Sweet Science
BBC Inside Science
00:00
The Problem With Phosphorghedin
The US government has admitted that American forces in Iraq did use deadly white phosphorus as a weapon against insurgents. White phosphorus, the same stuff used to tip those deadly 19th century matches, has been used to create battlefield smoke screens since at least the First World War. Phosphorus extraction and use, mainly in fertilizer, is a multi-billion pound industry. But there's a problem - scientists warn we face phosphoghedin. The limited supply won't sustain the way we currently use and abuse it.
Transcript
Play full episode
