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Yes, I meant gas. And using renewables for farming is only a partial solution. Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods use

Yes, I meant gas. And using renewables for farming is only a partial solution. Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods used. Animal farming is more than order of magnitude worse. A lot of industrial farming developed that way due to access to cheap energy - but this is not sustainable.

pfdietz 7y ago
| Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods used. In the US, we use less energy growing and harvesting food than we do cooking food. Total ag energy use is a tiny fraction of the total energy use in the economy. Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable. There's more than enough renewable energy available. The one resource I would worry about is phosphorus, but this will be a problem for "organic" farming too. The solution there is to minimize erosion, recycle phosphorus-bearing wastes, build up sparingly soluble phosphate reserves in soils (and don't let erosion wash those away), and ultimately make up for losses by exploiting very low quality phosphate ores (crustal average is 0.1% P).
- AngryData 7y ago
  Does this account for the massive amount of energy we 'cheat' out of natural gas derived fertilizer? If we eliminate natural gas, the energy costs of fertilizer production go up near 10 times what it is now.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Yes, it includes the energy used in making fertilizer. It also includes all the fuel used on farms. Here's a link for the numbers from 2014. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/energy-consumption-and-production-in-agriculture/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/en... In that year, ag used 1.74% of US energy consumption. 29% of that was for fertilizer. As I said, the absolute amount of energy used in farming is really rather small, even for "energy intensive" agriculture. That's because the ag sector is such a small part of the US economy (< 1% of GDP).
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  > Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable citation needed.
  - pfdietz 7y ago
    Why wouldn't it be? I mean, why is being energy intensive inherently not sustainable? Surely particular inplementations could be unsustainable, but that's true of non-energy intensive agriculture as well. To help you along, I'll bring up the part that's most problematic, IMO: the production of nitrous oxide from nitrogen fertilizer. But N fertilizer is pretty much required to get yields sufficient to feed the world, so that's a problem that's going to have to be solved.

pfdietz 7y ago

| Farming can be extremely energy intensive or less so depending on the methods used. In the US, we use less energy growing and harvesting food than we do cooking food. Total ag energy use is a tiny fraction of the total energy use in the economy. Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable. There's more than enough renewable energy available. The one resource I would worry about is phosphorus, but this will be a problem for "organic" farming too. The solution there is to minimize erosion, recycle phosphorus-bearing wastes, build up sparingly soluble phosphate reserves in soils (and don't let erosion wash those away), and ultimately make up for losses by exploiting very low quality phosphate ores (crustal average is 0.1% P).

AngryData 7y ago
Does this account for the massive amount of energy we 'cheat' out of natural gas derived fertilizer? If we eliminate natural gas, the energy costs of fertilizer production go up near 10 times what it is now.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Yes, it includes the energy used in making fertilizer. It also includes all the fuel used on farms. Here's a link for the numbers from 2014. https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/energy-consumption-and-production-in-agriculture/ https://www.ers.usda.gov/amber-waves/2017/januaryfebruary/en... In that year, ag used 1.74% of US energy consumption. 29% of that was for fertilizer. As I said, the absolute amount of energy used in farming is really rather small, even for "energy intensive" agriculture. That's because the ag sector is such a small part of the US economy (< 1% of GDP).
eeZah7Ux 7y ago
> Energy-intensive agriculture is perfectly sustainable citation needed.
- pfdietz 7y ago
  Why wouldn't it be? I mean, why is being energy intensive inherently not sustainable? Surely particular inplementations could be unsustainable, but that's true of non-energy intensive agriculture as well. To help you along, I'll bring up the part that's most problematic, IMO: the production of nitrous oxide from nitrogen fertilizer. But N fertilizer is pretty much required to get yields sufficient to feed the world, so that's a problem that's going to have to be solved.