<DrumBeat: May 28, 2009 The Oil Drum A Net Energy Parable Revisited>

16 comments on A Few More Thoughts Related to Pedro Prieto's "NINJA" Post

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Neil1947 on May 29, 2009 - 2:46am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

First assumption on second line
As commodities get more expensive esp oil prices for goods required for daily living increase food gasoline etc.
Most commodities have been getting cheaper(in real terms) over the last 50-100 years, oil is an exception. Wheat was $3 a bushel in 1923,( in 1923 dollars), about $6 now. Basic food prices(chicken , flour sugar,potatoes rice) have been very stable, only highly processes foods and restaurant meals have increased.
Why would they become more expensive?, we are not running out of any major commodities(oil and gas excepted) and extraction methods continually improving crop yields continually improving 1-4% per year since 1930.

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xeroid on May 29, 2009 - 6:55am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

Why would they become more expensive?

Unfortunately commodities have a lot of cheap fossil energy embedded in them (e.g. on average, 10 calories of Fossil Fuels for every calorie of food, maybe as many as 50 to 1 in the case of intensive beef!)- up until very recently that energy must have become ever more affordable since we have been able to use steadily more and more and then we have used it to produce ever cheaper commodities.

Take away adequate amounts of cheap Fossil Fuel (according to the EIA data the 'low hanging fruit' has already been picked!) then it isn't profitable to produce commodities at such low prices - if wages don't rise faster than the prices they become less affordable! In the case of food, if you can't afford it and there is no adequate charity you die of starvation, a serious consequence! History tells us that the past is not necessarily a good model for the future!

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Neil1947 on May 30, 2009 - 12:49am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

xeroid,
Only a tiny part of the cost of food is the cost of energy used to produce it, energy calories are very cheap and food calories are fairly cheap. Most of the cost of food is the processing, packaging and marketing costs. A bushel or wheat or maize makes a lot of bread or cornflakes.

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xeroid on May 30, 2009 - 9:11am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top

I don't sit in a field eating corn, I eat bread and cornflakes in a city, so it's the embedded energy in the final food on my plate that is important to my way of life - unaffordable energy means unaffordable food, no matter how low cost one particular input is.

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16 comments on A Few More Thoughts Related to Pedro Prieto's "NINJA" Post

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