Veritasium - 2021-01-27
What are these electric blue ponds in the middle of the Utah desert? And why do they keep changing color? Join Derek Muller (Veritasium) as he looks into the weird, bizarre, and seemingly inexplicable images found on Google Earth to discover what on Earth they actually are. It’s a travel vlog, documentary, and science show wrapped into one. It’s Pindrop. 0:00 Intro 0:29 Electric Blue Ponds 2:13 Finding The Truth 5:47 Importance Of Potash 8:41 Potash From Rocks 14:04 Safer Ways To Mine 15:02 Droning 17:28 Potash The Savior
If Veritasium was a school there would not be a single person that hated science or maths. The way he explains with so much hard work i never wish to leave his videos unwatched.
I had a high school chemistry teacher who used to blow up chia pets with potassium.
@Slpwq42 you were awesomely fortunate to have had an instructor with such interesting talent!
@Napoleon Bonerfarte good teachers dont need to force you to do homework, they inspire you to spend time learning it without being forced.
Surely you joust.
@Diane Weiss most defiantly
This isn't documentary. This is a masterpiece.
If thats your true opinion, then your expectations on documentries are quite low
Kick ass no s***
@ItsMe pretty sure what he meant was that unlike documentaries which mostly focus on injesting information ,it also entertains in a different manner
It's very practical, especially since it affects so much of our lives. Bravo.
I love how that bucket jumped all the way out of camera shot and then landed back on the table, that was so cool
@Balala Ask yourself that question officer.
@Koji 888 Last time I was drunk was in 1965. On a hot day I have a cold beer so I can cool down. As a former English teacher, I abhor trash talk. It is unbecoming to a beautiful and expressive language. If you don't think dumbing down is real, how did Biden get elected?
@lemon1980 that was dangerous, plus the gases after?
@Ken Bellchambers. Thanks. Me too. For the last 30 years. Forgive me. Big hug. Let’s go. 🤗
@Ken Bellchambers . Hey Ken. I just went through this thread. Actually you are just a pest.
Just chill and try being nicer. 🤗
Thank you Derek. As a chemist, I sort of knew about these things theoretically but you made it so real. That potassium explosion was wild. I've seen sodium hit water before but nothing like that. I once had to solve a mystery when sticks of white phosphorus (stored under water) were confused with sticks of sodium (stored under oil) and there were sudden delayed explosions as water penetrated under the oil. I heard that the DuPont Chemical company got its start during the Revolutionary war by skimming potash off of crystals from drying urine soaked soil to make gunpowder. I thought you were going there with your patent. And KCl as a fertilizer will carry along the chlorine which is a no-no on fields so how is it modified before application? Copper mines in Arizona also have beautiful blue pools of copper sulfate. Thanks for explaining the confusion in terminology between different meanings of potash. How about soda ash? I thought it's always sodium carbonate. Wonderful video!
Standard industrial process is to react KCl with NaNO3 for KNO3 and NaCl. Sodium nitrate is also mineable (chilean potash) as a naturally occurring mineral. There are some other modern routes, but this was before the Haber-Bosch process so it precludes readily available ammonia.
I'm a 35 years old scientist, and this is the first time I learnt that the name "potassium" came from "pot ash". One of those trivia facts which you don't really learn in education.
Lol same idk why so many ppl leavin negative comments oh well
@Cargobob Yeah funny maybe if you’re under the age of 13
@walperstyle ffs lol
Good thing we don't spell it as pot ass
Finding this channel was one of the best things I've done for myself in a while. Thanks for all of the informative content.
Great video. I've wondered about those flying across country many times. But I must say all those wonderful things you mention as made possible by agriculture and artificial fertilizers have come at devastating ecological costs we're only now starting to realize.
This is a wonderful video. I have been requiring my students in both geology and environmental science classes to watch it ever since it was published. I look forward to more of these "pin drop" style videos being produced! Great work.
This video is on another level. So good to see the progress you’re making. Fantastic job!
Hi Veritasium, one of my coworkers lives near the Hanford nuclear reactor and we were using Google earth to "look" around. It would be really awesome if you did a video like this of there! There is so much history at Hanford!
This was a great video. I VIVIDLY enjoyed watching this and learning so much not only about science but our incredible history. Well done!
It always reminded me of Las Salinas Grandes, in Argentina, they were close by to a farm I used to live in as a kid, so I had a good guess at what there were for, just not exactly what was in the water. It's good to know that people can make up names like Pot ash, instead of just putting their forgettable last names to everything.
I love how every video of his includes how that particular concept is connected to the bigger picture and what its significance and implications are. Just mind blowing all in all.
