploiting it, or using it to write our name in snow, we flush each batch away along with a few gallons of drinking water. Imagine 3,000,000 tons of phosphorous annually globally flying out of human posteriors and front bits in the West (that would make a nice animated GIF), while almost none of it is captured or exploited. If it were, it would not be hard for the West to halve the need for mining phosphorus worldwide. This was a great book for me to read about a critical subject; I learned a lot.
March 10, 2024
[9 Mar 2024]
This was an interesting mono-history of the element phosphorus, which is very important to modern agriculture and our ability to feed the billions of people on earth. However, indiscriminate use has a couple times caused dangerous problems for the environment, specifically by enabling toxic algal blooms in critical waterways. The first time, in the mid 20th century, it was overused as an additive to laundry detergent, but the government was able to reduce that and mitigate the algae problem for a while. But not long after that it became one of the most important agricultural fertilizers and the algae problem resurfaced.
It's a short book and pretty well written. Filled with history about the development and production of phosphorus. There are also many stories of individual people involved in that history or impacted by the algal blooms. The final chapter describes some of the ongoing efforts to reverse the dangerous phosphate pollution of our waterways. The primary method appears to be replacing the industrial mining of phosphorus from rocks with processed human waste. The author seems to be confident that this will be effective to prevent our running out of phosphorus any time soon, but he doesn't mention how it will affect the issue of runoff. It's an interesting book and worth reading, but I think maybe a little too short and missing some depth.
This was an interesting mono-history of the element phosphorus, which is very important to modern agriculture and our ability to feed the billions of people on earth. However, indiscriminate use has a couple times caused dangerous problems for the environment, specifically by enabling toxic algal blooms in critical waterways. The first time, in the mid 20th century, it was overused as an additive to laundry detergent, but the government was able to reduce that and mitigate the algae problem for a while. But not long after that it became one of the most important agricultural fertilizers and the algae problem resurfaced.
It's a short book and pretty well written. Filled with history about the development and production of phosphorus. There are also many stories of individual people involved in that history or impacted by the algal blooms. The final chapter describes some of the ongoing efforts to reverse the dangerous phosphate pollution of our waterways. The primary method appears to be replacing the industrial mining of phosphorus from rocks with processed human waste. The author seems to be confident that this will be effective to prevent our running out of phosphorus any time soon, but he doesn't mention how it will affect the issue of runoff. It's an interesting book and worth reading, but I think maybe a little too short and missing some depth.
March 14, 2023
I absolutely loved this read! Dan Egan's writing is so captivating that I binged this entire book the day it arrived. His ability to seamlessly mix history and science shows once again that non-fiction can be interesting. This book already has me excited to see what he has coming up next!
September 4, 2023
One nasty result of the current overabundance of phosphorus in the water are the widespread blooms of toxic blue-green algae (a form of cyanobacteria) which are polluting rivers, lakes, and other waters all over the world. The closing of beaches (and dogs dying) is something that gets people's attention each summer but also extremely serious is the danger to our drinking water supply.
Most of the phosphorus leaching into the waterways is coming from agriculture, both applied fertilizers and the spreading of animal manures. Our food supply depends on fertilizers so it is a complicated issue. Another facet of this situation is what to do with manure from farms — and from human populations? Often this also ends up in the rivers and lakes, compounding the problem.
When the canals in Florida are particularly ripe from rotting cyanobacteria, people cannot even go near the water not only because of the bad smell, but also the harsh and toxic nature of the gases produced.
There are many issues here that need to be balanced, and indeed the subtitle of this book is "Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance." There are no easy answers, or easy solutions, but kicking this can down the road will only lead to further destruction and environmental degradation.
Protecting drinking water (and the habitant of countless aquatic creatures and birds) is surely an enormous motivation to do more.
Most of the phosphorus leaching into the waterways is coming from agriculture, both applied fertilizers and the spreading of animal manures. Our food supply depends on fertilizers so it is a complicated issue. Another facet of this situation is what to do with manure from farms — and from human populations? Often this also ends up in the rivers and lakes, compounding the problem.
When the canals in Florida are particularly ripe from rotting cyanobacteria, people cannot even go near the water not only because of the bad smell, but also the harsh and toxic nature of the gases produced.
There are many issues here that need to be balanced, and indeed the subtitle of this book is "Phosphorus and a World Out of Balance." There are no easy answers, or easy solutions, but kicking this can down the road will only lead to further destruction and environmental degradation.
