Eating
Fossil Fuels
by
Dale Allen Pfeiffer
©
Copyright 2004, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com.
All Rights Reserved. May be reprinted, distributed or posted on an
Internet web site for non-profit purposes only.
October
3 , 2003, 1200 PDT, (FTW) -- Human beings (like all other animals)
draw their energy from the food they eat. Until the last century, all
of the food energy available on this planet was derived from the sun
through photosynthesis. Either you ate plants or you ate animals that
fed on plants, but the energy in your food was ultimately derived
from the sun.
It
would have been absurd to think that we would one day run out of
sunshine. No, sunshine was an abundant, renewable resource, and the
process of photosynthesis fed all life on this planet. It also set a
limit on the amount of food that could be generated at any one time,
and therefore placed a limit upon population growth. Solar energy has
a limited rate of flow into this planet. To increase your food
production, you had to increase the acreage under cultivation, and
displace your competitors. There was no other way to increase the
amount of energy available for food production. Human population grew
by displacing everything else and appropriating more and more of the
available solar energy.
The
need to expand agricultural production was one of the motive causes
behind most of the wars in recorded history, along with expansion of
the energy base (and agricultural production is truly an essential
portion of the energy base). And when Europeans could no longer
expand cultivation, they began the task of conquering the world.
Explorers were followed by conquistadors and traders and settlers.
The declared reasons for expansion may have been trade, avarice,
empire or simply curiosity, but at its base, it was all about the
expansion of agricultural productivity. Wherever explorers and
conquistadors travelled, they may have carried off loot, but they
left plantations. And settlers toiled to clear land and establish
their own homestead. This conquest and expansion went on until there
was no place left for further expansion. Certainly, to this day,
landowners and farmers fight to claim still more land for
agricultural productivity, but they are fighting over crumbs. Today,
virtually all of the productive land on this planet is being
exploited by agriculture. What remains unused is too steep, too wet,
too dry or lacking in soil nutrients.1
Just
when agricultural output could expand no more by increasing acreage,
new innovations made possible a more thorough exploitation of the
acreage already available. The process of “pest” displacement and
appropriation for agriculture accelerated with the industrial
revolution as the mechanization of agriculture hastened the clearing
and tilling of land and augmented the amount of farmland which could
be tended by one person. With every increase in food production, the
human population grew apace.
At
present, nearly 40% of all land-based photosynthetic capability has
been appropriated by human beings.2
In the United States we divert more than half of the energy captured
by photosynthesis.3
We
have taken over all the prime real estate on this planet. The rest of
nature is forced to make due with what is left. Plainly, this is one
of the major factors in species extinctions and in ecosystem
stress.
The
Green Revolution
In
the 1950s and 1960s, agriculture underwent a drastic transformation
commonly referred to as the Green Revolution. The Green Revolution
resulted in the industrialization of agriculture. Part of the advance
resulted from new hybrid food plants, leading to more productive food
crops. Between 1950 and 1984, as the Green Revolution transformed
agriculture around the globe, world grain production increased by
250%.4
That is a tremendous increase in the amount of food energy available
for human consumption. This additional energy did not come from an
increase in incipient sunlight, nor did it result from introducing
agriculture to new vistas of land. The energy for the Green
Revolution was provided by fossil fuels in the form of fertilizers
(natural gas), pesticides (oil), and hydrocarbon fueled
irrigation.
The
Green Revolution increased the energy flow to agriculture by an
average of 50 times the energy input of traditional agriculture.5
In the most extreme cases, energy consumption by agriculture has
increased 100 fold or more.6
In
the United States, 400 gallons of oil equivalents are expended
annually to feed each American (as of data provided in 1994).7
Agricultural energy consumption is broken down as follows:
·
31% for the manufacture of inorganic fertilizer
·
19% for the operation of field machinery
·
16% for transportation
·
13% for irrigation
·
08% for raising livestock (not including livestock feed)
·
05% for crop drying
·
05% for pesticide production
·
08% miscellaneous8
Energy
costs for packaging, refrigeration, transportation to retail outlets,
and household cooking are not considered in these figures.
