Original subtitles

[narrator] On Tomorrow's World Today,

we explore the cutting-edge advances

that are shaping four different worlds.

The world of inspiration, where the wonders of

the natural world amaze and inspire us.

The world of creation, where ideas come to life from

traditional arts.

The world of innovation, where ideas and inventions move

us all forward.

The world of production, where innovations

are mass produced to improve our lives.

From Inventionland World Headquarters, here's your host,

George Davison.

Hi everyone, I'm George Davison.

You know, as our global population continues to surge,

with projections reaching over 9 billion people by

the year 2050,

food scarcity and security concerns are becoming a more

critical issue than ever.

You see, two minerals,

phosphate and potash,

they're going to help us to produce 70% more food globally

by the year 2050, while using only 90% of

our existing agricultural lands.

You see, phosphate helps us to enrich our soil and acts

as a catalyst.

It's going to ensure that our crops receive the right

amount of phosphorus for optimal growth.

Potash, on the other hand, is commonly referred to as

the regulator of crop nutrients,

and it's the guardian of crop health,

and it optimizes yields, quality, and resilience.

Together, these two elements are crucial for farmers,

and it's gonna contribute to a sustainable and efficient

farming practice.

So I'm gonna send Greg to the world of production just

outside Tampa, Florida, to explore how these two minerals

are mined and why we should have a newfound appreciation

for the complex world that's beneath our feet.

There's an old saying in the mining industry that if

something can't be grown, it has to be mined.

And by and large, that's true.

But today, we're going to put a fresh spin on that old adage

and look at things that are mined to help things grow.

I'm at the Mosaic Company's Four Corners Mine in Florida to

explore how they are sustainably and responsibly

mining phosphate, one of the key ingredients in

fertilizers that will help farmers feed our ever-growing

population in tomorrow's world.

Jody, the human population is on the rise.

We're on track by the year 2050 to have over nine billion

people on planet Earth.

So food scarcity, food security, these are issues

that are gonna be even more important then than they are

now, and phosphate and potash are an important part

of the solution. -They are.

In fact, we're gonna have to produce about 70% more food

than we do today globally.

And we're gonna have to produce that on about 90% of the land

that's already in production.

And the way that we do that is with increased yields.

And to get increased yields, we use fertilizer.

Okay, well, that brings us here to Four Corners, where you mine

for phosphate.

Tell me, how abundant is phosphate,

and how hard is it to get to?

[Jody] It's not too difficult to get to.

It's about 30 to 60 feet underground.

So we surface mine it.

We provide the North American market with about two-thirds of

the phosphate fertilizer.

[Greg] What's the role that phosphate

plays in the fertilizer itself?

[Jody] So phosphate helps the plant grow.

It helps with a strong root system.

It helps with photosynthesis, so getting the energy from

the sun and converting that into food.

It also helps to stave off disease.

So phosphate doesn't do this alone.

It actually works hand-in-hand with potash,

which you also produce. -We do.

We make about eight million tons of potash that we produce

and sell around the world.

Potash is similar to phosphate in that it helps with a strong

and healthy root system.

It helps plants fend off disease, as well, but it also

helps a plant use water more efficiently and helps a plant

to deal with extreme temperatures.

Excellent, well, what else do you have to show me down here?

I would love to show you our automated pit area.

This is where we take phosphate rock and slurry it and send it

through our pipeline to the beneficiation facility.

Excellent, let's go take a look.

So Jody, this is the slurry pit behind us.

It is, and these water guns operate at about 325 PSI.

They're controlled by operators about 40 miles from here in

our integrated operations center.

[Greg] That's amazing, and I'm hoping

to get a look at that during my visit,

but I wanna change the subject a little bit

and ask you about the 4R Nutrient Stewardship Program.

Tell me about that.

Yeah, so this is something we're really excited about,

where we work with farmers to ensure that they apply

the right fertilizer at the right rate,

at the right time, in the right place.

Okay, so when you say the right fertilizer, we're obviously

talking about sustainable fertilizer.