Protecting drinking water (and the habitant of countless aquatic creatures and birds) is surely an enormous motivation to do more.
December 20, 2023
I've made this mistake a couple times recently, of just picking up a book by it's title and category classification (nonfiction science audiobook), but I really expected this book to be more about the chemistry and the element. Instead the book was more about phosphates and their impact on the environment. Certainly I did learn some from the book and appreciated that. I also love that there is the local connection that I can teach with pointing to toxic algae blooms on Lake Erie. I certainly understand more about those and appreciate that about this book. But a combination of it not being what I expected, being about in area of Science that I'm not all that interested in, and some of the solutions proposed being impractical (if not self-contradictory) led to me being disappointed. One of the complaints in the book is how farms are exempt from the Clean Water Act and so the indiscriminate spreading of manure on fields as fertilizer as part of what's causing the runoff and toxic algae blooms. From there he later argues that we should use human waste and farm waste instead of mind phosphorus as fertilizer. Maybe he just didn't explain the numbers well enough, but my impression is that if we're using too much manure already getting rid of mined phosphorus and replacing it with more manure and human waste probably isn't going to cancel out the problem. The book does a good job of pointing out the problem and sounding the alarm, but I'm not sure that it poses enough practical solutions. Not that the author needs to have on the answers, but more time focusing on current experiments and ideas to solve the problem with greatly enhanced this relatively short book.
November 24, 2023
4.5 stars
In a note to readers before the book's introduction the author says he will set aside more proper scientific terms (phosphates & algal blooms) and substitute terms more common with the general public (phosphorous & algae blooms) because that's his target audience. As a member of the general public I appreciate the gesture and thoroughly enjoyed the book.
As promised the science is never too technical and the book is replete with short histories, interesting facts, lots of bad news for us early 21st century beings and worse news for future generations. It's not doom porn, more a warning that we have to make significant changes before it's too late. And the author is only talking about phosphorous (i.e. phosphates for the more scientifically minded) not the myriad other disasters we face. But before you lose faith the author does offer some encouragement in the book's final chapter, so if you start the book make sure to finish it.
There's some overlap with the author's other excellent book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes but not too much. The subjects are complementary and I recommend both. This book is shorter in length and that's good, any more would have felt like too much.
In a note to readers before the book's introduction the author says he will set aside more proper scientific terms (phosphates & algal blooms) and substitute terms more common with the general public (phosphorous & algae blooms) because that's his target audience. As a member of the general public I appreciate the gesture and thoroughly enjoyed the book.
As promised the science is never too technical and the book is replete with short histories, interesting facts, lots of bad news for us early 21st century beings and worse news for future generations. It's not doom porn, more a warning that we have to make significant changes before it's too late. And the author is only talking about phosphorous (i.e. phosphates for the more scientifically minded) not the myriad other disasters we face. But before you lose faith the author does offer some encouragement in the book's final chapter, so if you start the book make sure to finish it.
There's some overlap with the author's other excellent book The Death and Life of the Great Lakes but not too much. The subjects are complementary and I recommend both. This book is shorter in length and that's good, any more would have felt like too much.
February 1, 2023
Reads like a horror/thriller. I didn't realized a book about phosphorus can be so gripping and so terrifying. When a common person think about pollution, we often think of plastic littering landfills and sitting in our oceans. Or factories spewing air pollutant emissions and CO2 emissions from our cars. Little do we think about phosphorus from fertilizer in our lakes and how it's endangering lives. Both human and animals. We also don't often think about how fundamentally important it is in sustaining life and human civilization. Egan does an excellent job interweaving, science, history, and the narratives of many people whose lives have been touched by "phosphorus and a world out of balance". I've never finished a non-fiction book so quickly. I see why he's been a two-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Thanks WWNorton for my advance copy.
Thanks WWNorton for my advance copy.
April 1, 2024
This is an interesting short non-fiction about phosphorus. While its main message is that massive usage of phosphates as fertilizers leads to green-blue algae blooms (this problem already creates loss of biodiversity as well as massive management and prevention costs), it also gives a wealth of info about the element #15.
The book starts with two anecdotes – first about a doped guy running from the police and jumping to a channel, where he almost drowns because of algae bloom and second about a retired German accidentally finding a pretty stone, which turns out a piece of phosphorus most likely from bombing of Hamburg in 1943. Then it moves to the name (named after the Greek word for planet Venus—phosphoros. The word roughly translates into “Bringer of Light.” The Latin word for Venus translates similarly: luc (light) fer (bearer). Lucifer.), the discovery (from urine) in 1669 by an alchemist Hennig Brandt.
