How the Energy Crisis Will Help My Diet
Posted by Prof. Goose on July 18, 2006 - 10:47am
Topic: Demand/Consumption
Tags: chemicals, david pimentel, fertilizer, food, food supply, oil, peak oil [list all tags]
Like many Americans I am a bit overweight and this is true even after living a year in China eating indigenous food and shedding 15% of my body mass. Coming back to the fattest city in the land of the big helping, I am concerned about regaining that weight given the fact that Americans eat 920 kg of food annually (3,800 kcal per person per day). But never fear, the energy crisis will eventually help me maintain my desired weight. Many are going to wonder what does the energy crisis have to do with being fat. Well, the modern agricultural system is nothing but a system which turns petroleum and natural gas into food. Thirteen kilocalories of energy is used to produce each kilocalorie of food we eat (p. 20).
When energy becomes scarce, the quantity of food will decline.
Here is the natural gas price on the same time period (blue curve) with the pink dots being the corn price per bushel. The thing to note here is that the corn price is not following the natural gas curve, so when the natural gas price rises and the corresponding increase in price of fertilizer occurs, the farmer must make a choice as to how to balance the budget. The decision often includes using less fertilizer to cut costs.
At $5.00 per mmbtu ammonia costs $200 per ton, but at $19 per mmbtu, the price rises to $650 per ton. Clearly one can see that as energy prices rise, fertilizer prices will rise followed by two things, a rise in the price of food and a reduction in the use of fertilizer as farmers try to cut costs. Farming has narrow margins. Is there any evidence of a drop in usage of fertilizer? Yes. Since natural gas prices began rising in 2000-2001, sixteen fertilizer factories have been shut permanently and five more suspended operations. There was a slight dip in reported fertilizer use during the 2001 spike in fertilizer price. Corn went from 136 lb per acre to 133 with a 2% drop in treated acres. With soybeans the pounds per acre remained the same but there was a 7% drop in treated acres and with cotton there was a 7% drop in treated acres and a 7 lb/acre reduction in usage. Here is the historical use of nitrogen fertilizer use on corn in 1000 nutrient tons. Note the dip in use in 2001 when the gas price spiked:
1992--4,887
1993--4,369
1994--4,954
1995--4,492
1996--5,181
1997--5,118
1998--5,226
1999--5,043
2000--5,301
2001--4,625
2002--5,188
2003--5,140
By the end of this century there will be no commercial quantities of oil, natural gas and coal with which to make fertilizer. So, what is the effect of a lessening of fertilizer use? Lower crop yields. Below is a chart of crop yields vs. fertilizer application in China. There is a direct correlation between fertilizer and crop yield.
(from Wang, Q. et al, 1995)
Smith et al.(1990) studied the impact of fertilizer on crop yields. They concluded that over a 71 year period fertilizer was responsible for 40% of the wheat crop; over a 45 year period fertilizer was responsible for 57 percent of the corn yield.
So, one can easily understand what will happen if fertilizer use drops. There is a modern example of the impact; it is seen in the starvation which is taking place in North Korea. They underwent a power shortage. which affected lighting, industrial production and agriculture. The effect was a precipitous drop in fertilizer production with the resultant drop in crop yields followed by starvation. One of the chief aid requests from the North Koreans is fertilizer. picture here.
Is there an organic way to avoid this problem? Some authors are writing that we can use animal manure to fertilize the farm fields. A paper (Pimental et al 2005) last year in Bioscience took such an approach and concluded that animal manure could replace fertilizer with no loss of productivity. They used 5.6 metric tons two years out of five, so that averages out to 2.24 tons per year. So, how many cows are needed?
A dairy cow can produce 120 pounds of fresh manure per day. But that has a water content of 88% meaning one cow can produce about 1.8 tons of dry manure per year. Thus it takes more than one cow to produce the fertilizer Pimental et al require. Other rules of thumb I have found say that one cow can fertilize 1.5 acres. But if, without fertilizer, it takes 10 acres to run a cow, then that cow can not provide enough for self-fertilization of his own fields, much less for other fields.
