The Oil Drum

In addressing the supply side of oil and gas depletion, much hope has been put into the scaling of 'biofuels', by applying new (and old) technologies to annual crops to create ethanol or biodiesel, thus providing chemically viable alternatives to the transportation liquids derived from crude oil. Much of the biofuels debate thus far has focused on their lower energy balance, vis-a-vis crude oil. While this is important, analysis of the impacts on non-energy inputs and impacts should a massive scaling of biofuels occur, urgently needs to be discussed. The National Academy of Sciences recently published a report titled "Water Implications of Biofuel Production in the United States". The paper outlines impacts and limitations on both water availability and water quality that would follow the pursuit of a national strategy to replace liquid fossil fuels with those made from biomass.

Existing and planned ethanol facilities (2007) and their estimated total water use mapped
with the principal bedrock aquifers of the United States and total water use in year 2000.(Source USGS) Click to enlarge.

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.