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"I wonder how much of your land you would need to set aside to grow enough of your own ethanol or biodiesel. that would cut a lot of oil needed to farm. you take your corn to the local ethanol plant and next year you don't need oil for your tractors."
We currently "hobby farm" about 60 acres. I could provide a good years supply of bio-diesel for our needs with 10-15 acres of rape seed. However if you have a bad year, drought, locusts or whatever; you may not get that harvest and be in a bind for the following season.
If it where so easy...
How about supplying the fuel for the fertilizer production, transportation, herbicides, insecticides, miners for the steel on your tractor, Oil production for your tires etc, etc, etc...
Once you really crunch the numbers you would have to devote your whole farm plus 20%...
Ethanol is a bad joke.
If you used a horse instead of a tractor you would only require 1/3rd of your farm..
We cannot go back to horses there is no way we can go to ethanol...
> If you used a horse instead of a tractor you would only require 1/3rd of your farm..
Do you have a substantive reference for this data point?
I can't say when, but we will go back to using horses eventually, especially if we don't conserve fuel sources by planning the weaning away from the ridiculous squandering due to automobility, which is a twentieth century historical flash in the plan. The way things are going, I foresee a terrible crash with respect to work and transportation needs currently subsidized by oil and other energy resources.
We probably should be Planning the conservation and population growth of draft animals so that we will not be left stranded with only human power to run our farms and deliver our goods. Such planning should be in the context of a larger plan that will make demand-side management the keystone, that is rebuilding our 20th century suburbs to make them walkable. We need to build and stock economic/community centers in all neighborhoods where all residents can get the things we need within walking distance. Let's bring the goods and services to the people rather than all this wasteful shopping behavior.
The assumption of automobility is absurd within a historical perspective.