To
give the reader an idea of the energy intensiveness of modern
agriculture, production of one kilogram of nitrogen for fertilizer
requires the energy equivalent of from 1.4 to 1.8 liters of diesel
fuel. This is not considering the natural gas feedstock.9
According to The Fertilizer Institute (http://www.tfi.org), in the
year from June 30 2001 until June 30 2002 the United States used
12,009,300 short tons of nitrogen fertilizer.10
Using
the low figure of 1.4 liters diesel equivalent per kilogram of
nitrogen, this equates to the energy content of 15.3 billion liters
of diesel fuel, or 96.2 million barrels.
Of
course, this is only a rough comparison to aid comprehension of the
energy requirements for modern agriculture.
In
a very real sense, we are literally eating fossil fuels. However, due
to the laws of thermodynamics, there is not a direct correspondence
between energy inflow and outflow in agriculture. Along the way,
there is a marked energy loss. Between 1945 and 1994, energy input to
agriculture increased 4-fold while crop yields only increased
3-fold.11
Since then, energy input has continued to increase without a
corresponding increase in crop yield. We have reached the point of
marginal returns. Yet, due to soil degradation, increased demands of
pest management and increasing energy costs for irrigation (all of
which is examined below), modern agriculture must continue increasing
its energy expenditures simply to maintain current crop yields. The
Green Revolution is becoming bankrupt.
Fossil
Fuel Costs
Solar
energy is a renewable resource limited only by the inflow rate from
the sun to the earth. Fossil fuels, on the other hand, are a
stock-type resource that can be exploited at a nearly limitless rate.
However, on a human timescale, fossil fuels are nonrenewable. They
represent a planetary energy deposit which we can draw from at any
rate we wish, but which will eventually be exhausted without renewal.
The Green Revolution tapped into this energy deposit and used it to
increase agricultural production.
Total
fossil fuel use in the United States has increased 20-fold in the
last 4 decades. In the US, we consume 20 to 30 times more fossil fuel
energy per capita than people in developing nations. Agriculture
directly accounts for 17% of all the energy used in this country.12
As of 1990, we were using approximately 1,000 liters (6.41 barrels)
of oil to produce food of one hectare of land.13
In
1994, David Pimentel and Mario Giampietro estimated the output/input
ratio of agriculture to be around 1.4.14
For
0.7 Kilogram-Calories (kcal) of fossil energy consumed, U.S.
agriculture produced 1 kcal of food. The input figure for this ratio
was based on FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN)
statistics, which consider only fertilizers (without including
fertilizer feedstock), irrigation, pesticides (without including
pesticide feedstock), and machinery and fuel for field operations.
Other agricultural energy inputs not considered were energy and
machinery for drying crops, transportation for inputs and outputs to
and from the farm, electricity, and construction and maintenance of
farm buildings and infrastructures. Adding in estimates for these
energy costs brought the input/output energy ratio down to 1.15
Yet this does not include the energy expense of packaging, delivery
to retail outlets, refrigeration or household cooking.
In
a subsequent study completed later that same year (1994), Giampietro
and Pimentel managed to derive a more accurate ratio of the net
fossil fuel energy ratio of agriculture.16
In
this study, the authors defined two separate forms of energy input:
Endosomatic energy and Exosomatic energy. Endosomatic energy is
generated through the metabolic transformation of food energy into
muscle energy in the human body. Exosomatic energy is generated by
transforming energy outside of the human body, such as burning
gasoline in a tractor. This assessment allowed the authors to look at
fossil fuel input alone and in ratio to other inputs.
Prior
to the industrial revolution, virtually 100% of both endosomatic and
exosomatic energy was solar driven. Fossil fuels now represent 90% of
the exosomatic energy used in the United States and other developed
countries.17
The typical exo/endo ratio of pre-industrial, solar powered societies
is about 4 to 1. The ratio has changed tenfold in developed
countries, climbing to 40 to 1. And in the United States it is more
than 90 to 1.18
The
nature of the way we use endosomatic energy has changed as well.