So what's the difference between

a sustainable fertilizer and a regular old fertilizer?

So we do have specialty products.

One of them is a MicroEssentials product.

And the neat thing about this product is we have different

sulfur molecules that activate in the plant

at different times in the growing season.

So that would be a way to manage that area effectively.

What are the advantages to that?

So potassium and phosphate are non-renewable resources.

And so that means that we want to use them

as efficiently as possible.

So we're working with farmers during this 4R Nutrient

Stewardship program to ensure that we're using

those fertilizers in the most effective way we can.

[Greg] What are some of the consequences of not

doing it the right way?

So if we sell a fertilizer, and a farmer over applies it to

their crop, that can move

the nutrients away from the cropping system.

How is your outreach program with that?

I mean, you've got to talk to the farmers and make sure that

they are doing things the right way.

How are you doing that?

We do work directly with farmers.

We educate them.

We work with local agronomist experts.

We also like to work with the future farmers, so the FFA,

Future Farmers of America, and 4-H clubs, where we can

teach future generations to farm sustainably.

That's great, well, I know you've got some things you want

to show me at Bartow, so why don't we head there now?

Sounds great.

[Greg] At Four Corners, we learned about phosphate

and potash mining

and how important that is to farmers.

Here at the Mosaic Bartow facility

just outside Tampa, Florida, we're going to

learn more about sustainable fertilizer production.

So Jody, this is the finished product, but how does it get

from the mine to this? -First, we make sulfuric acid.

Then we take the sulfuric acid, and we react it with

the phosphate rock from the mine.

That creates phosphoric acid.

From there, we take the phosphoric acid

and mix it with ammonia, and that creates

diammonium phosphate.

And there's a bit of a chemical process that goes on

with that then, isn't there? -Yes.

Whenever people hear the term chemical process, they think of

some environmental issues.

So let's talk about that a little bit.

ESG, which stands for

environmental, social, and corporate governance.

What are the ESG targets that Mosaic has set for itself?

So this is something that makes me really proud to work

for Mosaic.

We have a target to reduce our fresh water usage by 20% by

2025 per finished product ton.

We also have a goal to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions by

20% by 2025.

[Greg] How does that work within the regulations that are

already in place for the mining industry?

[Jody] We have local, state, and federal regulations.

In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency

could use our regulations in the state federally.

Unfortunately, not all companies throughout the world

are regulated the same way, so our environmental standards

that we hold here are not necessarily held across

the world, but we do feel it is important to make sustainable

fertilizer for the world.

Right, and that works hand-in-hand with

the reclamation that you have in place

for land, water, and air. -[Jody] That's right.

So we reclaim every acre of land that we use at Mosaic.

It's important to remember that when we mine, it's a temporary

land use because of that reclamation.

We have surface and groundwater monitoring programs, as well.

[Greg] Okay, well, I know you wanted to show me the IOC,

so why don't we go take a look at that?

Sounds great.

Hey, Ryan, thanks for joining us all the way from Canada.

Hi, Ryan.

Hi, thank you very much for having me.

So Ryan, we're in the IOC

or the Integrated Operations Center.

Tell me how the IOC is helping Mosaic achieve

its sustainability goals.

The IOC is going to be an integral part of

our company's fabric as we move forward and as we become more

of a sustainable and safer company.

Part of being sustainable is really being a safe, reliable

operation, and part of why we're implementing IOCs

across our company is your IOCs bring together all the most

recent information, all the real-time data, that's going

on throughout our entire facility and allowing us to be

making the most optimum decisions for not only

our business needs but also from an environmental

and sustainability effort.

Have there been any difficulties integrating these

new systems into an industry that has been around

for a very long time?

[Ryan] There's always going to be challenges as you roll

new technology out, and you have to have it work

with existing infrastructure.

I think one of the bigger challenges as we do any kind of

changes within our industry is how do we include our frontline

workforce that the change is going to affect the most?

