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Wind Farm to be placed at 'Ancient' Site
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grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: Follow up
Jun 06, 2003, 22:55
the 57% comes from totalling current:
car (15,000 kWh/yr)
house (17,000 kWh/yr)
food (42,000 kWh/yr) - estimated from graph

The total is 74,000 kWh/yr... of which food is 42,000 kWh/yr... or approx 56.75%.

More generally; you're completely right in what you say about food being a small percentage compared to *national totals*... pished or not. But i'm talking a little bit beyond that (and i believe Folke Günther probably is too).

Here's my theory (and i welcome constructive crit). If you accept the idea that our society is fundamentally unsustainable; then it makes sense to examine ways to rectify that.

Some folks try to envision a wholesale replacement of current (fossil) energy sources with "different ones" (green, nuclear, currently non-existant, etc.) This is the approach taken by the energy department of almost every government. It's also the approach taken by most independent or corporate research (hence the prevalence of hydrogen-fantasists and what have you).

I take a massively different approach. And it's one taken by a much smaller group of researchers, analysts and activists. It's also the one that makes sense (in my opinion, etc.)

Basically you identify the essential services required to support the population. You exclude all else from your research (except where it has an ERoEI impact - which is a lot of the time, granted). Then you devise a sustainable way of running those services.

In the Swedish study, he has identified food, house (i.e. heat, cooking, light) and car (i.e. personal transportation) as the essential areas to produce efficiency gains and long-term sustainability.

The theory continues along the lines that anything non-essential (i.e. outside the scope of your research) will eventually fall by the wayside (e.g. the airline industry) unless it can make itself sustainable. And frankly, i'll remain uninterested in those areas until the important ones are addressed.

I just think it's essential to have a sustainable "basic infrastructure" in place before we start to run out of resources. The other stuff is detail. Let's solve the food / heat thing first. Then move on to the rest of industry.
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Re: Follow up (necropolist)		 Replies:
Re: Follow up (again!) (grufty jim)
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