The Oil Drum

This is a guest post by Alexis Ziegler. Alexis is a communitarian, builder, orchardist and environmental activist living in central Virginia. He is the author of a recently published book, Culture Change: Civil Liberty, Peak Oil, and the End of Empire. More information can be found at conev.org.

Abstract

The rapid expansion of biofuel production worldwide has paralleled a dramatic rise in food prices. The expansion of biofuels has been supported by a wide spectrum of people, from environmentalists looking for "sustainable" energy to conservatives wanting to reduce U.S. dependency on foreign oil. With food riots spreading, the U.S. remains committed to an expansion of biofuel.

Biofuels are part of a larger movement toward green capitalism, the idea that we can scale down our energy use through technologies that improve the efficiency of the consumer society. Biofuels are emblematic of the dark side of green capitalism, which is focused almost entirely on the well being of the global upper class. Biofuels are a form of nationalistic environmentalism that is creating a foundation on which more extreme nationalists will try to wed the racist tools of yesterday with a version of "sustainability" that will include the destruction of the global poor.

Real solutions are both impossibly difficult and simple. The cooperative societies in which most humans have always lived are capable of supporting a high standard of living with far less resources than the individualized, consumer society. Enlightened political leadership would be helpful, but we can create a sustainable society without it. Indeed, we have to.

This is a guest post by Aaron Newton, who is working with coauthor Sharon Astyk on the forthcoming book, A Nation of Farmers. Aaron contributes at Groovy Green; he also blogs at Powering Down. Aaron is a land planner and garden farmer in suburban North Carolina, seeking ways to transform the current course of human land use development in an effort to prepare for the effects of global oil production peak and its outcome on automotive suburban America.

There is little doubt that during that last 60 years we here in America have transformed our manmade landscape in a way that is fundamentally different from any form of human habitation ever known. While many have flocked to this new way of organizing the spaces in which we live, critics have noticed the shortcomings and have loudly pointed them out. It’s been suggested that the development of the suburbs here in the U.S. was a really bad idea. Author James Kunstler describes suburbia as, ‘the greatest misallocation of resources in the history of the world.’ The ability of most citizens to own and cheaply operate an automobile means we’ve had access to a level of mobility never before experienced. The outgrowth of which has been a sprawling pattern of living that changed the rules about how and where we live, work, and play and how we get there and back. We are now more spread out than ever before, mostly getting back and forth from one place to another by driving alone in our cars. This could turn out to be a really bad thing.

After reading the comments on Jason Bradford's post today "Does Less Energy Mean More Farmers", I noted, as in the past, the number of knowledgeable agricultural comments in the thread. I'm curious as to the breakdown of TOD readers and time spent growing food.

Here is a Poll and open thread on the topic...Also 2008 grains made multi year highs today Dec 08 corn closed above $4.60 a bushel. Beans at $11.

I'm having Galeux D'eysines squash tonight(yes thats really what they look like) with brown sugar, half and half and cinammon (I grew only the squash...)

This is a guest post on energy and our agricultural system, by Jason Bradford, who has written here previously on "Relocalization: A Strategic Response to Peak Oil and Climate Change". Jason has a Phd in Biology and has written/published on the topics of relocalization and ecological economics. He is the founder of Willits Economic Localization (WELL) and runs a CSA in Willits, CA. (He also has a biweekly radio show "The Reality Report", where next Monday at noon EST he and I will be discussing evolution, addiction and economics. His show can be heard streaming online at www.kzyx.org.)

CERES have just released a study of Food Miles in Melbourne.

The Centre for Education and Research in Environmental Strategies (CERES) is an urban oasis on the banks of the Merri Creek, 5km North of Melbourne CBD in Victoria, Australia. Over the last 30 years the local community has transformed the 4 hectare landfill site into a thriving community environment park, which encompasses a wide range of enterprises.

