N & P
N
Nitrogen sourcing is a sufficiently tough problem.
This blog post by Ron Shigeta is one of the most well written macro posts on the topic that I’ve read.
Here’s why:
- Nitrogen is important for farming.
- The Haber Bosch process unlocked our ability to source Nitrogen.
- Before the Haber Bosch, Nitrogen production and sourcing was much more difficult.
- In other words, we can think about Nitrogen as one of the limiting mission critical ingredients to civilization.
- The Haber Bosch process was instrumental in increasing planet population.
- As we produce nitrogen rich fertilizer to pour into agriculture, it runs off into the ocean and kills our other food supply, fish.
- Nitrogen rich fertilizer impeding our fish supply is a bad thing.
P
This video does a great job of explaining everything about Phosphorus and why it’s relevant to our population size.