The Oil Drum

86 comments on DrumBeat: May 14, 2006

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Barb on May 14, 2006 - 10:53pm

In answer to your question as to whether it would be better energetically to keep horses or use pasture, hay fields and acres planted in oats (power bar equivalent for horses), you might be interested in checking out the Land Institute's Sunshine Farm project.

visit http://www.landinstute.org/ and search for "Sunshine Farm."

My recollection of their early conclusions was that there are pluses and minuses to both approaches. Under certain conditions, there may not be much difference between the two. One advantage to horses is that they replicate themselves, and do not require factories, metals, etc. to do so.

Considerations in choosing one over the other may include the proclivities of the farmer (some folks do better with animals than others), the type of land included in the farm (amount of land that may be useful only for pasture or hay) and the suitability of the land and climate for growing oil crops.

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alistairC on May 15, 2006 - 4:50am

Thanks for that Barb...
I found the article :

the crop acreage requirements of horses is no greater than that for tractors operating on biodiesel. In our feasibility study, detailed calculations, based on numerous early bulletins from the United States Department of Agriculture and state agricultural experiment stations, show draft horses require no more cropland for feed than tractors do for biodiesel on a net energy basis, both roughly one-fourth of a farm's cropland.

Fair enough, and very encouraging in terms of the productivity of post-oil farming... but this is discussing farm traction, not transport, which was the original question.

Another quote from the article is pertinent to that aspect :

Tractors provide timeliness in field operations, but horses can be used when time is not critical.

Timeliness is important in transport. I live about 8 miles from the nearest market town. I could go there with a pony and trap to do my shopping, but it would take me all day. If I can go there with an ethanol-powered scooter, or some lightweight biodiesel car, for the same energy input in terms of agricultural surface, then I've gained several hours.

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Barb on May 15, 2006 - 11:15am

Sorry to have missed that transport issue.

Here in the U.S., farmers frequently lived not more than 3 miles from some town, which is a distance than can be covered by horse and buggy in about an hour. You still see a town, or the remnants of a town, every 6 miles. That is truly the case in the area where I grew up. In less populated areas, you would often find some sort of small general store, the 1900s equivalent of a convenience store, on a rural crossroads. These stores also doubled as post offices. In addition, many farm families did not go to town during the week, but only made the big trip on Saturdays or to sell livestock or crops.

Formerly, many towns in the Midwest, East and South were on or no more than 20 miles from a railroad, which made delivery of goods much less energy intensive. If we here could rebuild some of these low-use or spurs even for light use, we would be in much better shape. That would be hard to do, though, on a sixth to a third the amount of liquid transportation fuel.

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baka on May 15, 2006 - 11:56am

For smaller holdings or market gardens there may be advantages to the Electric Tractor
Or this interesting How To Convert

The extra weight of batteries and low-end torque of electric motors are great features for a tractor. Electric motors don't waste any energy when you aren't moving and the torque is greatest when you first start moving, right when you need it the most.

And although 'timeliness' is a factor, tractor use is intermittant with the tractor frequently found sitting in the shed for long periods of time...

Future developments of Gantry Systems my also help ameliorate other problems - depending on the situation.

Whatever the case, the present range of Very Large
Tractors may not have much of a future...

Other thoughts/comments?