Thanks YouTube! I used to be the plant engineer at this potash plant from 2004-2007. It's still owned by Intrepid Potash Inc. out of Denver. Pretty accurate in all accounts technically. The solution mining method was at first just flooding the original room and pillar underground mine. In 2005 they drilled a set of interconnected horizontal boreholes through the potash bearing strata using the same tech used for horizontal oil and gas drilling. A small point of clarification, but the majority of the evap ponds are actually sodium chloride and the KCL is separated in the plant a few miles east via an amine bubbling process. The remaining sodium saturated water is actually recycled back down the pump shafts. KCL is preferentially soluble in water and this keeps the sodium byproduct from building up. All the feed lines are kept as saturated as possible to minimize corrosion, which as you might imagine can be a big problem.
Thank you for the explanations. Why some of the ponds are yellow, not blue? No copper sulfates added?
@Marshall Jung My biggest question was, how do they separate out the CuSO4 from the KCl after the evaporation?
@lovehusky02 - Only hydrated copper sulfate is blue. As it dries out it's more white. Also iron oxide and dust color the ponds yellowish and brown. A.k.a see surrounding rocks!
@ganashal - They don't separate it from the KCl specifically but it's not preferentially pulled up in the amine process so largely it's recycled. It's pretty trace quantity overall though.
Wow dude! YouTube is really connecting people!
Derek, the illustrations and examples in this video are done so incredibly well! Unique educational content; thanks for dedicating so much of your life to educating people worldwide! Much love <3
No one is probably going to see this, but this was one of the most amazing videos I have seen on YouTube. I invest in precious metals miners and clicked on the pretty water. I have been looking to branch into other miners like copper, uranium, and battery metals. I never knew what the hell potash was and this just now made me was to look into this and all of its uses, market, and best miners. Thank you for this video. Amazing!
This is so cool! Thank you 🙏🏻 I’ve been to Moab many times and knew about the potash ponds but never understood why they are that way. Really cool to find out they’re using the hot desert air to evaporate the potash mined water :)
My science teacher had this story that when he was a kid he stole a piece of pure potassium from his school lab and threw it on his neighbor's swimming pool. When he became a teacher, he made sure that no amount of metallic potassium or sodium came anywhere near us.
@empty No, no one died, ok! Nobody died! The neighbor did try to kill my teacher, though, but he escape in time.
At the end of the the day, there was just a a column of water flying everywhere out of the pool, some broken tiles and some startled kids fleeing the (crime) scene.
When I was little, my older brother had a large board that he drew the table of elements on, then attached sample bottles of each element that he was able to collect. Dad worked for a large chemical company and was able to collect quite a few specimens. One of the sample bottles was full of oil and a piece of sodium the size of a segment of my finger. As an experiment he put a coffee can full of water in our garage and dropped a pea-sized piece of the sodium into it. The water instantly boiled and a small fireball flew into the air. I still have the scar on my forehead at the hairline, 60 years later.
@TomandTeena big f, did your brother get hurt tho
Probably don't clean that pool with a little potassium in it
This looks like a show that would run on the Discovery channel back in the day when it was actually good. Wow, Derek this is a new level of quality!
I agree, smb
Wow, I'm always amazed by how much more there is to learn. Actually quite fascinating. Thanks for this!
How can you make such amazing videos. This is just incredible. All the content is so easy to understand. World needs educators/teachers like you.
Amazing video! I learned so much interesting information! You raise science beyond boring formulas. Or rather, you return to the origin of science: the mystery, the succes, the failure, the conquering of limits, the grandeur!
When will you do the following pin drops? I'm dying to know about the horse!
Excellent planning, storytelling, and editing of this video. You might not read this comment but I had to say that your work has reached a new level of polish.
This is like 90's Discovery Channel, before it all went to reality show crap.
And ancient alien
@REMOTE NEURAL MONITORING are you sick? Reported.
Kinda makes me think of the good mythbusters
@Sutirtha Misra that’s the history channel
I hope this channel doesn’t go down the same drain
Fascinating - thank you science guy for enjoyable science experiments and history and making great connections!
My grandparents told me that Dr. Frank discovered the use of potash salt as a fertilizer when he noticed, that plants grew bigger and stronger on the edges of the salt mine tailings of Staßfurt (first commercial salt mine of the world) where the so called bitter salt was dumped until its uses got discovered. My grandma was from that town and my great-uncle, her brother in law was a miner in one of those mines.
What an incredible content. You have lots of subscribers, but still, I think you have much less than this content deserves.
Should have at least 50mi
Thanks a lot for this informative content
My parents use his videos a lot
They retired from the military as Corpsmen (my Mother worked in a medical research lab and my father put such work to use - people to that he did 3 tours on the ground with USMC and 1 on ship USN in Vietnam where he developed some new field treatments. They both retired from the military and taught Jr.High science. They recently retired from that as well but they used this guy's videos many many times.
Thank you for helping teachers get children interested, it's so important and hard to do!
So proud of you, this is such a GREAT SHOW!
@AxxL sasss
We bought DENT, because whilst Bitcoin, Ethereum & Litecoin may only do a 5-10x from its current price, DENT is guaranteed to do a 50Xxx
@Ebefren Revo Thought*
I love this content, so fun to learn new things in depth!