And there is another issue, something forgotten by Americans because this knowledge is from the lives of our great-grand parents. If one does not have energy to the point of needing heat, then cow manure won't be available for fertilization. It will be burned for cooking and heating purposes. Two months ago, I went to Tibet on business. I visited a farm and went to areas where nomads live. I saw manure-as-fuel in action. On the farm they mixed yak dung with straw, patted it into potato-sized balls and then stored it on the exterior walls of their houses (what a fun job that must be). This helps insulate the house but is also a convenient way to grab some fuel quickly.
But this use of manure means that it won't be available for fertilizer if by the end of this century we have no other source of energy.
We now examine whether ethanol can fuel the required fertilizer. Using 2.5 gallons per bushel for the ethanol and the record corn crop of 136 bushels per acre we find that an acre produces 340 gallons. The US uses 146 billion gallons per year of gasoline today, but because ethanol has only 70% of the energy content of gasoline we would require 1.4 times more or 2.08 billion gallons of ethanol to maintain our lifestyle.
How many acres will this require? Well, today the US uses 491 million acres under cultivation and my math says we need 691 million acres to manufacture enough ethanol to manufacture both the fertilizer and enough other ethanol to fuel transportation. The US has on 945 million acres devoted to agriculture. Clearly there is a problem. Without the fertilizer the US would need 3.6 billion acres of corn to make the ethanol, clearly an impossibility. Another way to look at it is if we and the cows all stop eating corn and use the present corn acreage (80 million acres) all for ethanol, we could produce 27 billion gallons per year, or about 13 percent of what is needed for transportation and fertilizer combined.
To close, a reduction in the available energy will help our weight loss. As one Pfeiffer observed, to achieve a sustainable US, we must reduce our population by around one third. I think he is an optimist.
References
David Pimental, et al, "Environmental, Energetic, and Economic Comparisons of Organic and Conventional Farming Systems," Bioscience, 55(2005):7:574
Smith, E.G., R.D. Knutson, C.R. Taylor, J.B. Penson. 1990. Impact of chemical use reduction on crop yields and costs. Texas A&M Univ., Dep. of Agric. Economics, Agric. and Food Policy Center, College Station.
Wang, Q. / Halbrendt, C. / Johnson, S.R. (1995): Grain Production and Environmental Management in China's Fertilizer Economy. In: Journal of Environmental Management, Vol. 47, 283-296. And: China Statistical Yearbook, 1998. State Statistical Bureau, People's Republic of China, Beijing. p.393
In any case, I recommend that everyone assume: (1) a 50% cut in your income and (2) at least a 100% increase in food and energy prices. I also strongly recommend that everyone look into working for, or becoming, a provider of essential goods and services.
This would give a much healthier meat and supply meat with a much lower (oil) energy input.
Part of the problem with this is that there are almost no fences left in farm country. Next time you drive around farm country watch carefully for how many fields have fences. And fences are an expensive 50 year investment. Farmers aren't going to make that investment until they are sure it is going to pay off. Further, financing the 50 year investment in fences is somewhat of a problem in that you have a very high initial investment that will not return any profit for 5+ years. (time required to put up fence, renovate pasture grasses and start breeding up a cattle herd).
We would get more from government farm programs if they would initiate some type of finance plan to cover this type of time lagged investment on the farm. But as it doesn't benefit the large factory farming businesses I doubt you will see anything like it until the oil crisis/depression hits.
Meat could get very expensive during the transion from feedlot farming to pasture farming.
I would expect that a lot of cities are going to have to modify their "no livestock in the city" provisions to permit chickens (no roosters! <BG>), rabbits, etc... so that people can raise some of their own meat and eggs even in the city (using a lot of their waste food products)
The development of the miniature breeds of both dairy and beef cattle should even make it possible for people with only a large lot to raise their own beef. Miniature cattle are generally 36 to 42 inches high at the sholders and cows go about 650 pounds and bulls/steers about 800 pounds. Steaks, roasts and other cuts are more family size instead of the giant cuts from a full size steer. One miniature steer provides about the right amount of beef for one family for 1 year and they get all the different cuts from the carcass instead of only some from a 1/4 or 1/2 of a full size steer. Minaiture Jerseys give about 1 gallon of milk a day - just about right for a family with any excess going to raise a steer for beef.