The
vast majority of endosomatic energy is no longer expended to deliver
power for direct economic processes. Now the majority of endosomatic
energy is utilized to generate the flow of information directing the
flow of exosomatic energy driving machines. Considering the 90/1
exo/endo ratio in the United States, each endosomatic kcal of energy
expended in the US induces the circulation of 90 kcal of exosomatic
energy. As an example, a small gasoline engine can convert the 38,000
kcal in one gallon of gasoline into 8.8 KWh (Kilowatt hours), which
equates to about 3 weeks of work for one human being.19
In
their refined study, Giampietro and Pimentel found that 10 kcal of
exosomatic energy are required to produce 1 kcal of food delivered to
the consumer in the U.S. food system. This includes packaging and all
delivery expenses, but excludes household cooking).20
The U.S. food system consumes ten times more energy than it produces
in food energy. This disparity is made possible by nonrenewable
fossil fuel stocks.
Assuming
a figure of 2,500 kcal per capita for the daily diet in the United
States, the 10/1 ratio translates into a cost of 35,000 kcal of
exosomatic energy per capita each day. However, considering that the
average return on one hour of endosomatic labor in the U.S. is about
100,000 kcal of exosomatic energy, the flow of exosomatic energy
required to supply the daily diet is achieved in only 20 minutes of
labor in our current system. Unfortunately, if you remove fossil
fuels from the equation, the daily diet will require 111 hours of
endosomatic labor per capita; that is, the current U.S. daily diet
would require nearly three weeks of labor per capita to
produce.
Quite
plainly, as fossil fuel production begins to decline within the next
decade, there will be less energy available for the production of
food.
Soil,
Cropland and Water
Modern
intensive agriculture is unsustainable. Technologically-enhanced
agriculture has augmented soil erosion, polluted and overdrawn
groundwater and surface water, and even (largely due to increased
pesticide use) caused serious public health and environmental
problems. Soil erosion, overtaxed cropland and water resource
overdraft in turn lead to even greater use of fossil fuels and
hydrocarbon products. More hydrocarbon-based fertilizers must be
applied, along with more pesticides; irrigation water requires more
energy to pump; and fossil fuels are used to process polluted
water.
It
takes 500 years to replace 1 inch of topsoil.21
In a natural environment, topsoil is built up by decaying plant
matter and weathering rock, and it is protected from erosion by
growing plants. In soil made susceptible by agriculture, erosion is
reducing productivity up to 65% each year.22
Former prairie lands, which constitute the bread basket of the United
States, have lost one half of their topsoil after farming for about
100 years. This soil is eroding 30 times faster than the natural
formation rate.23
Food
crops are much hungrier than the natural grasses that once covered
the Great Plains. As a result, the remaining topsoil is increasingly
depleted of nutrients. Soil erosion and mineral depletion removes
about $20 billion worth of plant nutrients from U.S. agricultural
soils every year.24
Much of the soil in the Great Plains is little more than a sponge
into which we must pour hydrocarbon-based fertilizers in order to
produce crops.
Every
year in the U.S., more than 2 million acres of cropland are lost to
erosion, salinization and water logging. On top of this,
urbanization, road building, and industry claim another 1 million
acres annually from farmland.24
Approximately three-quarters of the land area in the United States is
devoted to agriculture and commercial forestry.25
The expanding human population is putting increasing pressure on land
availability. Incidentally, only a small portion of U.S. land area
remains available for the solar energy technologies necessary to
support a solar energy-based economy. The land area for harvesting
biomass is likewise limited. For this reason, the development of
solar energy or biomass must be at the expense of
agriculture.
Modern
agriculture also places a strain on our water resources. Agriculture
consumes fully 85% of all U.S. freshwater resources.26
Overdraft is occurring from many surface water resources, especially
in the west and south. The typical example is the Colorado River,
which is diverted to a trickle by the time it reaches the Pacific.
Yet surface water only supplies 60% of the water used in irrigation.
