White Light, by Jack Lohmann

 White Light: The Elemental Role of Phosphorus-in Our Cells, in Our Food, and in Our World

by 

Jack Lohmann

Clif Hostetler's review

Jan 22, 2026  ·  edit

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bookshelves: science, history

This book tells the story of phosphorus and how humans have changed the once natural phosphorus cycle. Why write a book about a rather scarce element? And why would I be motivated to read it? Perhaps, this excerpt from the book’s Prologue can provided some insight. 

Of all the elements of the periodic table, phosphorus is one of six that are absolutely necessary for the existence of life. 

(i.e. found in every strand of DNA in every living organism.)

Of those six, phosphorus is the most limited. Because of its rarity, it controls life—it determines who grows and shrinks, who lives and dies, what areas become biologically wealthy and which ones will be biologically poor. "The maximum mass of protoplasm which the land can support, like the maximum that the sea can support, is dictated by the phosphorus content," Isaac Asimov, the bio-chemist, wrote in 1959. Phosphorus, he wrote, "is life's bottleneck.

It’s a bottleneck that controls that amount of food that can be produced, thus it also controls how many living things—including humans—can survive on earth. At one time nitrogen was also a limiting element in some locations, but that is no longer the case since the 1913 development of the Haber-Bosch process for extracting nitrogen from the air. 

Thus phosphorous remains as the sole bottleneck, and only a finite supply of phosphorus exists on earth. Since it is present in all living organisms one natural source of phosphorus is recycled organic waste and materials. Other than that the only other supplemental artificial source of phosphorus that can be used as a fertilizer in growing plants is from the mining of phosphate rock which—like all mined minerals—is a finite source which will not last forever.

Phosphate rock (a.k.a phosphorite) has an origin similar to petroleum products in that it was created in geological eras of the past from accumulations of the remains of living organisms. Much of this book is devoted to reporting about numerous past environmental contaminations and disasters caused by the mining of phosphate rock. One of the reasons phosphate mining is ecologically dangerous is that the ore is mildly radioactive and must be dissolved in sulfuric acid in order to convert phosphorite into superphosphate.

Much of the book's narrative is devoted to the history of mining in Florida and Nauru. Morocco which has over 70% of the world's estimated reserves is also covered by the book. Some of the Moroccan mining is from Western Sahara which is disputed territory occupied by Morocco. Such a large portion of the world's reserves located in Morocco places unusual economic power in the hands of the Moroccan government (i.e. king of Morocco).

Currently approximately one percent of the world's supply of phosphate is mined each year. Demand can be expected to increase in the future, and perhaps new discoveries will be added to the known reserves. But inevitably as the easiest to mine areas are exhausted the cost of phosphate fertilizer will increase in the future. This increase in cost will perhaps make the recycling of human and animal waste more economically feasible. 

Currently a significant portion of the mined phosphate ends up in the earth's oceans due to agricultural runoff and discharges to rivers. Ironically humans are expending considerable energy and money moving phosphates from terrestrial locations to new deposits on the bottom of the sea. I guess this is one of the signs of the beginning of the Anthropocene.