The Oil Intensity of Food

Lester R. Brown has posted a guest blog entry to The Oil Drum on The Oil Intensity of Food. The author of Plan B 3.0 provides us a perspective on the American food system which rests on an unstable foundation of massive fossil fuel inputs.

Today we are an oil-based civilization, one that is totally dependent on a resource whose production will soon be falling. Since 1981, the quantity of oil extracted has exceeded new discoveries by an ever-widening margin. In 2008, the world pumped 31 billion barrels of oil but discovered fewer than 9 billion barrels of new oil. World reserves of conventional oil are in a free fall, dropping every year.

This prospect of peaking oil production has direct consequences for world food security, as modern agriculture depends heavily on the use of fossil fuels. Most tractors use gasoline or diesel fuel. Irrigation pumps use diesel fuel, natural gas, or coal-fired electricity. Fertilizer production is also energy-intensive. Natural gas is used to synthesize the basic ammonia building block in nitrogen fertilizers. The mining, manufacture, and international transport of phosphates and potash all depend on oil.

The Energy use and economical analysis of wheat production in Iran: A case study from Ardabil province has details about the energy efficiency of food production. In terms of total energy equivalents the following table summarizes the production of wheat in the study:

Inputs (MJ/ha) - 47,078

• Human Labour - 317
• Machinery - 4,574
• Diesel fuel - 12,267
• Chemical fertilizers - 14,654
• Farmyard manure - 4,575
• Chemicals - 260
• Water for irrigation - 4,230
• Seeds - 6,201

Outputs (MJ/ha) - 92,786

• Grain - 66,368 (4,515 kg)
• Straw - 26,418 (2,113 kg)

Do Fossil Fuels Have A Sustainable Future?

Check out these recent speeches and papers on the Energy Crisis by Matthew R. Simmons on the web site of Simmons & Company who is the only independent investment bank specializing in the entire spectrum of the energy industry. Some examples:

• How Did Our Energy Hole Get So Deep?
• Two Energy Oxymorons: 1. Energy Independence 2. Energy Security
• Have We "Peaked?"
• Is There Light At The End Of The Dark Tunnel?
• Investing During A World-Class Crisis
• Do Fossil Fuels Have A Sustainable Future?
• Planning In A Most Uncertain Environment: The Energy Challenges In 2009 And Beyond
• The Oil Pricing Roller-Coaster: How It Impacts Energy Investment
• The Risk Of Misjudging Peak Oil: A Real Physical Crisis
• The Era Of Cheap Oil Is Over

Oil - The Long Goodbye

The Foreign Policy has published a special report on Oil - The Long Goodbye.

It's Still the One (by Daniel Yergin)

Oil's very future is being seriously questioned, debated, and challenged. The author of an acclaimed history explains why, just as we need more oil than ever, it is changing faster than we can keep up with.

Subpriming the Pump (by Mahmoud A. El-Gamal and Amy Myers Jaffe)

Oil wealth used to hurt only those who had it. Now, it’s hurting everyone.

Don't Be Crude (by Prince Turki al-Faisal)

Why Barack Obama's energy-independence talk is just demagoguery.

Scenes from the Violent Twilight of Oil (by Peter Maass)

It succors and drowns human life. And for the last eight years, oil—and the people and places that make it—was my obsession.

The Great Pipeline Opera (by Daniel Freifeld)

Inside the European pipeline fantasy that became a real-life gas war with Russia.

Seven Myths About Alternative Energy (by Michael Grunwald)

As the world looks around anxiously for an alternative to oil, energy sources such as biofuels, solar, and nuclear seem like they could be the magic ticket. They're not.

Is a Green World a Safer World? (by David J. Rothkopf)

A guide to the coming green geopolitical crises.

The Devil's Excrement (by Moisés Naím)

Can oil-rich countries avoid the resource curse?

World Energy Use by Fuel

New Scientist has a topic guide on Energy and Fuels. Their nice infographics shows World Energy use by fuel type (oil, coal, gas, biomass, nuclear, hidro) and usage (transport, electricity, industry and residential/other).


The Energy and Fuels instant expert article discusses the coming energy crisis, and the new technologies that could save us from it, in New Scientist's beginner's guide.

Sustainable Nanocity in India to Use Renewable Energy

The vision of NANOCITY in India is to develop a sustainable city with world class infrastructure and to create an ecosystem for innovation leading to economy, ecology and social cohesion.

Nanocity spans 11138 acres of flatland located just beyond the foothills of the Himalayas. It is less than 25 kms east of Chandigarh and just over 200 kms north of Delhi. Two seasonal rivers form the eastern and western borders of the city and two streams trickle within its boundaries. It is a public/private partnership between Sabeer Bhatia Group and the Haryana State Government promoted by Sabeer Bhatia.