"Trials in the designing out of graffiti and flyposting have been carried out in areas where large expanses of wall/fence attract vandals. This involved the use ... planting of natural screening i.e. thorn bushes or fast growing large shrubs. The scheme is to expand during 2003 to minimise the potential for large-scale graffiti and vandalism."
http://www.bexley.gov.uk/service/environ/graffiti.html
While not useful as food, dogs, at least huskies, can be used as draft animals. With a suitable harness on the Siberian Husky and its user, the user wearing Rollerblades suddenly becomes one efficient animal-drawn vehicle with most of the mass being payload and "engine". This method of transportation is PERFECT if you work in a really pet friendly workplace. Use a backpack to haul small amounts of freight.
You'd still need a pet friendly workplace to "park" your dog by your desk. It sure wouldn't be nice if the workplace merely had a kennel as a "stable" as you work.
Huskies were bred for food-efficient pulling power and so could be very useful for getting around in winter if the roads were no longer plowed. (The inevitable falls hurt much less if one is landing on snow.) For summer pulling on rollerblades I'd recommend a breed which is more likely to have the word 'stop' in its mental vocabulary. Also, choosing a breed less likely to overheat in summer would be advisable. Huskies spend most of their time sleeping when it's hot.
Cooks understand food.
Cooks know where to get food, how to judge its quality, what it is worth and how to make a feast for a few dollars.
I began my study of cookery at age three and one half, as a sort of informal apprentice to the Great Chef, Cecil Laventhol. Were I to get any encouragement whatsoever, I will post a poem on this experience that was so important to making me who I am.
BTW, Cecil's grandchildren are alive and well and run the best family Jewish deli west of Chicago, namely, Cecil's in St. Paul, near the campus of St. Catherine's College. Some of the recipes are identical to those my father taught Cecil (and that he, in turn, learned from his mother and grandmother) back in the 1940s. Cecil's has changed almost not at all since 1949, and you still have to go through the kitchen to get to the restrooms. And why not? It's all family there . . . though now the "family" includes people of all ethnicities and colors.
Those trying to lose weight should not visit Cecil's. I once took a slender woman friend there: She thought she had died and gone to heaven . . . weight up several pounds now;-)
Try Jessica Prentice's "Full Moon Feast."
Beautifully written and full of good advice and seasonal recipies for North America.
Cecil's Kitchen
When I was a kid my favorite hangout
was Cecil's kitchen at the Commodore
Hotel which Dad managed and owned
Therefore I was a privileged child.
Cecil was fun to watch and Minnie too
They worked hard and long hours
Cecil never sat down and often
Worked from sunup to past my bedtime
When hundreds came for a banquet.
I loved banquets because there were
Always leftovers of yummy things
And if I'd been good and quiet and
No trouble at all, then I'd get some.
It was hard not to ask questions
Especially when three or four
Years old and there are so many
fascinating things and activities.
If there was a time when the kitchen
Was quiet--early morning was best
I'd ask something that I had to know
Such as, "Cecil, how do you know
When a knife is sharp enough?"
Cecil spend a lot of time sharpening
and honing his knives and cleaver
But he'd sharpen the same knife
Several times a day and I wondered
How sharp is sharp enough.
I have been wondering about
Deep Questions for a long time
And this was an Important Question
To which Cecil had the answer:
"The knife is sharp enough when
You can do this," he said as he
Plucked a hair from my head and
Barely touched it to the blade
An inch of hair floats to the floor.
Wonderful
Cecil enjoyed his work Because
He was absolute master in his
Kitchen and Because everybody knew
He was one of the best chefs
In St. Paul and some thought the
Very best.
Sometimes customers asked Cecil
To come out of the kitchen
And go to their table so they could
Thank him and give compliments.
He would tell the waiter
To say he was too busy
But that he appreciated
the compliment and if the waiter
came back a second time with
The message that the customer
Insisted on seeing Cecil, then he would straighten his hat
And go out to talk with the customers
He liked that.
Nobody dissed Cecil
Because he was the best
He would examine a delivery
Of food to be Sure it was the Best.
