[Peakoil] Carbon price and Peak Oil

[Keith Thomas]

The answer would depend on the food in question.

Producing lettuces with heavy fertilizer inputs and shipping them across to the east coast (this is common and not at all exceptional) would probably be more than 7:1. Likewise, crops grown in heated hot-houses would also have a high ratio. On the other hand corn (maize) produced and consumed in the same southern state (where most energy comes from the sun) should be significantly less. Feedlot beef compared with free-range chickens would also vary significantly.

Measuring food in terms of kilojoules is a crude way of looking at food. I prefer food that gives me nourishment and enjoyment not just "kilojoules". Might as well be an Irish peasant in the early 1840s, or a German in 1945 - living on potatoes. Eating "kilojoules" is no one's preference and citing it for comparison is generally self-serving.
-----------------------------
Keith Thomas
www.evfit.com
-----------------------------

On 20/05/2011, at 3:46 PM, Ruth Cully wrote:

In his Canberra talk last year, Professor Kjell Aleklett said that US agriculture used 7 kilojoules of oil energy (or fossil fuel energy) for every kilojoule of food produced. Can anyone confirm this data?

At a recent Australian Academy of Science symposium I quoted these figures to one of the speakers (Dr Tony Fischer) in a question about the impact of peak oil on our agriculture (which he had not mentioned at all in his outlook assessment). Fischer flatly asserted that my figures "must be wrong". If so, I'm happy to accept correction, but Aleklett seemed to be more clued up than this guy. 

Can anyone help?

Thanks
 

Ruth



> Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 15:46:37 +1000
> From: alex-po at trevbus.org
> To: peakoil at act-peakoil.org
> Subject: [Peakoil] Carbon price and Peak Oil
> 
> Interesting
> 
> http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2718670.html
> 
> If the policy-makers don't have Peak Oil in mind then a carbon tax won't
> help reduce oil dependence that much, for example, oil is more energy
> dense than coal, so burning oil to make electricity is made more
> economical by a carbon tax?
> 
> 
> Alex
> 
> Vice-President
> O4O4873828
> ACT Peak Oil Inc.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Peakoil mailing list run by ACT Peak Oil Inc.
> You are subscribed as ludlow at live.com.au
> http://act-peakoil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/peakoil/ludlow%40live.com.au
_______________________________________________
Peakoil mailing list run by ACT Peak Oil Inc.
You are subscribed as keith at evfit.com
http://act-peakoil.org/cgi-bin/mailman/options/peakoil/keith%40evfit.com

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://act-peakoil.org/pipermail/peakoil/attachments/20110520/0e7a5011/attachment.htm