Green City

NANOCITY has been designed to be a green city. It uses context as opportunity, promotes a lush and shaded climate-sensitive environment, encourages the expansion of local natural systems, and advances ecologically intelligent and sustainable design. Half of the land will thrive as a green open space. Grassy frontages, green belts, courtyards, walking trails and public parks will contribute to the all – natural vibrancy of the city. Tree lined boulevards will offer shaded, climate sensitive environments. The urban infrastructure will be ecologically intelligent and sustainable by outfitting the buildings with energy efficient systems and renewable energy sources.

Sustainable City

Global warming and climate change make the contemporary urban agenda a global one. Nanocity will preserve the naturally existing resources of the land. During monsoon, water will be harvested for retention and use throughout the year. The water reclaimed from the rivers and other natural sources will undergo intensive bioremediation to make it safe for consumption. The city will be outfitted with a dual distribution piped water system to separate drinking water from reclaimed greywater used for non-potable purposes. Living machine technology will provide Nanocity with the capacity to convert wastewater into odor-free drinking water. Half of the energy used in the city will come from renewable sources viz: wind, solar and photovoltaic technologies. Buildings will use climate responsive design techniques such as sun shading, cross ventilation and direct evaporative cooling. At least 70% of the city’s waste will be recycled or composted.

State of the art city transit

The pedestrian has priority in Nanocity. Tree-lined streets, green store fronts and narrow, shaded sidewalks will ensure a pleasant walking environment. To dissuade "car culture", a state of the art public transit system has been envisaged. on the move. Nanocity’s Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system will consists of a main loop connecting the entire city. There are secondary loops, neighbourhood loops with transferstops and regional transit centres to increase the efficiency of mass transport. Each residence will be within a five minute walking distance from every starting point in the city. If one has to journey by car, two wheelers & other automobiles, there are lanes that are specifically meant for them thereby making the journey safe and comfortable.

There is no such thing as a Sustainable Biofuel

"Even capitalists now admit the oil crisis is real. But their solutions border on lunacy as they avoid the obvious answer" - based on an article in The Guardian by George Monbiot

...

Many people believe that by making biofuels not from the crops themselves but from crop wastes - if transport fuel can be manufactured from straw or grass or wood chips, there are no implications for land use, and no danger of spreading hunger.

Unfortunately most agricultural "waste" is nothing of the kind. It is the organic material that maintains the soil's structure, nutrients and store of carbon. A paper commissioned by the US government proposes that, to help meet its biofuel targets, 75% of annual crop residues should be harvested. According to a letter published in Science last year, removing crop residues can increase the rate of soil erosion a hundredfold. Our addiction to the car, in other words, could lead to peak soil as well as peak oil.

...

All these convoluted solutions are designed to avoid a simpler one: reducing the consumption of transport fuel. But that requires the use of a different commodity. Global supplies of political courage appear, unfortunately, to have peaked some time ago.

Biophysical Economics

The Biophysical Economics Workgroup is composed of academic and industry leaders from different parts of the world, all hailing from various fields of both the natural and social sciences. The workgroup seeks to advance a new paradigm in understanding the properties, structures and processes of economic systems and to offer an alternative to the neoclassical economics model our global system is currently dependent on.

The workgroup is currently coordinated by Dr. Charles Hall of the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

Biophysical economics is a system of economic analysis that is based on the biological and physical (as opposed to social) properties, structures and processes of real economic systems as its conceptual base and fundamental model. It acknowledges that the basis for nearly all wealth is nature, and views most human economic activity as a means to increase (directly or indirectly) the exploitation of nature to generate more wealth. As such, it focuses on the structure and function of real economies from an energy and material perspective, although it often considers the relation of this structure and function to human welfare and to the money (i.e. dollar) flows that tend to go in the opposite direction to energy.

Biophysical economics deals with

• the energy sources (principally, the Sun) that are essential for any economy;
• the material that circulates upon the earth’s surface through natural and semi-natural ecosystems;
• the human-dominated steps of exploitation, processing, manufacturing and consumption.

According to this Deep Green post at Greenpeace:

This year, 2009, will signal the birth of a genuinely innovative economics that will eventually displace the patchwork rationalisations for greed. The new ecological accounting is variously called 'dynamic equilibrium', 'steady-state' or 'biophysical' economics.

In the 21st century, human enterprise has reached the scale of the planet. We have to account for ourselves on nature's balance sheet. This is biophysical economics. It appears inevitable. Biophysical culture is what we will make of it.

The Question Everything blog has a whole category dedicated to Biophysical economics:

Neo-classical economics is a theory looking for support and it is basically a bad one. It doesn't take physical reality into account, like when you used up finite resources (its theory of substitutability says so what!) there will always be a substitute. But this is proving to be wrong. Ecological economics does a better job. It embeds the human economy within the ecological systems of Earth. You have to pay nature a price for its services like raw energy supply and absorbing our wastes. Then the market will play its role in allocating resources appropriately.