The remainder, and in some places the majority of water for
irrigation, comes from ground water aquifers. Ground water is
recharged slowly by the percolation of rainwater through the earth's
crust. Less than 0.1% of the stored ground water mined annually is
replaced by rainfall.27
The great Ogallala aquifer that supplies agriculture, industry and
home use in much of the southern and central plains states has an
annual overdraft up to 160% above its recharge rate. The Ogallala
aquifer will become unproductive in a matter of decades.28
We
can illustrate the demand that modern agriculture places on water
resources by looking at a farmland producing corn. A corn crop that
produces 118 bushels/acre/year requires more than 500,000
gallons/acre of water during the growing season. The production of 1
pound of maize requires 1,400 pounds (or 175 gallons) of water.29
Unless something is done to lower these consumption rates, modern
agriculture will help to propel the United States into a water
crisis.
In
the last two decades, the use of hydrocarbon-based pesticides in the
U.S. has increased 33-fold, yet each year we lose more crops to
pests.30
This
is the result of the abandonment of traditional crop rotation
practices. Nearly 50% of U.S. corn land is grown continuously as a
monoculture.31
This results in an increase in corn pests, which in turn requires the
use of more pesticides. Pesticide use on corn crops had increased
1,000-fold even before the introduction of genetically engineered,
pesticide resistant corn. However, corn losses have still risen
4-fold.32
Modern
intensive agriculture is unsustainable. It is damaging the land,
draining water supplies and polluting the environment. And all of
this requires more and more fossil fuel input to pump irrigation
water, to replace nutrients, to provide pest protection, to remediate
the environment and simply to hold crop production at a constant. Yet
this necessary fossil fuel input is going to crash headlong into
declining fossil fuel production.
US
Consumption
In
the United States, each person consumes an average of 2,175 pounds of
food per person per year. This provides the U.S. consumer with an
average daily energy intake of 3,600 Calories. The world average is
2,700 Calories per day.33
Fully 19% of the U.S. caloric intake comes from fast food. Fast food
accounts for 34% of the total food consumption for the average U.S.
citizen. The average citizen dines out for one meal out of
four.34
One
third of the caloric intake of the average American comes from animal
sources (including dairy products), totaling 800 pounds per person
per year. This diet means that U.S. citizens derive 40% of their
calories from fat-nearly half of their diet. 35
Americans
are also grand consumers of water. As of one decade ago, Americans
were consuming 1,450 gallons/day/capita (g/d/c), with the largest
amount expended on agriculture. Allowing for projected population
increase, consumption by 2050 is projected at 700 g/d/c, which
hydrologists consider to be minimal for human needs.36
This is without taking into consideration declining fossil fuel
production.
To
provide all of this food requires the application of 0.6 million
metric tons of pesticides in North America per year. This is over one
fifth of the total annual world pesticide use, estimated at 2.5
million tons.37 Worldwide, more nitrogen fertilizer is used per year
than can be supplied through natural sources. Likewise, water is
pumped out of underground aquifers at a much higher rate than it is
recharged. And stocks of important minerals, such as phosphorus and
potassium, are quickly approaching exhaustion.38
Total
U.S. energy consumption is more than three times the amount of solar
energy harvested as crop and forest products. The United States
consumes 40% more energy annually than the total amount of solar
energy captured yearly by all U.S. plant biomass. Per capita use of
fossil energy in North America is five times the world
average.39
Our
prosperity is built on the principal of exhausting the world's
resources as quickly as possible, without any thought to our
neighbors, all the other life on this planet, or our
children.
Population
& Sustainability
Considering
a growth rate of 1.1% per year, the U.S. population is projected to
double by 2050. As the population expands, an estimated one acre of
land will be lost for every person added to the U.S. population.
Currently, there are 1.8 acres of farmland available to grow food for
each U.S. citizen. By 2050, this will decrease to 0.6 acres. 1.2
acres per person is required in order to maintain current dietary
standards.40
Presently,
only two nations on the planet are major exporters of grain: the
United States and Canada.41
By 2025, it is expected that the U.S. will cease to be a food
exporter due to domestic demand. The impact on the U.S. economy could
be devastating, as food exports earn $40 billion for the U.S.
annually. More importantly, millions of people around the world could
starve to death without U.S. food exports.42
Domestically,
34.6 million people are living in poverty as of 2002 census data.43
And this number is continuing to grow at an alarming rate. Too many
of these people do not have a sufficient diet. As the situation
worsens, this number will increase and the United States will witness
growing numbers of starvation fatalities.
