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What if this "less-evolved" system is actually a step forward in our evolution as species? Because we use a lot of electricity for the machines required to crea
by ivanca 12y ago
What if this "less-evolved" system is actually a step forward in our evolution as species? Because we use a lot of electricity for the machines required to create, maintain (and promote) our food, what if we could just skip that and directly plug the energy into ourselves?
- logicchains 12y agoIt can be measured; here's a page listing the energy efficiency of various foods: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6252 http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6252. It appears it would depend on what we were giving up; if we replace meat with direct energy, we could save around 95%, for instance, but if we replaced grain with electricity we'd save much less, as grain is already fairly efficient.
- Retric 12y agoThat link ignores sunlight. Average Corn yield is ~160 bushels per acer. 60lb per bushel. An acre is 4,046 square meters. A square meter gets 1kw in full sunlight. Call it 8 hours a day of sunlight. Corn takes 63 to 92 days so you can get 2 yeilds per year in some area. Call it 72 for sweet temptation. 72 * 8 * 4,048 / 160 / 60 = ~242 kwh worth of sunlight per pound of corn. Note: Solar cells are ~22% efficient but they also work all year.