This is a guest post by WisdomfromPakistan. Wisdom is a computer engineer living and working in Karachi, a cultured city of some 20 million people. He has been conducting his own research into human nutritional requirements and the Earth's carrying capacity which he now wants to share with The Oil Drum readership.

As peak oil approaches, shortly followed by peak gas and eventually peak energy, we have to retreat to agriculture as the prime energy producer in society. Post-peak agriculture will be radically different to modern agriculture. Today’s agriculture is more an energy consumer than an energy producer. In developed countries it takes ten calories worth of energy from fossil fuels put into a farm in the form of fertilizers, pesticides and transportation fuel, to get one calorie back in the form of food (see also here and here).

Happy children fetching water

I became fascinated with the connection between our food supply and energy when I first learned of the problems that North Korea was having feeding itself. (see here).  This data showed me something amazing about modern society, we don't live in the information age, we don't live in the industrial age, we live in the agricultural  age. Without food, we have no industry or information. Unfortunately many don't understand this.  Nor do they understand that today the modern farming system is merely a means to turn petroleum into food, via mechanized planting and harvesting, and the use of petroleum based insecticides and fertilizers which consume huge amounts of energy in their manufacture.  According to Wikipedia, who gets it from Science, 1% of the world's energy goes into the manufacture of chemical fertilizer (here).

There has recently been a claim that in the post-peak oil world, life will go on pretty much as normal.  For a while, as the world squeezes inefficiencies out of the economic system and fuel switching occurs, this is true.  But one can not seriously believe that the world economy is infinitely elastic with regards to energy.  With regard to the agricultural system, there is data which shows the limits to this inelasticity and these limits are due to the laws of physics.

This is a guest post by Glenn Morton, a geophysicist in the oil industry. For Kerr-McGee Oil and Gas Corp., Glenn served as Geophysical Mgr Gulf of Mexico, Geophysical Mgr for the North Sea, Dir. of Technology and as Exploration Director of China. Currently he is an independent consulting geophysicist, and you might know him as seismobob.

I have intentionally paraphrased this wonderful Christmas song because it has much to say about the future after peak oil which I am now ready to say has already happened. As energy declines, we will indeed go to our grandmother's house--one without electricity and running water, sewer or septic and deep, mechanically pumped water wells. At least that was MY grandmother's house. She lived on the Kansas prairies of the 1890s. In the 1960s I asked my grandmother what the greatest invention of her life had been. She said electricity because before they had lights, everyone went to bed shortly after sun down because it was simply too dark to do to much. There was no air conditioning, so the summers were very hot. In the winter, trips to the outhouse were cold (and brutally awakening if during the middle of the night). While she had wood where she lived, about 100 miles west of her home, people had to burn dung as is done in Tibet today. See the picture below of the dung plastered against the house. When one wants to cook, one retrieves a patty.

Without cheap energy, we go back to my grandmother's house or one quite like it...

Last summer they launched a major peak oil initiative going by the name of Food and Farming – Post Peak Oil. This theme was the focus of their 26-27th Jan 2007 annual conference, subtitled “Preparing for a post-peak oil food and farming future”.

With over 800 delegates and the peak oil educator stalwarts of Campbell, Heinberg and Leggett amongst the speakers this was the largest and potentially most significant peak oil communication event yet.

[editor's note, by Chris Vernon] This is a guest post by Louise and Nick Rouse.
Additionally I feel I should apologise for the lack of activity on here recently, I have recently moved house but the disruption will be worth it since I've swapped my 50 mile a day round trip commute for a 20 minute walk there and back. Should cut my personal mileage some 70%! Anyway, on to the article:

Among the recurrent issues surrounding peak-oil is food production. With the Organic Food Festival visiting my home city of Bristol recently I've been finding out that in the UK there are particular peak-oil related problems that farmers and consumers will need to address if they are to adapt to a change in energy supply.

The two key problems I've found are transportation of the food we eat and the fertilisers used in non-organic food production.