Woe struck anybody who did
Not give him the Best whether
It was vegetables or Hard Work
In his kitchen
Because
He had a temper and you did
Not want to see him angry
Once I saw him throw an old
Cleaver to stick deep in a breadboard or something
That was nailed up to the wall way
Across the kitchen Because
Something not perfect made him so
Angry he had to cleave the board instead of the one who let him down.
Terrifying
But usually
If anything was not right
Then Cecil would call for Dad
Who listened to every word
And then did whatever Cecil wanted
Right away.
Because
My father made the Commodore
Profitable
After many losing years.
I knew Cecil was the key person
Who brought regular customers who
Also told their friends about the
Great Food which I knew was great.
The aromas were delicious and
From my little nook--sort of a
Top shelf with rarely used supplies
Under my short feet that dangled
A foot above the floor.
I watched and watched and listened
And enjoyed the smells the scrumptious
Odors and also the beautiful plates of food
Just before the waiters took them out.
And
I learned a lot
Because I'm a good
Listener and also Observant
But mostly because
I Pondered for hours on end as to
What things mean and which
Questions were intelligent enough to ask when Cecil was not very busy
Cecil was God in His kitchen
And
He liked me.
AND you will gain Great Good Will in your community by helping neighbors who are not nearly as prepared for the changes Peak Energy and Matter will force us.
probibly not the best but it's fun.
Also on the health front, people will HAVE to eat healthier food as expensive pharmaceuticals and interventions to treat heat disease, diabeties, etc., will decline in availability. As mentioned here before, the "die-off" in developed countries will come from the chronically ill and those prone to such illness, who can no longer be kept alive by state-funded interventions. In UK at least, this is de facto the case to a small extent now, as many people die on waiting lists for chronic illness treatment. After around 2010, expect it to be widespread.
Teachers, both for the 'basics' and the 'back to basics' courses.
Mechanics.. still and always a lot of machinery to keep running. The local welder and (smith?) will be especially in demand when you can less afford to 'toss and replace' everything cheaply..
Plumbers and Electricians. Particularly in installing solar water heating and PV and Wind power.. (Emergency Generators with switchovers for a while yet.)
(Keeping what wheels we've got rolling is going to be critical, particularly for food production and transp)
Law enforcement - tho' we might see a resurgence of 'Civil Defense' activities, too.
Skilled Laborers- Trades (From assembly work, food service to computer repair/IT)
There will be some demand for humanities and easy social sciences such as sociology so long as there is any aristocracy of wealth--mostly at hyper-expensive private schools, however.
I taught a course in cowboy action shooting once. So much fun! So practical--almost as useful as my Personal Finance course;-)
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/7/18/114410/016
A good, funny, paper. One tidbit:
Permaculture farming can sure improve the "mpg" of walking or cycling of course. As an aside, guess how schoolkids in Kenya commute to school. They run the whole way and back! They are too poor to buy a bike let alone have a mon use an SUV. That is why so many marathoners are from Kenya. It's their equivalent to the Sunday drive! Alas, commuting by running will impose a LOT of wear and tear on knees and hip joints as you pile up the miles. The knee replacement costs would be horrific! (and knee replacements would need replacable lubricated bearings to hold up for that type of commuting)
You also need to consider the emobodied energy of the auto -- unless, of course, you just consider that a sunk cost.
Also, you need to consider whether the runner/walker is a vegan or a meat eater. I've seen estimates that being a vegan vs. a meat eater saves 1.5 times the GHG of an SUV vs. a Prius.
Consider, also where the food is grown, how far from the consumer, whether the consumer mostly buys locally grown foods, and whether the food grown is organic.
Also consider what would happen if we truly made a large scale transition from an auto dominated to a pedestrian/bicyclist society -- at least in the cities. Road s would be narrower and require way less maintenance in the form of expensive oil based asphalt and other energy intensive maintenance activities, not to mention the fact that cities would be more compact requiring less distance traveled.
Consider, also, that the walking or bicycling is necessary, anyway, for an individual to maintain health. If you would otherwise drive to the health club, the real net energy for walking or bicyling might be zero. I know when I used to bike to work, I did it as a substitute for exercise I would have done, anyway.
And what about all the energy for all the health care saved. I wonder how energy intensive the health care industry is. One could start by considering all that stuff, including a lot of plastic, they use and throw away.
