I have made the point on this blog before that depletion of fossil fuels is scary, in part, because we need fuel to grow, process and transport food. I promised that I would write a post on this topic but I have been pre-occupied with planting switchgrass and harvesting canola.
I’ve started working on this post though! Here is what I have so far.
I have constructed the following flow-chart as a way of diagrammatically expressing where fuel is utilized in the food-production chain. What should be apparent is that even this simplistic account of food production shows that trying to quantify fuel use in such a system is extremely hard. This is because fuel (and more broadly, energy) is needed in all steps of the process and the quantities used are dependent on multiple variable factors. In the end, we may not have adequate data and it will become necessary to make assumptions.
Dr David Pimentel, whom I think belongs to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, rose to prominence a few years back when he wrote a paper stating that all biofuels provide less energy than is required to grow them. The reason there is controversy regarding this is that other work says exactly the opposite. I think part of the reason for these differing opinions is that people are making different assumptions about energy use.
I’ve started working on this post though! Here is what I have so far.
I have constructed the following flow-chart as a way of diagrammatically expressing where fuel is utilized in the food-production chain. What should be apparent is that even this simplistic account of food production shows that trying to quantify fuel use in such a system is extremely hard. This is because fuel (and more broadly, energy) is needed in all steps of the process and the quantities used are dependent on multiple variable factors. In the end, we may not have adequate data and it will become necessary to make assumptions.
Dr David Pimentel, whom I think belongs to the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at Cornell University, rose to prominence a few years back when he wrote a paper stating that all biofuels provide less energy than is required to grow them. The reason there is controversy regarding this is that other work says exactly the opposite. I think part of the reason for these differing opinions is that people are making different assumptions about energy use.
The good news is that various papers, extension services and statistics resources do provide some information about fuel use in the food production stream. The following PDF extract gives an example of this. So when I get some time I will work through these and try to estimate whether we are all going to starve.
16 comments:
Starve - no, Freeze to death -yes: but then global warming should solve that.
Sorry its Monday morning and the brain cell is still saying "leave me alone"
More erudite query - Arent the colossal acreages of land required for biofuels a serious contender for mucking up the global climate in who knows what direction? Perhaps even moreso than our current technique (which I admit is doing a pretty fine job of mucking it up)
Cheers Rod
flawed flowchart... "herbicide & herbicide"??? come on nic - I expect better from a man with such a big forehead. now that I'm writting a comment I cant be bothered to go back and check, but did you include fertilser on the list as that is a massive consumer of oil - 1 litre per kg of urea...
cam
Whoops, thanks Cam, fixed now.
Rod, the idea is that we DON'T use extra land to produce biofuels, we need to work within the land we have.
Buuuut you said in a previous blog that USA would have to cover more than its existing land area to meet its current oil use (lets assume for a moment you arent going to change the energy habits of the great unwashed masses anytime soon, and while prats like Al Gore try and score political points with convenient media releases but use 20 time the average energy at home you arent!! And neither political party in Aus will touch coal mining... ). You must have some very very impressive GM canola in your backyard
Rod
I think it is highly likely that private land owners may clear native vegetation and use the land for biofuel production. However even if all the good land was used for cropping we wouldn't come close to meeting fuel needs. So unfortunately the US (and Australia) will have to change fuel consumption levels, I also said that in a previous post.
No offence Nic but I think we need more doctorates in subjects affiliated with changing peoples attidudes and behavioural habits. A small scientific community even helped by a sympathetic media just isnt going to cut it. Its about now we need all Western countries to change from democracy to dictatorship (assuming the dictators were environmentally aware), but while votes count its peoples attidues that need changing. Just legislating wont work because no politician will take the risks (of a no vote). Plus the legislation that comes out that is basically wrong takes us 100 steps backwards in accepting the next piece (eg wrong, as I mentioned to your beloved in an email re fluoro tubes and mercury poisoning). Aus and Canada legislate to use fluoro tubes - but we'll make them in Asia so someone else (with low EPA standards)will have the pollution problem and we will ignore how we will dispose of these things and their encapsulated mercury.
Rods rant for the day, cheers!
I agree with Snrub,
No wait. It's not biofuels which are the problem, it's our consumption habts which do need to change. But as Rod said changing peoples spending habits is about as likely as forcing people to drive on the other side of the road.
So given these circumstances, we must find ways of devloping alternative energy sources for our current systems and associated attitudes. This includes an economic environment which is conducive to agricultural production of resources other than food. Which has it's drawbacks - Like Danny for example is looking at alternative feedstocks for biodiesel. Peanut oil may have been a contender but as soon as people start buying it, the demand causes a price rise of 40c/kg rendering it uneconomic as a fuel, but still profitable when used to fatten up North America.
Personally I think a flow chart displaying a group of people cluster-fucking the earth would work equally well.
Speaking from some of the reading I've been doing:
We are fucked!!!!
Currently the political system seems to think that using incentives like carbon credits, and tree planting subsidies to sequester carbon in trees on farm land is the way to go. Of course this ignores many facts, the least of which is that farms are a carbon emitter themselves and would only make them neutral.
They refuse to invest time and $$ into soil C sequestration, which is supported in the literature but currently poorly trialed and not supported under Kyoto. This is one area that has promise in terms of offsets.
But ultimately offsets, etc are flawed and will lead to trading rather than fixing the environment. The Financial Review stated that the only thing that would work to reduce emissions is a tax on emitters. Of course taxes are unpopular and so we will never have one introduced, countries will go on "cluster fucking" the Earth, and our kids will bear the brunt of our pigheadedness.
I woke up positive too!
Cheers, Tim.
I hope Nic wasnt wanting this Blog to be a utopia of positive and constructive reasoning and thought...!!!
For those of you who have seen Dads Army "We're Dooommed"
From the various entries in this blog it sounds like I'm the only non-environmentally trained person reading it so this could be waaayyy wrong but from what I can read here and elsewhere we cant stop global warming so why are we trying (OK OK some effort maybe/is required), but shouldnt the effort/money be going into how we/our kids can survive whatever comes? (just suppose for a moment that it is a solar perturbance causing all these problems so no amount of sequestering is going to help) It cant be that hard, humans evolved during and survived the last ice age.
That should get this blog back on a positive slant...Should be especially helpful to Nic in his new leadership role
Cheers Rod
Wow, I go away for a few days and our blog becomes a site for heated debate. As soon as I finish my field work I will respond to all these comments.
I mentioned this to Chris, and picks up on a point Rod made:
If we change our habits now we will still get a +0.6-1.2 degree change in global climate. If we don't it could be a +2-6 degree change in the next century.
So basically there will be a global climate change regardless of what we do now. If in teh next 10 years we make huge changes it may stay at that. If we continue emmitting at current rates, then the ~6 degrees is what we will get. But remember our emmissions have been climbing, so 6 degree change is not the top end.
Cheers, Tim.
Speaking of biofuels... have a look at this ABC news article. I am amused at the ability of genetic modification to cause people to throw common sense straight out the window... how can gm contaminants end up in ethanol? I thought ethanol was just C and H!?!
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/content/2007/s1970809.htm
Rick B.
http://www.abc.net.au/rural/news/ (cont.)
content/2007/s1970809.htm
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