A large part of the book is about fertilizers because this is #1 usage of phosphorus today – phosphates, nitrates, and potassium are three pillars of modern high-yield agriculture. It describes how in the 19th-century bones (including human bones) were used as a fertilizer, how guano was discovered, and how the main source of the element today is illegally occupied by Morocco part of desert…
A lot of interesting information.
The book starts with two anecdotes – first about a doped guy running from the police and jumping to a channel, where he almost drowns because of algae bloom and second about a retired German accidentally finding a pretty stone, which turns out a piece of phosphorus most likely from bombing of Hamburg in 1943. Then it moves to the name (named after the Greek word for planet Venus—phosphoros. The word roughly translates into “Bringer of Light.” The Latin word for Venus translates similarly: luc (light) fer (bearer). Lucifer.), the discovery (from urine) in 1669 by an alchemist Hennig Brandt.
A large part of the book is about fertilizers because this is #1 usage of phosphorus today – phosphates, nitrates, and potassium are three pillars of modern high-yield agriculture. It describes how in the 19th-century bones (including human bones) were used as a fertilizer, how guano was discovered, and how the main source of the element today is illegally occupied by Morocco part of desert…
A lot of interesting information.
September 15, 2023
An unpopular opinion, but this felt a lot like a waste of time and effort for me. Perhaps it would make a bit of sense to note that I already know about most (if not then even more) of the ‘algae blooms’ issues; and also everything else about the problems caused by ‘phosphorus’ with regards to the ‘agricultural’ and ‘horticultural’ side of things. I ‘listened’ to most of the (audio)book, because I already found the writing style/approach to be ‘hard to like’ from the beginning. It simply wasn’t the kind of writing that I like or enjoy at all. But I can see why other readers might find this (far more) enjoyable and worthy of their time/effort. What I had found most annoying about the book is how amazing the ‘title’ is, which only makes the content/experience so much more disappointing (to me, personally, that is).
April 23, 2023
I’m going to buy 10 of these books and dispense them. This is a must-read if I’ve ever seen one.
January 27, 2024
There was some good stuff packed into this little book.
The first part is a history of phosphorous. There is a story about how the English bombed Hamburg with Phosphorous in 1943. The globs of phosphorus that fell from the sky that week still exist in Hamburg as pebbles along the riverbed. They are apparently harmless, unless you warm them up to about 85 degrees. If you want to know what happens then, you will have to read. Part 1 also has a story about the discovery of elemental phosphorous and stories about how nations have mined phosphorous from various areas for use in farming.
Part two gets into the economics of phosphorous. Chapter 5 is a history of laundry detergent and how the companies used phosphorous to make their detergent bubbly. The phosphorous made it's way to the waterways and eventually to Lake Erie where it created an algae problem. Despite the fact that laundry detergent makers are now heavily regulated, the algae problem is returning. Most of the rest of Part 2 is about the farming industry and the effect that fertilizers are having on the waterways. The author insists that farms are not as heavily regulated as other industries. I have found the State of Michigan to be quite powerful when it comes to the waterways and regulating private property. But then, the author does not spend a lot of time talking about Michigan specifically, so maybe Michigan is trying harder than others. I do like that the author brings in a farmer's point of view, even pointing out that the pay is inadequate for the 14 hour days they put in. Of course, an interview with a small farmer does not help understand what goes on in CAFOs, not that I really want to know... In any case, you can't blame everything on the CAFOs, people buy and eat what they produce.
The final chapter does a good job of tying the book together and promoting a better balance for the cycle of phosphorous. Bottom line is, if you eat and poop, you are part of the phosphorous cycle. Science has some ideas about how to reclaim nutrients from the human waste stream. There are problems with this, including dangerous bacteria and heavy pharmaceutical use but they are working on it.
I don't want to go back in time to the days before modern sewage systems, and I certainly don't want people to starve because farms are not allowed to use fertilizers. I think one answer is more small farms which requires demand from consumers who shop for food locally and then cook it instead of sitting in line with the car engine running for 20 minutes at any one of the 100s of drive through "fast" food restaurants. Americans are getting further and further away from the source of their food, barely even leaving enough time in the day to eat in the first place, so many would not even know there is a problem.