And so that's one thing we've really tried to do is bring in

our frontline workforce into the decision-making up front.

And so that as we roll out these changes,

it's actually a better product for our frontline operators in

our new world.

[Greg] So as you move along through remote operation to

semi-autonomous to fully autonomous, you're not

significantly reducing your workforce.

They're just working in different areas.

I think the exciting part is we have changed the way we do

the work around our site.

As we implement new autonomous machines, we are able to pull

some of our frontline workforce away from

those hazardous conditions, up-skill their knowledge,

and allow them to actually help run the machines via

the automation and the control side.

And so our workforce numbers have not changed, just the way

we do the work has.

So Jody, what does it look like when you up-skill an employee?

So up-skilling is part of our automation strategy.

So we can have an employee that starts as a laborer,

and they can go through

the Mosaic Apprenticeship Program.

They can become a mechanic or an electrical

instrumentation and automation specialist.

Well, Ryan, can you give me an example of a job that was

maybe traditionally done on site but is now either done

through remote operation or semi-autonomously?

[Ryan] Yeah, so I think a great example that's relatable across

all of our sites really is valve operations, right?

So historically, we've gone out into the field, turned on

valves to adjust our flows, right?

So now if we pull those into the IOC, we have those on

automated systems where the valve can fluctuate based

on its control scheme.

And then it just requires our operator to observe

and maintain the flow rates associated with that change.

What do you think this is gonna look like in the future?

And how soon do you think you may be able to move to

fully autonomous operation?

Yeah, I think as I look at automation in the context of

Mosaic, it's really gonna be continuous iterations.

And there's really three forms of automation

we'll continue to look at it.

You have remote control, you have semi-autonomous,

and then you also have fully autonomous.

And I think we'll continue to explore all three of those

areas and advance as much as possible as that technology

evolves with our business needs.

Ryan, thanks for your time.

We're gonna head out now and check out the rest

of the IOC.

Well, thank you very much, and have a safe day.

Bye, Ryan.

Well Greg, welcome to our Mining Integrated

Operations Center, and we have Aaron here.

He's our Senior Operations Manager at the IOC.

-Hi Aaron. -Hey, how you doing?

-Hey Aaron, nice to meet you. -Nice to meet you too.

So give me a quick overview of this high-tech wonderland that

you're running here.

Yeah, so this is the Florida Mining Integrated

Operations Center.

This is the tactical hub for our day-to-day operations for

three of our mining facilities in Florida --

our Four Corners facility, South Fort Meade facility,

and Wingate facility.

So the slurry pit that we were at in Four Corners,

that's about 40 miles from here, and you're actually running it

from this location.

Yeah, so we operate all the locations at Four Corners

and South Fort Meade from this location.

Historically, those were operated on-site.

Back in 2020, we transitioned over here to run remotely.

Well, what are the chances I can jump in one of these chairs

and give it a run? -Sure, no problem.

-Go ahead, yep. -Thanks a lot, Aaron.

So this is actually the slurry pit from Four Corners that

we saw previously. -That's right.

So you can move the screen down on your left there,

and these joysticks are just like regular joysticks.

So you have two guns on the left and right, and you just

move them right, left, up, down, and your goal here is to

turn the phosphate rock into a slurry that we can send to

our beneficiation facility.

What's it being mixed with to turn it into this slurry?

Right, so we've got those high-pressure water guns,

and we've got phosphate rock and clay

and other rock that we will

remove in the beneficiation process.

So basically, the slurry that we're making here is gonna

go through this pump system, and more or less get washed,

and turn it back into just ore.

That's right, so you, along with the other pit operators here,

will process tons of product a day that we send to be

further processed in the fertilizer

production facilities. -[Greg] That is amazing.

This is some pretty advanced technology, but I want to learn

some more about the future of mining,

so why don't we get on out of here?

Well, Jody, let's talk about advanced technologies.

What are some of the cutting-edge breakthroughs

that are changing the mining industry?

Yeah, so we're really excited about so many technologies

here at Mosaic.

