dymonite69
Member
The cost of commercial farming is far more than the diesel to drive tractors. You also include the embodied energy of fertilisers and pesticides, water irrigation, chemical runoff into waterways, algae bloom and transportation.
How much arable land do you require to grow an energy crop so that you can farm the other parts of the property with a tractor?
I have no doubt your calculations are correct D69.
So if we only use fuel for essential services like farming and stop the single occupant V8 4WD driving 50kms/day it is going to last 1000 times longer then current waste will allow. We have to start somewhere.
As for computers if I save 5000 litres of fuel during it's life by avoiding driving to pay bills, read newspapers online and avoiding air travel by video conferencing etc than the 12kg of fuel is also easily offset.
There are no easy solutions for all our problems but the current head in the sand approach of wasting fossil fuels until it runs out isn't the answer.
dymonite69
Member
I kept my desktop for 8 years.
Jeffbloggs
Member
Rockabye
Your comments regarding V8 SUV driving consumers are very specific to AU & USA. Europeans & Japanese are much more energy conscious than us already, and Germany already use nearly 10% bio-diesel in their vehicles. I think the real perspective on the change required is that capitalist magnified metropolitan areas need to cease in their current form, we need to stop the breeding of anti-environmentalist behavior, consumption and lack of productivity in these areas. China is a classic example of this accumulation problem for economical benefit, and they have serious metro population growth problems. We have 75% services in AU and that is at least 50% to much, as they all run around serving themselves, virtually only in metropolitan areas. We need actual productivity, not economic growth. I have said this before and I'll say it again: Sustainability is size dependent, its the natural balance, to many people in one place is overpopulation and resource destructing, to little population and you become endangered and unable to make use of resources effectively. We need to find the balance in between, and unless metro areas can devise a way of suppling about 70-80% of their goods (including food and water) themselves, they will have to go the way of the dinosaur in a RE economy. They are simply to large and resource clumsy to survive.
Population density wise there is no difference in building a apartment building in the middle of a rural community (if at all nessecary!) or in a metro area, energy saving wise, however, the effect is profound. We need to decentralize and demonopolize, to make the RE economy work, and this is the opposite of what capitalism is doing. I think that only those with nothing to loose (the poor), are the ones that can overcome this fear best, as the RE economy is still much better than poverty, and they will be much cheaper and effective at fulfilling the objectives of this change.
BTW PV and wind still have the fossil embodied energy problem, we need renewables produced from renewables for zero fossil emissions. Biogas/biofuels are much better in this area and are directly associated with the life promoting carbon cycle itself. Biotechnology will be our savior from fossils, and it has always been our life provider, it's just that we have somehow forgotten to put it on our capitalist balance sheets, and now we will have to pay the price for putting them back on.
Also wouldn't you be more interested in not having to pay any bills rather than being able to pay them via the internet? I think thats were we should be heading instead.
D69
I agree with your prognosis on farming/electronics. Without fossils a lot of technology would have never been developed, fossils have really created an "r-evolutionary" boost, but I think that era is slowing coming to an end, and we need to find alternatives for everything that originates or is promoted through the consumption of fossils.
Jeff, you are right about SUV's being very AU & US based. But that's where I live so I focus here. Because we waste the most we can produce the biggest savings in the short term while we figure out out to do things better in the long term.
We need to tax waste and promote energy efficiency now because it can have an immediate result. No argument with me about your ideas.
thatmosis
Member
10% bio fuel is being made mandatory in Queensland but wait theres more. Because bio fuel is less efficient than ordinary unleaded you go less klms so you fill up more often. I usually get 560 klms out of a tank of unleaded but 475 out of a tank of bio fuel. For a saving of $1.60 I would rather have the unleaded thanks very much. Its all very touchy feely to say we should go 100% RE but the reality is that RE cannot and will not for decades to come produce enough power to run a country. The technology is not available at the moment to produce even sustainable power for a small town without a diesel backup. We are slowly and I do mean slowly increasing the efficiency of RE but Im afraid it will be beyond my years before it becomes a reality.
dymonite69
Member
Cross posted from here:
Technological challenges that must be addressed this century:
Revise commercial processes that result in environmental pollution, waterway contamination and land degradation e.g. energy generation, mass agriculture, wastewater discharge
Develop systems that reduce the demand on energy-intensive primary production and mining of raw materials
Develop localised systems of food production to minimise food miles
Develop energy efficient means of transport for goods and personal travel
Improve the design and construction of domestic and commercial buildings to reduce artificial heating and cooling
Develop economical methods of large scale domestic and industrial wastewater processing and purification
Develop an effective infrastructure of centralised and distributed networks for water, electricity and wastewater
Improve the cost-effectiveness of renewable energy generation e.g. raising the efficiency of photovoltaic cells from 15% to the theoretical maximum of 40%, reduce photovoltaic cell costs to $1/watt
Develop efficient, durable and non-toxic methods of small and large scale energy storage
A good talk on CO2 effects on the oceans. Discusses normal climate change causes events and then the effects of man made events.
Rob Dunbar hunts for data on our climate from 12,000 years ago, finding clues inside ancient seabeds and corals and inside ice sheets. His work is vital in setting baselines for fixing our current climate — and in tracking the rise of deadly ocean acidification. (Recorded on Mission Blue Voyage, April 2010 in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. Duration: 18:15)
http://blog.ted.com/2010/09/13/discovering-ancient-climates-in-oceans-and-ice-rob-dunbar-on-ted-com/