The author does not go into fast food or nutrition but it's part of the food system, hence my above rant. He does talk about education though, and he's doing his part in writing the book. It was a quick and easy read with a little hope from science at the end.
The first part is a history of phosphorous. There is a story about how the English bombed Hamburg with Phosphorous in 1943. The globs of phosphorus that fell from the sky that week still exist in Hamburg as pebbles along the riverbed. They are apparently harmless, unless you warm them up to about 85 degrees. If you want to know what happens then, you will have to read. Part 1 also has a story about the discovery of elemental phosphorous and stories about how nations have mined phosphorous from various areas for use in farming.
Part two gets into the economics of phosphorous. Chapter 5 is a history of laundry detergent and how the companies used phosphorous to make their detergent bubbly. The phosphorous made it's way to the waterways and eventually to Lake Erie where it created an algae problem. Despite the fact that laundry detergent makers are now heavily regulated, the algae problem is returning. Most of the rest of Part 2 is about the farming industry and the effect that fertilizers are having on the waterways. The author insists that farms are not as heavily regulated as other industries. I have found the State of Michigan to be quite powerful when it comes to the waterways and regulating private property. But then, the author does not spend a lot of time talking about Michigan specifically, so maybe Michigan is trying harder than others. I do like that the author brings in a farmer's point of view, even pointing out that the pay is inadequate for the 14 hour days they put in. Of course, an interview with a small farmer does not help understand what goes on in CAFOs, not that I really want to know... In any case, you can't blame everything on the CAFOs, people buy and eat what they produce.
The final chapter does a good job of tying the book together and promoting a better balance for the cycle of phosphorous. Bottom line is, if you eat and poop, you are part of the phosphorous cycle. Science has some ideas about how to reclaim nutrients from the human waste stream. There are problems with this, including dangerous bacteria and heavy pharmaceutical use but they are working on it.
I don't want to go back in time to the days before modern sewage systems, and I certainly don't want people to starve because farms are not allowed to use fertilizers. I think one answer is more small farms which requires demand from consumers who shop for food locally and then cook it instead of sitting in line with the car engine running for 20 minutes at any one of the 100s of drive through "fast" food restaurants. Americans are getting further and further away from the source of their food, barely even leaving enough time in the day to eat in the first place, so many would not even know there is a problem.
The author does not go into fast food or nutrition but it's part of the food system, hence my above rant. He does talk about education though, and he's doing his part in writing the book. It was a quick and easy read with a little hope from science at the end.
March 20, 2023
If you loved Egan’s”Death and Life of the Great Lakes” (and I very much did!), then you will love this book. I worked in the water supply industry in Florida for many years and know first hand what a scourge to source water phosphorus is. The State’s behemoth phosphate mining company, Mosaic, is the most powerful lobby and for decades they have gotten away with untold horrible acts. But the problem- and the scope of this book- goes well beyond Central Florida’s Bone Valley. Egan lifts the curtain on the severity and magnitude of this problem, and shines the light on this issue that is rarely talked about. We see algal blooms suffocate our coastal areas year after year, but nowhere is the link to phosphorus explained to the public. Scarier yet is the fact that this rapidly vanishing resource is the only reason we are able to sustain the current global population, and so this element is expected to feature more prominently on the geopolitical stage in the years to come.
A great read!
A great read!
September 7, 2023
Did you know Dr. Seuss’ book “The Lorax” (written in 1971) referenced the polluted water of Lake Erie?
Lake Erie, at the time, was in terrible condition due to high levels of phosphorus turning the water into a green and poisonous goop. Such tragedy prompted the line: “You're glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hum!”
Dr. Seuss was one of many at the time that witnessed the environmental degradation taking place in the country’s waterways due to sewage, farms and industry (like those who make washing detergent) dumping high levels of phosphorus feeding algae blooms.
This is one of many references that stayed with me from the book: The Devil’s Element.
Dan Eagan writes about how this element — phosphorus — is critical to life. It’s a key component in fertilizer, which food production depends on and keeps us alive! But the issue gets complicated. Phosphorus is leaching into our water supply and it has detrimental health impacts. On the flip side, if we don’t take care of the resource it will see its eventual end and pave the way to food scarcity.
Egan really takes the reader from the discovery of the element to what new technologies are being developed to address the water quality and (potential) future of food production. The book reads like a narrative, with many anecdotes and wild, attention-grabbing stories. It really opened my eyes to the world of this element and our overuse / addiction to it (without us even knowing it).
