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Food to 2050
Stuart Staniford, The Oil Drum
This post continues an exercise I began a month or so ago of trying to figure out how civilization could be moved to a mostly sustainable footing by 2050, while still being recognizable as civilization, and in particular allowing some continued level of economic growth between now and then, especially in the developing countries.
… In this piece I want to look at another area that many people think is likely to be a critical bottleneck to civilization continuing – the area of food, agriculture, and soil. I am of course not an expert in these areas, but happily there is a lot of excellent scholarship and scenario building that I can lean on.
… In Conclusion
There seems to be reason for cautious optimism that if other global problems can be solved, food production will not be a critical constraint on civilization to 2050. If industrial agricultural yields maintain their historical trajectory, there will be enough food without needing much more land. In case yields fail to continue increasing, more land is potentially available globally, though likely of poor quality. Soil erosion is an important problem, but not a critical emergency, and can seemingly be solved permanently with no-till farming methods. Fertilizer does not appear to be seriously constrained in the long-term, though nitrogen fertilizer needs to be transitioned away from reliance on natural gas. Agriculture only needs a tiny fraction of global liquid fuel use to operate, and this can be maintained for a long time, since food production is a critical infrastructure.
However, if we were to keep growing the conversion of food into biofuels, all bets would be off.
(10 March 2008)
Matt Simmons on Fast Money (CNBC)
Matt Simmons, CNBC via The Oil Drum
Matt Simmons was on Fast Money (on CNBC) Friday afternoon. Here’s the clip.
(9 March 2008)
Short clip. The Simmons message seems to be getting some traction (oil at $106+ helps).
Caroline Lucas on Peak Oil, Food and the Launch of The Transition Handbook (video)
Caroline Lucas, Transition Culture
Last Thursday in Bristol saw the formal launch of The Transition Handbook, at an event that was also Green Books‘ 21st birthday party. Before I spoke, a DVD was shown of a presentation that Caroline Lucas MEP had sent as she was unable to make it in person. In it she describes the Transition movement as “the most exciting, most hopeful, most inspirational movement happening in Britain today”.
(10 March 2008)
Youtube of Caroline Lucas speaking at original. One of the few politicians to talk explicitly about peak oil and related issues. From her website:
Elected in 1999, Caroline Lucas is the Green Party MEP representing the South-East of England. She sits on the European Parliament’s Trade, Environment and Climate Change Committees, as well as being Vice President of the Parliament’s Animal Welfare Intergroup. Her work – both within the Parliament and in her constituency – includes peace and human rights, international trade and development, transport and planning, health issues and animal welfare. In 2007 Caroline was voted Politician of the Year in the Observer newspaper’s Ethical Awards.
The Australia 2020 Summit – more hallucination than clear vision (audio and transcript)
Michael Lardelli, Perspective (ABC-Australia)
In April this year 1000 of Australia’s best minds will congregate in Canberra for Kevin Rudd’s Australia 2020 summit. The name suggests that these fine folk will form a clear vision of what we want Australia to be in 12 years time and the long term challenges that our nation faces. Quoting from the Labor Party website for the summit [1] , one of its five objectives is said to be, “To provide a forum for free and open public debate in which there are no predetermined right or wrong answers”. This sounds great but as one reads further one finds that this is simply not true. In fact, the summit is destined to fail. By the year 2020 – only 12 years away – we will look back on the summit and the reports it produces as a lost opportunity. A tragic victory for fantasy and self-deception at a moment when a clear vision of reality could have helped us to meet the challenges ahead.
How do I know this? Let me quote a couple more lines from the website:
“The Australia 2020 Summit will examine…
How we best invest the proceeds of [current] prosperity to lay the foundations for future economic growth.”
and
“How … we plan future population growth at a national and regional level, given the constraints of water shortages and sustainability?”
The trouble with these statements is that they assume the possibility of future economic growth and the inevitability and even desirability of population growth. But economic growth requires energy. A clear, objective view of the facts shows that by 2020, Australia and the rest of the world will be deep in an energy and food crisis of epic proportions. Two independently-formulated computer models of world oil production – by Bakhtiari and Guseo – give the same result [2]. The peak of oil production is about now and production will be down 30% by 2020. An analysis of all the large and not so large oilfields coming on line in the next 7 years sees little new production beyond 2012 [3] . Even the world’s highest advisory body on oil, the International Energy Agency that has previously been so complacent about the world’s energy security, last year did an about face and declared that it sees a “supply crunch” developing by 2012 [4].
If a 30% reduction in world oil production by 2020 sounds bad then consider this. For an oil importing nation like Australia, it is not important how much oil the world is producing. What IS vital is how much oil is available to buy on the export market. Oil production in most of the major exporting nations has now peaked or is in decline. However, at the same time, the consumption of oil in these nations is rising rapidly.
Michael Lardelli is Senior Lecturer in Genetics, University of Adelaide
(11 March 2008)
Michael is also a contributor to Energy Bulletin.
Rep. Bartlett Delivers 39th Peak Oil Special Order
Roscoe Bartlett, Energy Policy TV
Washington, DC – Representative Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD)
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett delivers his 39th Special Order on peak oil, discussing the common cause of different interests that want to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy.
(6 March 2008)
Transcript posted.