We have condition-based monitoring, and this is a way

that we can proactively monitor our rotating assets for things

like vibration.

We have a steam optimization system,

so we used machine learning

to develop the program, and now it gives our operators

a notification if they need to tweak the system for

more efficiency.

We have a crystallization circuit in one

of our operations, and there's an automated

freshwater addition, and we've been able to use

machine learning to optimize this, as well,

so it's great for sustainability.

[Greg] One of the goals with sustainability is getting more

out of a particular mine or a particular plot of land.

How are these technologies helping you do that?

So one of the future technologies for phosphoric

acid that we talked about earlier that makes fertilizer,

that could be further purified to use in batteries,

for example, for electric vehicles.

We also have byproducts, and one of those is

phosphogypsum or PG.

There are over 20 countries around the world that use PG.

They use it for bases for roadways, they use it for

reforestation, and also for rare element extraction.

Along with that, are you using, say, maybe drone technologies

and things like that to explore places where you would

traditionally either have to send someone in

or could not go?

Yeah, that's another great question.

So if we're working for wetland conservation, for example,

if there's an area that's a little bit harder to get to,

we'll use drone technology for that.

We have many, many miles of pipeline as well.

So we'll program the drones to fly over the pipeline so we can

test those.

So really exciting opportunity with drone technology.

[Greg] With all of this information technology systems

being put together and robotics and drones, it sounds like

there are a lot of jobs in the mining industry that

weren't there before.

One of the great things about the mining industry is there's

jobs we've had for decades, and we'll continue to have

those types of jobs for decades to come,

but we also have more jobs.

So we've got data analytics, we've got machine learning,

and it's not just about the jobs per se,

it's also about having all different kinds of people

working in Mosaic within the mining industry.

So one of the things that I'm really excited about with

Mosaic is we have employee inclusion networks.

We actually have six of them.

So those networks encourage people to bring their whole

self to work.

So we've got veterans networks, women's network, we have

race and heritage, diverse abilities,

we've got pride, we've got generation.

And the point of those networks is to make people

feel included.

And so when people feel included, they can be more

creative, they can be more collaborative.

Those aren't the only qualities we're looking for.

We're looking for people who are interested in change

and working hard.

We work hard around these mine facilities, but they are

changing all the times because we have so much innovation,

and if we have people that are interested and willing to

change along with us, that's great.

We'll also teach them, so we'll have employees that can come in

and learn through Mosaic, through the programs that

we talked about earlier.

So it's just a really exciting place to work and really

exciting industry to be in right now.

That's excellent -- well, this has been really great.

I appreciate you taking the time.

It's been a great visit -- I've got to get back

to Inventionland, so will you show me out?

Let's go.

Hey, Sarah!

-Welcome to Inventionland. -Hi, George, how are you?

-I'm great, thanks for coming. -Thank you for having us.

What did you bring?

So these are very cool -- they're shark's teeth that

we find when we're mining phosphate in Florida.

And the reason that we have potash and phosphate is because

millions of years ago, there was oceans, and these were left

behind by the prehistoric animals that used to swim in

those oceans.

So when we mine in Florida, we find these, and I brought

some here for Inventionland. -They're huge.

They are, and when we find these, we often give them to

schools or museums so that kids can learn about

prehistoric animals. -Oh, that's great.

You know what, if I can keep them, I'll put them in

our museum when the kids are coming through.

We would love for you to keep them.

Well, thank you.

And so you know I love to talk about the future, so can

you talk a little bit about where the industry

and Mosaic's going? -We are gonna be

taking the phosphate and further -Okay.

processing it to make a component called

purified phosphoric acid.

And it's actually put into electric car batteries.

Really?

So what you were mining before and adding to our food source

for making better food, to now helping with the EV market?

Absolutely.

Fossils from millions of years ago are helping us pave the way

for the future. -I love it.

-Thanks, Sarah. -Thanks so much.

[George] And remember, tomorrow's world is where

inspiration and creation drive innovation and production.

See you next time.