Lake Erie, at the time, was in terrible condition due to high levels of phosphorus turning the water into a green and poisonous goop. Such tragedy prompted the line: “You're glumping the pond where the Humming-Fish hum!”
Dr. Seuss was one of many at the time that witnessed the environmental degradation taking place in the country’s waterways due to sewage, farms and industry (like those who make washing detergent) dumping high levels of phosphorus feeding algae blooms.
This is one of many references that stayed with me from the book: The Devil’s Element.
Dan Eagan writes about how this element — phosphorus — is critical to life. It’s a key component in fertilizer, which food production depends on and keeps us alive! But the issue gets complicated. Phosphorus is leaching into our water supply and it has detrimental health impacts. On the flip side, if we don’t take care of the resource it will see its eventual end and pave the way to food scarcity.
Egan really takes the reader from the discovery of the element to what new technologies are being developed to address the water quality and (potential) future of food production. The book reads like a narrative, with many anecdotes and wild, attention-grabbing stories. It really opened my eyes to the world of this element and our overuse / addiction to it (without us even knowing it).
July 28, 2024
An absolutely fascinating account of an element that is more essential to our continued existence on earth than any other. Any no one is aware of its critical role or scarcity in both sustaining and harming us. As usual man has manipulated the natural cycle of phosphorus for short term gain with long term dangerous consequences. Egan tells the story masterfully.
Real recycling goes on in Asia. I'm not talking paper, plastic, cans, and glass which is a joke and a sham. I'm talking human waste, night soil- liquid gold. Imagine pipelines of it in our future. But this book is about phosphorus, which is in our waste and fouling our waters with red algae blooms and Cyanobacteria. And we are running out of phosphorus while being overwhelmed by it in a continuing paradox. Phosphorus is worth more than oil or gold. Our entire future on this planet depends on it and one country controls 80% of the reserves- Morocco.
It's not an optimistic future. Unregulated agriculture and wastewater disposal are responsible for the poisoning of our waters. Sobering. Sad. We literally need to get our shit together. And recycle it.
Real recycling goes on in Asia. I'm not talking paper, plastic, cans, and glass which is a joke and a sham. I'm talking human waste, night soil- liquid gold. Imagine pipelines of it in our future. But this book is about phosphorus, which is in our waste and fouling our waters with red algae blooms and Cyanobacteria. And we are running out of phosphorus while being overwhelmed by it in a continuing paradox. Phosphorus is worth more than oil or gold. Our entire future on this planet depends on it and one country controls 80% of the reserves- Morocco.
It's not an optimistic future. Unregulated agriculture and wastewater disposal are responsible for the poisoning of our waters. Sobering. Sad. We literally need to get our shit together. And recycle it.
March 16, 2023
A concise but comprehensive history about our use of phosphorus in the world. This element is really important for cultivating food, but since the industrial age population boom and associated farming practices, its ecological balance has been out of whack; now it is just as detrimental as necessary. The book covers geopolitical factors in obtaining phosphorus, the rise of soap and their signature suds, and how useful our poop is.
December 24, 2022
I loved this book. The storytelling is great and Egan makes his points clearly through his own journey and through real-life situations. The science is very clearly explained and there is a lot of history discussed. There is even some humor. Best of all, the book shows the danger of phosphates in a lucid way, with the right amount of gravitas without being preachy. Overall this is a great read. Even the acknowledgements had a couple of pearls. Thank you to Netgalley and W. W. Norton & Company for the digital review copy.
March 27, 2023
I hesitated before diving into yet another book on a looming environmental catastrophe, but the resistance quickly evaporated once I started reading. Lively writing on an important topic--this deserves a broad readership. New Zealand gets a few dishonorable mentions and surely needs to do more, but this is truly a global problem, mostly due to the ongoing industrialization of animal-based agriculture.
September 4, 2023
“The Devil’s Element” by Dan Egan is a captivating audiobook that seamlessly blends history, current events, and future issues in a way that is both informative and engaging. Egan expertly weaves together the stories of early chemist scientists, the environmental and health consequences of the phosphorus industry, and modern-day efforts to mitigate damage.
The book is narrated by Jason Culp who does a great job at conveying the urgency of sharing the information in this book. The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara.
Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and “dead zones” in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war.
With “The Devil’s Element”, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time. The book has received positive reviews from critics such as Jim Higgins from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who said “In his crisply written new book…Dan Egan sounds alarms on both the scarcity and overabundance sides of the phosphorus-human equation.”
