# What the hell is "Potash?"
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [January 26, 2025, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436 "2025-01-26T16:25:52Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 3
### Author:  [@Sylvanz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sylvanz)
#### Post date: [January 26, 2025, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/41 "2025-01-26T23:57:11Z")
I use extra borax in my laundry because the water here is ridiculously hard. It’s also good for other cleaning and killing bugs.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/42 "2025-01-27T02:48:28Z")
Nice! Like that.
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### Author:  [@Beckdawrek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beckdawrek)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/43 "2025-01-27T08:01:10Z")
Boric acid is cheaper than Borax and works better on pest control. Skips a whole step, in fact.
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### Author:  [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 9:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/44 "2025-01-27T09:26:35Z")
actually its called boron about 45 minutes away from me … and they still do mine tours there
> **[Boron, California](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boron,_California)**
>
> Boron (formerly Amargo, Baker, Borate, and Kern) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Kern County, California, United States. Boron is 15 miles (24 km) southwest of Red Rock Mountain at an elevation of 2,467 feet (752 m). The population was 2,086 at the 2020 census, up from 2,025 at the 2000 census. Boron is named after the element boron and is the site of the world's largest source of the boron compound boric acid.
> Boron is a hinterland community on the western edge of the Mojave Desert. Wit...
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/45 "2025-01-27T10:22:31Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#):
>
> Neal Stephenson wrote a classic essay about undersea cables that mentions gutta-percha, among other things:
>
> [Mother Earth Mother Board | WIRED](https://www.wired.com/1996/12/ffglass/)
I read that article about 26 years ago; absolutely fascinating. It was the first thing I thought of when someone mentioned gutta percha upthread.
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### Author:  [@Bullitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bullitt)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 10:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/46 "2025-01-27T10:26:50Z")
> [@nightshadea](#):
>
> actually its called boron about 45 minutes away from me … and they still do mine tours there
As already pointed out by **Stranger** and **blondebear** and joked about by **kenobi** (twenty mules).
In Boron, CA one of the main roads is [Borax Road](https://maps.app.goo.gl/6p1Frjii1PGEMTB19?g_st=ic). It is an exit off of highway CA-58 and takes you towards the Borax Visitor Center.
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### Author:  [@Machine\_Elf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Machine_Elf)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/47 "2025-01-27T11:45:39Z")
> [@kenobi\_65](#):
>
> I had always assumed that you had to boil down twenty mules to make borax.
You can in fact still buy 20-Mule-Team Borax, same as 134 years ago:
> **[20 Mule Team Borax](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/20_Mule_Team_Borax)**
>
> 20 Mule Team Borax is a brand of cleaner manufactured in the United States by The Dial Corporation, a subsidiary of Henkel. The product primarily consists of borax, also known as sodium borate, sodium tetraborate, or disodium tetraborate, and is named after the 20-mule teams that were used by William Tell Coleman's company to move borax out of Death Valley, California, to the nearest rail spur between 1883 and 1889.
> .mw-parser-output .vanchor\>:target~.vanchor-text{background-color:#b1d2ff}@media...
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### Author:  [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/48 "2025-01-27T11:57:37Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> So the US produces less than 10% of what it consumes. It exports 3% of what it consumes.
>
> The US doesn’t seem to be running out of Potash to mine and I’m not panicking. Furthermore, paying 20% more for a key component of US fertilizer is not the end of the world, though it would make US agricultural exports less competitive.
However, as pointed out upthread increasing the amount produced that much would require building the industrial infrastructure to do so. Which would be expensive and more importantly take quite some time.
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### Author:  [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/49 "2025-01-27T12:15:04Z")
Yes. Once you realize thus, Borat’s pride in the high quality of “Kazakhstan’s” potassium is less funny/ridiculous!
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### Author:  [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/50 "2025-01-27T12:26:10Z")
> [@Dallas\_Jones](#):
>
> It is unlikely that Salt Lake in Utah will ever run out of available potash.
Probably an oversight, but the lake is called (the) Great Salt Lake.
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### Author:  [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/51 "2025-01-27T14:28:56Z")
I’ll just point out here that Potash is no longer made from ashes. It’s refined from potassium rich ore. Check out the Veritasium look at Potash: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMDJA4UvXLA&t=347s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMDJA4UvXLA&t=347s)
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/52 "2025-01-27T16:40:20Z")
Thanks all for the Borax / Boron correction. D’oh. I’ve even been there. I blame my confusion on the Borax Road exits I drove past all those years while zooming down the dark desert highways with cool wind in my hair.
Returning to Potash …
Potash is NOT a non-technical term for Potassium. Potash is a non-technical / ancient term for Potassium Chloride. Which is an ingredient in fertilizers and in that application is commonly but wrongly referred to as just “Potassium” in the N - K - P trilogy. Which is really N - K and Cl - P quadrogy (is so a word! 😉 ).
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### Author:  [@Pork\_Rind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pork_Rind)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/53 "2025-01-27T16:48:03Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> I blame my confusion on the Borax Road exits I drove past all those years while zooming down the dark desert highways with cool wind in my hair.
Are you sure this wasn’t from that period when you were [styling your hair with Cool Whip](https://www.straightdope.com/21342208/in-the-song-hotel-california-what-does-colitas-mean)?
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### Author:  [@markn\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/markn_1)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/54 "2025-01-27T16:52:23Z")
Maybe doing a bit too much of the colitas.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/55 "2025-01-27T17:01:32Z")
Colitas, no. Coladas, yes. 😉
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/56 "2025-01-27T17:02:16Z")
Never mind. Inadvertent double-post.
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### Author:  [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/57 "2025-01-27T17:20:09Z")
> [@LSLGuy](#):
>
> Potash is NOT a non-technical term for Potassium. Potash is a non-technical / ancient term for Potassium Chloride.
Just the reverse: potassium is named for potash, once Davy isolated the element from potash, hence its name in English.
German chemists named it Kailium, from the Arabic « kali » meaning alkali. Hence the symbol for potassium is K, reflecting the German name.
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### Author:  [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/58 "2025-01-27T17:28:07Z")
I agree about the timing. “Potassium” the element is named in relation to, and sorta for, the older known substance potash.
My point is that the chemical substance potassium and the chemical substance potash are different. The words are not synonyms, and the substances are not the same, despite their each having a parent-child relationship to the other.
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### Author:  [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/59 "2025-01-27T17:32:10Z")
> [@Measure\_for\_Measure](#):
>
> The US doesn’t seem to be running out of Potash to mine and I’m not panicking. Furthermore, paying 20% more for a key component of US fertilizer is not the end of the world,
Of course it’s not the end of the world. It’s one thing that will add a little bit onto the price of groceries, but pennies per items. It’s one thing that will cost a few jobs, reduce some profitability on a few things, but it’s unlikely you personally will notice.
But it’s not just potash. It’s potash and oil and iron and aluminum and nickel and coffee and bananas and machine parts and a thousand other things.
They are not doing this to help the common person.
The Great Depression wasn’t the end of the world either. Hope you’re ready for another one.
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### Author:  [@FrenchDunadan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FrenchDunadan)
#### Post date: [January 27, 2025, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-the-hell-is-potash/1013436/60 "2025-01-27T17:44:40Z")
Kalium is German, given by its discoverer, from the Arabic named alkali, from Arabic Al-Qayla which means “plant ashes”.
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