There
are some things that we can do to at least alleviate this tragedy. It
is suggested that streamlining agriculture to get rid of losses,
waste and mismanagement might cut the energy inputs for food
production by up to one-half.35
In place of fossil fuel-based fertilizers, we could utilize livestock
manures that are now wasted. It is estimated that livestock manures
contain 5 times the amount of fertilizer currently used each year.36
Perhaps most effective would be to eliminate meat from our diet
altogether.37
Mario
Giampietro and David Pimentel postulate that a sustainable food
system is possible only if four conditions are met:
1.
Environmentally sound agricultural technologies must be
implemented.
2.
Renewable energy technologies must be put into place.
3.
Major increases in energy efficiency must reduce exosomatic energy
consumption per capita.
4.
Population size and consumption must be compatible with maintaining
the stability of environmental processes.38
Providing
that the first three conditions are met, with a reduction to less
than half of the exosomatic energy consumption per capita, the
authors place the maximum population for a sustainable economy at 200
million.39
Several other studies have produced figures within this ballpark
(Energy and Population, Werbos, Paul J.
http://www.dieoff.com/page63.htm; Impact of Population Growth on Food
Supplies and Environment, Pimentel, David, et al.
http://www.dieoff.com/page57.htm).
Given
that the current U.S. population is in excess of 292 million40
that would mean a reduction of 92 million. To achieve a sustainable
economy and avert disaster, the United States must reduce its
population by at least one-third. The black plague during the 14th
Century claimed approximately one-third of the European population
(and more than half of the Asian and Indian populations), plunging
the continent into a darkness from which it took them nearly two
centuries to emerge.41
None
of this research considers the impact of declining fossil fuel
production. The authors of all of these studies believe that the
mentioned agricultural crisis will only begin to impact us after
2020, and will not become critical until 2050. The current peaking of
global oil production (and subsequent decline of production), along
with the peak of North American natural gas production will very
likely precipitate this agricultural crisis much sooner than
expected. Quite possibly, a U.S. population reduction of one-third
will not be effective for sustainability; the necessary reduction
might be in excess of one-half. And, for sustainability, global
population will have to be reduced from the current 6.32 billion
people42
to 2 billion-a reduction of 68% or over two-thirds. The end of this
decade could see spiraling food prices without relief. And the coming
decade could see massive starvation on a global level such as never
experienced before by the human race.
Three
Choices
Considering
the utter necessity of population reduction, there are three obvious
choices awaiting us.
We
can-as a society-become aware of our dilemma and consciously make the
choice not to add more people to our population. This would be the
most welcome of our three options, to choose consciously and with
free will to responsibly lower our population. However, this flies in
the face of our biological imperative to procreate. It is further
complicated by the ability of modern medicine to extend our
longevity, and by the refusal of the Religious Right to consider
issues of population management. And then, there is a strong business
lobby to maintain a high immigration rate in order to hold down the
cost of labor. Though this is probably our best choice, it is the
option least likely to be chosen.
Failing
to responsibly lower our population, we can force population cuts
through government regulations. Is there any need to mention how
distasteful this option would be? How many of us would choose to live
in a world of forced sterilization and population quotas enforced
under penalty of law? How easily might this lead to a culling of the
population utilizing principles of eugenics?
This
leaves the third choice, which itself presents an unspeakable picture
of suffering and death. Should we fail to acknowledge this coming
crisis and determine to deal with it, we will be faced with a die-off
from which civilization may very possibly never revive. We will very
likely lose more than the numbers necessary for sustainability. Under
a die-off scenario, conditions will deteriorate so badly that the
surviving human population would be a negligible fraction of the
present population. And those survivors would suffer from the trauma
of living through the death of their civilization, their neighbors,
their friends and their families. Those survivors will have seen
their world crushed into nothing.