Overall, “The Devil’s Element” is an informative and thought-provoking audiobook that sheds light on an important environmental issue. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about phosphorus and its impact on our world.
The book is narrated by Jason Culp who does a great job at conveying the urgency of sharing the information in this book. The story of phosphorus spans the globe and vast tracts of human history. First discovered in a seventeenth-century alchemy lab in Hamburg, it soon became a highly sought-after resource. The race to mine phosphorus took people from the battlefields of Waterloo, which were looted for the bones of fallen soldiers, to the fabled guano islands off Peru, the Bone Valley of Florida, and the sand dunes of the Western Sahara.
Over the past century, phosphorus has made farming vastly more productive, feeding the enormous increase in the human population. Yet, as Egan harrowingly reports, our overreliance on this vital crop nutrient is today causing toxic algae blooms and “dead zones” in waterways from the coasts of Florida to the Mississippi River basin to the Great Lakes and beyond. Egan also explores the alarming reality that diminishing access to phosphorus poses a threat to the food system worldwide—which risks rising conflict and even war.
With “The Devil’s Element”, Egan has written an essential and eye-opening account that urges us to pay attention to one of the most perilous but little-known environmental issues of our time. The book has received positive reviews from critics such as Jim Higgins from Milwaukee Journal Sentinel who said “In his crisply written new book…Dan Egan sounds alarms on both the scarcity and overabundance sides of the phosphorus-human equation.”
Overall, “The Devil’s Element” is an informative and thought-provoking audiobook that sheds light on an important environmental issue. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in learning more about phosphorus and its impact on our world.
November 16, 2023
A quick, invigorating introduction to humanity's reliance on phosphorous and how that will eventually (maybe soon) be our undoing. Cool, cool, cool!
Mostly, Dan Egan focuses on agricultural runoff in our lakes and rivers, which seems like maybe a chapter that was cut from his previous book about the Great Lakes. But we also get a history of phosphorous usage with many intriguing facts, including bone pickers from the Napoleonic wars and human waste being worth its weight in gold in ancient China. Of course, you get all the guano stuff too.
The bad news is that phosphorous mining is mostly played out in non-war zones, so our ability to grow food might come to a screeching halt in the next few decades. Egan offers a brief coda noting some science being done to avoid this future, but for the most part this is a grim read. It would have been nice for that coda to have been longer and more robust. Certainly, there are smart people thinking about this somewhere.
Mostly, Dan Egan focuses on agricultural runoff in our lakes and rivers, which seems like maybe a chapter that was cut from his previous book about the Great Lakes. But we also get a history of phosphorous usage with many intriguing facts, including bone pickers from the Napoleonic wars and human waste being worth its weight in gold in ancient China. Of course, you get all the guano stuff too.
The bad news is that phosphorous mining is mostly played out in non-war zones, so our ability to grow food might come to a screeching halt in the next few decades. Egan offers a brief coda noting some science being done to avoid this future, but for the most part this is a grim read. It would have been nice for that coda to have been longer and more robust. Certainly, there are smart people thinking about this somewhere.
April 28, 2024
Great book. One of those single topic books that just teaches you so much while also giving you a new context for world history.
I didn't know a lot about phosphorus before this book and I still feel like what I know is just scratching the surface with regard to the political complexity revolving around this single little chemical element at the heart of all our agriculture, our cleaning, and which bubbles with war and regional conflicts.
Fascinating in every way. Definitely recommend.
I didn't know a lot about phosphorus before this book and I still feel like what I know is just scratching the surface with regard to the political complexity revolving around this single little chemical element at the heart of all our agriculture, our cleaning, and which bubbles with war and regional conflicts.
Fascinating in every way. Definitely recommend.
September 17, 2023
Wow, this book was fascinating & terrifying to me. I wasn’t much of a science student in school, but I now love finding a nonfiction science book written so that I can understand it. But I certainly hope some smart people are working on this phosphorus issue.
March 28, 2024
Such a well researched and well explained book on what I am convinced is one of the most important environmental disasters of our time. Filled with human interest stories and fun facts, my main takeaways are that we need way more farming regulation and way less animal agriculture.
March 10, 2024
It’s well-written and mostly interesting, but also repetitive and goes into far too much detail on the least important aspects.
June 11, 2024
Egan has done it again and written a book on the big big topic that everybody should be talking about but nobody is. I learned so much!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 291 reviews