There are some naturally occurring pools of wonderful colours in southern Western Australia. Suggestive of things worth exploring and cultivating?
The downside of fertilizers is algae blooms from the mass farming of monoculture crops, they can be really harmful to smaller water ecosystems. Great video as always, just was hoping for a mention of this!
Look at the red tide decimation in sw florida... horrible....
Lake Winnipeg is in serious trouble from agricultural runoff causing algae blooms.
Amazingly informative show.
Nuts and bolts facts with great demonstrations and graphics.
Well done.
Enriching stuff.
That bucket looked like glass at first, I was expecting it to explode with deadly shrapnel.
Upon reflection, had to be plastic, which is much safer.
I remember the old science demonstration in school where they drop a smidge of potassium and magnesium in water to show it explode and vroom around.
This video is just absolutely incredible, keep up the great work.
Very good production. I would have also liked to see any information about the environmental impact, if there are any, of pumping up the ground water.
Loving your channel. Thanks for taking your smartness and finding such interesting topics to share and dumbing down for us 😋
The amount of work put in this video is blowing my mind!!
Really
I saw it more number of time
Don't let YouTube videos deceive you. I counted 50+ person working on this video in the end credit. YouTube is currently at the same state as a television channel. Some television crew are smaller than that. Some European feature films don't even have that many person working on a film sometimes.
Then check out Fall of Civilization podcast's videos, they're truly well made.
An amazing short documentary, Derek you and your team have done it AGAIN!
Much more interesting and informative than my chemistry lessons. Keep it up! :)
I've watched many of your videos, and this one is at the top of my favorites. Thank you, well done!
Awesome content guys! This is what YouTube and platforms like this should be more about!
(just one remark “about agriculture freeing up our time”, that actually is not the case for multiple reasons 🤷🏻♂️)
Absolutely fantastic video! How long until the Science channel is playing these in syndication? Just awesome Derek!
Like your videos, as always. And now for the follow up video discussing where these millions of tons of fertiliser end up — leaching into the rivers, destroying the ecosystems…
Fertilizers, like potash need to be used in a way that suppliments and supports the natural actions of plants feeding the microbiology of the soil, which then can mine all the minerals a plant web needs for healthy growth and defenses against pests.
Using external fertilizers is actually killing the ability of plants and the life in the soil to sequester carbon in the soil.
Yes, these industrial methods produce a lot of potassium, but it really has limited use in a holistically-managed agricultural system.
It depends on the soil. Some types can be sufficiently deficient that a potassium source be added to the soil.
Great video. Does the water pumped underground have any effect on the stability of the earth's crust?
The crust is 20 - 40 miles thick under continents. The deepest mine is barely 2.5 miles. The deepest hole drilled is almost 4.4 miles. I think it has zero effect on the crust.
I think he should be given the budget of the YouTube show but they don’t force him to use their commercialized editing and video structure.
@shrdlu i have adhd and I didn't enjoy it lol
It seemed to replace his genuine wonder with corny expensive effects and editing. It reminds me of why I can’t stand network TV. Love the content still, but looked designed to get me through the commercials.
I was embarrassed to ask about this because I didn't want it to sound like "hurr durr murican tv", but holy moly this is hard to watch. I simply don't understand the need for this level of overdramatization.
Derek originally wanted to be filmmaker, he likes doing this stuff. Let the guy enjoy.
It would be nice if he added lot of references and extra details in description, so curious people can learn more on their own.
Right now, description box is completely dry.
it's basically a pilot guys, if they make more episodes they will probably iron out some aspects of it. That being said, I hope they change the show's name, it's awful. The fact that it's been two and a half months and still no new episodes makes me wonder if this concept had been abandoned though, but maybe it takes a long time to make these.
This is one of my favorite videos you’ve made. Thank you for what you do Derek! Much appreciated.
Very well researched and told, the documentary was very interesting, Thank You!
10 ON 10 - Travel & Entertainment - 2021-02-04
These are the videos I pay my internet bills for, very informative and entertaining, also value the hardwork put in...
charlie akin - 2021-10-12
Your pay for internet?
Timothy Rayner - 2021-10-14
@Socrates C. No such word as Passionated. It's "Passionate" as in "I'm passionate about the English language and so, unfortunately, find it difficult to allow a grammatical error to pass when it's made by someone who says education is important which I admit makes me come across as a bit of a Grammar Nazi".
rita Jingoku - 2021-12-05
Next vid: wtf i dont want the vaxx 😂
MaximGhost - 2022-04-26
I got rid of my cable TV ten years ago. I an bewildered as to why people still pay $100 per month for cable TV when you can watch channels like Veritasium for free and learn so much.
Sapphire Soulwind - 2022-05-13
@Socrates C. Great comment until "help you grow in life leaving other topics that are far more important like financial "
Financial? Really?