Analysis: Sulfuric acid - the resource crisis that could stifle green tech & threaten food security

Writing in The Conversation, Professor Mark Maslin (UCL Geography) and Dr Simon Day (UCL Institute for Risk & Disaster Reduction) highlight how sulfur, a fossil fuel waste product, is an important industrial chemical and that the shift to renewable energy could affect its supply. Without sulfur in the form of sulfuric acid, industries would struggle to produce the phosphorus fertilisers that raise farm yields or extract the essential metals used in everything from solar panels to electric car batteries. Yet a problem looms, which has gone largely unnoticed. More than 80% of the global sulfur supply is a waste product, extracted from fossil fuels like oil and natural gas (which typically contain between 1% and 3% sulfur by weight) to reduce emissions of sulfur dioxide, the gas that causes acid rain. Eliminating fossil fuels to rein in climate change will slash the annual supply of sulfuric acid just as demand is increasing. The world already uses over 246 million tonnes of sulfuric acid annually. Rapid growth in the green economy and intensive agriculture could see demand rise to over 400 million tonnes by 2040.