How much phosphate is left?

While the demand for phosphate is increasing, worldwide reserves are decreasing. So fast that the end is in sight. An additional problem is that the phosphor that is available is increasingly contaminated with the toxic metals cadmium and uranium.

Diagram caption: phosphate reserves in the world, based on data from the US Geological Survey 2008, translated into reserves that can be extracted economically according to current standards.
How long we can continue with the phosphate reserves depends on two factors:
1. the quantity of phosphate that we will use in the future and
2. the scope of the undiscovered reserves.