Getting more cars off the road would also increased the efficiency of those on the road because of less traffic jams.
My only defense is that those upstream calories are based on averages, and that we can beat the averages by shopping carefully. I'd expect my canister of rolled oats to do better on an "upstream fossil fuel use per food calorie" than a stop at McDonald's.
We should try to combine biking/walking with best practices on the culinary side.
P.S. - I put just a dribble of maple syrup on my oatmeal ... but man talk about a terrible EROEI, boiling down all that sap :-(
We hear "experts" nag us all trying to get us all to exercise. The suggestion of 1/2 hour 3 times a week just wouldn't burn many Calories. You'd be better off with a desk job (like programming) and commute by running and living 5 miles away. A job where you're on your feet all day doesn't burn hardly anything yet you get every mile's worth of bodily wear and tear plus you'd have too many aches to commute by running.
The obesity problem boils down to too many Calories in the food, to the point that portion control becomes a sick joke. Maybe we overweight people need to allay hunger pangs with Haitian mud pies just to fill you up. Some "foods" with a way less than unity of metabolisable EROEI would help dieters. I bet the mud pies would be awful gritty no matter the spices used. Exercise alone would not cut it unless you train for marathons or commute by running.
http://www.env-econ.net/2006/06/seems_like_the_.html
Intensively managed organic farms are usually more productive than conventionally managed farms. But they can use organic inputs as fertilizer (eg. fish meal). If these inputs become more expensive, organic farm production will fall, but not by much. The reason is that some organic practices can drastically reduce the need for fertilizer inputs. For example, a crop rotation that includes a legume or green manure crops that are grown only to capture nitrogen and are then turned into or left in-place on the soil.
If mainstream farming remains focused on minimizing labour and maximizing production based on high-energy practises and inputs, we can expect food production to drastically fall. If the mainstream shifts to produce low-input crops using low-input production methods, then the fall won't be as drastic.
Similar principles apply to meat production as well. Currently, the practise is to pasture livestock on grass fields and fertilize to maximize grass growth. An alternative model incorporates legumes in the pasture mix. Properly managed pastures can finish cattle without a trip to the high-density feedlot for a 6-week diet of grain.
A side benefit of these practices (besides survival) is the transformation of farming from a huge carbon-dioxide producer to a carbon-sink.
These are the practices that I'm exploring and my impression is that farmers (but not agricultural companies) are moving in this direction. Hopefully, the move will be big enough and quick enough to minimize the drop in production, but we can all expect trips to the grocery store to be more expensive. Next spring would be a good time to plant a garden.
a) according to USDA, food availability was 3,900 calories per person per day in 2004 (down a bit from 2000, when it hit 4,000 calories per person per day). See here for more.
b) That doesn't mean Americans ate 3,900 calories per day. It means we ate or wasted 3,900 calories per day. Some of that spoils, some is plate waste. The US hasn't gone below 3,100 calories per person per day since 1909, and perhaps much earlier.
c) In terms of raw calories (not other nutrients, e.g. protein, vitamins or minerals) the US corn crop alone produces about 3-4 times as many calories as the human inhabitants of the country consume each year. (~11 billion bushels, 139,000 kCal per bushel, 3,900 kCal per person per day, ~300 million people --> corn crop = 3.6 x calorie needs.) And corn occupies, oh, only about a fifth of US cropland.
And that doesn't count the other major commodities (wheat, rice, soybeans, other oilseeds & minor grains) or any of the food grown on pasture or rangeland, or orchards, or vegetable crops.
Obviously, we don't eat feed corn; I only include the stat to show the sheer scale of food production in the country.
Plus, much of the 3,900 kCal represents meat, eggs, and dairy produced from grain -- which is a pretty wasteful way of delivering calories from farm field to people.
So while I don't doubt for a moment that an oil & gas shortage could have huge implications for food availability, production methods, & prices, we're starting from a food system with a phenomenally high level of productivity & waste, feeding lots of (relatively wasteful) animal fats and proteins to an overweight population.
Which means you could, in theory, cut way back on food production (cutting commodity subsidies would be a start) while still providing lots of calories to people's plates. Not that things would turn out that way, necessarily.