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The doomer theory is that modern agriculture is merely an inefficient means of turning oil into food. I don't know how much credence to give this; I'm not an e

by jibiki 18y ago

The doomer theory is that modern agriculture is merely an inefficient means of turning oil into food. I don't know how much credence to give this; I'm not an expert.

raintrees 18y ago
An interesting read on some of this would be The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I have yet to finish it, but I learned a tremendous amount about corn and petroleum just from the first seven chapters.
nostrademons 18y ago
That part's real: modern agriculture requires fairly large fossil-fuel inputs in the form of fertilizer to yield anything. "Inefficient" is relative, of course: photosynthesis itself is only 3% efficient, so any biological process is already wasting massive amounts of energy. However, the amount of oil used for fertilizer is a drop in the bucket compared to that used for transportation. So if we reach (or have reached) peak oil and the price of oil starts jumping, we'd feel it in our gas bill a lot sooner than we'd feel it in our food bill. And that'd spur people to get fuel efficient cars: if everyone switched from an SUV to a Prius or Fit, the amount of oil saved is several times the amount used in agriculture. It's still nowhere near as wasteful as turning half of U.S. cropland into corn plantations to grow ethanol. You want an inefficient means of turning food into oil, try ethanol subsidies.
- anamax 18y ago
  > And that'd spur people to get fuel efficient cars: if everyone switched from an SUV to a Prius or Fit, the amount of oil saved is several times the amount used in agriculture. Not so fast. Building cars costs significant energy. The result can easily be more energy consumption. Not to mention that switching doesn't necessarily work. In most cases, the only realistic alternative to "big car" is multiple vehicle even if the big vehicle's capacity goes unused most of the time. Owning two vehicles, one big for "those days" and a small one for the rest of the time is usually more expensive than owning just the big one unless the small one is very cheap. I've posted the arithmetic. If the big car gets 15-20mpg, the small one has to cost less than $4k even if it gets 50mpg. (My arithmetic was conservative because I just looked at purchase and gas, which ignore many of the costs associated with a second car.) If the big car gets 25, it's almost impossible to save money with an additional vehicle. And no, renting doesn't work out significantly better.

by jibiki 18y ago

The doomer theory is that modern agriculture is merely an inefficient means of turning oil into food. I don't know how much credence to give this; I'm not an expert.

raintrees 18y ago

An interesting read on some of this would be The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan. I have yet to finish it, but I learned a tremendous amount about corn and petroleum just from the first seven chapters.

nostrademons 18y ago

That part's real: modern agriculture requires fairly large fossil-fuel inputs in the form of fertilizer to yield anything. "Inefficient" is relative, of course: photosynthesis itself is only 3% efficient, so any biological process is already wasting massive amounts of energy. However, the amount of oil used for fertilizer is a drop in the bucket compared to that used for transportation. So if we reach (or have reached) peak oil and the price of oil starts jumping, we'd feel it in our gas bill a lot sooner than we'd feel it in our food bill. And that'd spur people to get fuel efficient cars: if everyone switched from an SUV to a Prius or Fit, the amount of oil saved is several times the amount used in agriculture. It's still nowhere near as wasteful as turning half of U.S. cropland into corn plantations to grow ethanol. You want an inefficient means of turning food into oil, try ethanol subsidies.

anamax 18y ago
> And that'd spur people to get fuel efficient cars: if everyone switched from an SUV to a Prius or Fit, the amount of oil saved is several times the amount used in agriculture. Not so fast. Building cars costs significant energy. The result can easily be more energy consumption. Not to mention that switching doesn't necessarily work. In most cases, the only realistic alternative to "big car" is multiple vehicle even if the big vehicle's capacity goes unused most of the time. Owning two vehicles, one big for "those days" and a small one for the rest of the time is usually more expensive than owning just the big one unless the small one is very cheap. I've posted the arithmetic. If the big car gets 15-20mpg, the small one has to cost less than $4k even if it gets 50mpg. (My arithmetic was conservative because I just looked at purchase and gas, which ignore many of the costs associated with a second car.) If the big car gets 25, it's almost impossible to save money with an additional vehicle. And no, renting doesn't work out significantly better.