The Oil Drum

The ABC's Landline program has an interesting pair of stories this week - the first looking at Food vs Fuel (Video: Windows Hi - Windows Lo - Real Hi - Real Lo).

The biofuel business is buzzing over the increasingly heated debate over the costs and benefits of the industry. Proponents argue it’s a cleaner greener and renewable form of energy. However critics say converting crops into fuel will simply create food shortages and skyrocketing commodity prices.

This is a guest post by John Michael Greer, who blogs at The Archdruid Report. John is the Grand Archdruid of the Ancient Order of Druids in America (AODA) and has been active in the alternative spirituality movement for more than 25 years, and is the author of a dozen books, including "The Druidry Handbook" (Weiser, 2006). He lives in Ashland, Oregon.

Archdruids take breaks from time to time, but the peak oil debate does not, and during my recent vacation a lively discussion sprang up on The Oil Drum about the future of agriculture in a postpetroleum world. The point at issue was whether today’s mechanized agriculture will remain in place, or be replaced by a new rural economy of small farms using human and animal labor, as the world skids down the far side of Hubbert’s peak.

Summarizing a vigorous discussion of a complex topic in a few paragraphs is a risky proposition, so I’ll focus here on the two essays that defined the debate, Stuart Staniford’s The Fallacy of Reversibility and Sharon Astyk’s Is Localization Doomed? Staniford argued that those who expected a nonmechanized, small-farm economy in the wake of peak oil were claiming that the history of agriculture over the last century would simply run in reverse, tracking the decline in fossil fuel availability in the same way it tracked the growth in fossil fuel production.

This is a guest post by Yair Wallach. Originally from Jerusalem, he is completing his PhD in Cultural History in Birkbeck College, the University of London (writing about Palestine/Israel between 1858 and 1948). During his five years of study in London he has lived in precarious conditions, spending many months without electricity or hot water. These experiences have made him aware of issues of environmental sustainability, especially relating to energy, water, waste and the global food market. He currently makes his living by writing articles of economic analysis on the Middle East.

Abstract

The use of food crops for biofuels is one of the key factors driving a dramatic increase in the global price of cereals. As Stuart Staniford demonstrated here in the past few weeks, this trend is set to intensify. This article will look at the potential implications of rising wheat prices for countries in the Middle East, taking Egypt and Morocco as examples. Government food subsidies in both countries have so far protected the poor urban population from much of the global hike in cereal prices. However, as food prices continue to spiral, subsidies will demand a growing share of national budgets. Subsidies cuts seem inevitable, leading to riots and political instability.

The further development of biofuels could make food too costly for millions of poor in the Middle East, and destabilise the region which supplies most of the world’s oil exports.

Andris Piebalgs is the European Energy Commissioner with responsibility for shaping European Union (EU) energy policy. These policies may then be adopted by the European Parliament and will effectively shape Europe's energy future.

Mr Piebalgs has an informative web site where he has newly installed a blog inviting comments on EU energy policy.

I would like to invite all my fellow bloggers and all citizens to contribute your ideas.

Andris, I would like to thank you for providing us bloggers with this wonderful opportunity to relay our ideas and opinions directly into the heart of the European Parliament. But beware, not all ideas and opinions are born equal.

There's more under the fold.....

The Australian Department of Parliamentary Services has released a research paper on "The economic effects of an ethanol mandate". Published on 22 January 2008, it is available from the Parliamentary Library website.

Paul Syvret, in the Brisbane Courier Mail article Ethanol fuel is not so green, expressed his view on ethanol and summed up the paper by saying:

ETHANOL is not the answer for Australia's future fuel needs.

It is not green, it is not economically viable, and any move to mandate its inclusion in fuel would have enormous repercussions for other sectors of Australian industry.

Over the past week, Stuart Staniford and Sharon Astyk have written thought-provoking essays on the nexus of Peak Oil and relocalization, with Staniford suggesting that peak oil will not result in relocalization of agriculture because the industrialization of agriculture is not practicably reversible, and Astyk rebutting that idea. I think that both essays make important points, but I would like to offer a third perspective: that we have insufficient information to reach a conclusion about when energy scarcity will result in relocalization of agriculture, but that we will likely cross this threshold in the not-too-distant future and should prepare accordingly.

This is a guest post by Sharon Astyk, a very small farmer whom the biofuels companies have yet to offer to buy out, and a writer with two forthcoming books about peak oil and climate change, one (Depletion and Abundance, Fall '08, New Society Publishers) about appropriate responses for families, and the other (A Nation of Farmers, Spring '09, same publisher) about food and agriculture. Her writings can be found at http://casaubonsbook.blogspot.com .

Stuart Staniford's latest opus has taken a shot across the bow at those who advocate Relocalization and de-industrialization. Embedded in his argument is a compelling critique of the prospects of certain parts of the Relocalization analysis. Staniford shows his customary brilliance in analyzing the ways that the biofuels response is likely to overcome impetus towards Relocalization.

But that profound analysis is embedded in a paper that contains some serious errors of reasoning and misrepresentations of the Relocalization movement that I think deserve critique. And his final conclusion, that this should put an end to all hopes of Relocalization deserves some further consideration.

Why Peak Oil Actually Helps Industrial Agriculture

Claas (Caterpillar) Lexion 570 combine harvester in action. Image courtesy: Wikipedia.

This is a guest post by Rick Munroe, an Ontario farmer.

There is no substitute for energy. The whole edifice of modern society is built upon it…. It is not “just another commodity” but the precondition of all commodities, a basic factor equal with air, water and earth.

_{E. F. Schumacher (1973)}

As humanity climbs toward the global peak in oil production and the oil industry squeezes out a few more barrels per day, we should all take a moment to view life from the summit.

This is life at the top. If we aren’t careful, this may be “as good as it gets.”

Modelling Biofuel Production as an Infectious Growth on Food Production

Biofuel capacity or production as a fraction of food supply for three different cases, along with sigmoidal (ie logistic) projections, 1998-2018. Plum curves show US corn ethanol processing capacity in service or under construction as a fraction of ethanol potential of entire US corn crop. Brown curve shows actual production of US ethanol as a fraction of ethanol potential of US corn crop. Violet curve shows global biofuel production as a fraction of estimate of biofuel potential of entire global human food supply. Sigmoidal curves all have K = 1/3 (infection doubling time of three years), and cross the 50% line at 2008, 2010.8 and 2014.2 respectively. Sigmoids are scenarios, not forecasts. Actual biofuel production growth will depend heavily on oil prices and policy responses to increasing food prices. See text for sources and methods.