The
questions we must ask ourselves now are, how can we allow this to
happen, and what can we do to prevent it? Does our present lifestyle
mean so much to us that we would subject ourselves and our children
to this fast approaching tragedy simply for a few more years of
conspicuous consumption?
Author's
Note
This
is possibly the most important article I have written to date. It is
certainly the most frightening, and the conclusion is the bleakest I
have ever penned. This article is likely to greatly disturb the
reader; it has certainly disturbed me. However, it is important for
our future that this paper should be read, acknowledged and
discussed.
I
am by nature positive and optimistic. In spite of this article, I
continue to believe that we can find a positive solution to the
multiple crises bearing down upon us. Though this article may provoke
a flood of hate mail, it is simply a factual report of data and the
obvious conclusions that follow from it.
-----
ENDNOTES
1
Availability of agricultural land for crop and livestock production,
Buringh, P. Food and Natural Resources, Pimentel. D. and Hall. C.W.
(eds), Academic Press, 1989.
2
Human appropriation of the products of photosynthesis, Vitousek, P.M.
et al. Bioscience 36, 1986. http://www.science.duq.edu/esm/unit2-3
3
Land, Energy and Water: the constraints governing Ideal US Population
Size, Pimental, David and Pimentel, Marcia. Focus, Spring 1991. NPG
Forum, 1990. http://www.dieoff.com/page136.htm
4
Constraints on the Expansion of Global Food Supply, Kindell, Henry H.
and Pimentel, David. Ambio Vol. 23 No. 3, May 1994. The Royal Swedish
Academy of Sciences. http://www.dieoff.com/page36htm
5
The Tightening Conflict: Population, Energy Use, and the Ecology of
Agriculture, Giampietro, Mario and Pimentel, David, 1994.
http://www.dieoff.com/page69.htm
6
Op. Cit. See note 4.
7
Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, Pimentel, David and
Giampietro, Mario. Carrying Capacity Network, 11/21/1994.
http://www.dieoff.com/page55.htm
8
Comparison of energy inputs for inorganic fertilizer and manure based
corn production, McLaughlin, N.B., et al. Canadian Agricultural
Engineering, Vol. 42, No. 1, 2000.
9
Ibid.
10
US Fertilizer Use Statistics.
http://www.tfi.org/Statistics/USfertuse2.asp
11
Food, Land, Population and the U.S. Economy, Executive Summary,
Pimentel, David and Giampietro, Mario. Carrying Capacity Network,
11/21/1994. http://www.dieoff.com/page40.htm
12
Ibid.
13
Op. Cit. See note 3.
14
Op. Cit. See note 7.
15
Ibid.
16
Op. Cit. See note 5.
17
Ibid.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid.
20
Ibid.
21
Op. Cit. See note 11.
22
Ibid.
23
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
24
Ibid.
25
Op Cit. See note 3.
26
Op Cit. See note 11.
27
Ibid.
28
Ibid.
29
Ibid.
30
Op. Cit. See note 3.
31
Op. Cit. See note 5.
32
Op. Cit. See note 3.
33
Op. Cit. See note 11.
34
Food Consumption and Access, Lynn Brantley, et al. Capital Area Food
Bank, 6/1/2001. http://www.clagettfarm.org/purchasing.html
35
Op. Cit. See note 11.
36
Ibid.
37
Op. Cit. See note 5.
38
Ibid.
39
Ibid.
40
Op. Cit. See note 11.
41
Op. Cit. See note 4.
42
Op. Cit. See note 11.
43
Poverty 2002. The U.S. Census Bureau.
http://www.census.gov/hhes/poverty/poverty02/pov02hi.html
35
Op. Cit. See note 3.
36
Ibid.
37
Diet for a Small Planet, Lappé, Frances Moore. Ballantine Books,
1971-revised 1991. http://www.dietforasmallplanet.com/
38
Op. Cit. See note 5.
39
Ibid.
40
U.S. and World Population Clocks. U.S. Census Bureau.
http://www.census.gov/main/www/popclock.html
41
A Distant Mirror, Tuckman Barbara. Ballantine Books, 1978.
42
Op. Cit. See note
40.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------