Most shipped bulk commodities

One other factoid I found interesting in Prime Movers of Globalization was the relative volumes of the most shipped bulk commodities (besides crude and petroleum products, which dwarf them).

• iron ore, ~800 million tons


• coal, ~800 million tons


• grain (I think including oilseeds as well), ~300 million tons


• bauxite and alumina, ~80 million tons


• phosphates, ~30 million tons
  

This might only be interesting for commodity nerds, but I thought the drop-off was impressive.

Cute analogy

Aluminum is to energy as grain is to water.

(Half courtesy of Laurence Smith's The World in 2050, via MR, and half courtesy of a conversation with a colleague.)