I think you are far too optimistic. You need several acres of reasonable grass to feed just one cow so for NT's solution to work at all those that don't die in the food riots would have to turn totally vegan. (You probably need more than one acre just for winter hay). Even the soylent green route wouldn't get NT very far.
So we do have an acre per person.
Its funny you ask me of all people.
of course. We know because its well worn history.
But we dont go back to that because technology has moved on, we'd go back to some hybrid of then and now. A lot has been learnt about farming since the horse & cart days.
not really relevant. We/they'd do it or die - if thats how it goes.
I'd let Henry the Horse do it.
I think you need to stick to valid argument more.
NT
UK. With unaffordable energy we wouldnt be doing much sailing or flying.
Of course we have.
NT
We grasp it fine, it just isnt true.
NT
You can have the acre surrounding the peak of Mt Snowdon. That do you?
Why's that then?
Technology? What technology? You never said anything about that. You just painted a rosy picture of how we could survive on one acre. All 60 million of us, some proportion of which are doddering old fossils, and another chunk are children and babies.
It is when it's your one acre they want
How? Just by mooching about on the field? Oh, you want a *plough*! Where's that coming from then?
When you make a worthwhile argument, let us know.
20 hours a day 7 days a week.
I live surrounded by acres of fields.
I have just been having coffee and cakes with the (one) man who works it all. One man does about 200 acres.
That's about an income of 80k a year, gross.
To get that requires every ten years about 1/4 million of agricultural kit.
Plus sprays and fertilizers.
And diesel.
Indeed.
agriculture represents about 0.1%-1% conversion efficiency of sunlight to biomass energy. depending on the crop.
average insolation is about 100W/sq meter.
A human being needs 100W to just *survive*. And that's the sort of survival that gets Bob Geldhof all upset.
So you nee a minimum of about 100-1000 sq meters of *good agricultural land* just to *stay alive*.
UK average energy consumption is about 5Kw per head. . Total, including imported products. To do that using just sunlight and agriculture would require 300-30,000 sq m per head.
Of good agricultural land. Haha. Of which perhaps 25% (at best) of the UK is such. The rest is rubbish. Google Earth is your friend.
Not much use planting conifers all over Scotland when it takes all the energy they have to get them back to London for burning, either.
Anyway you look at it, we *need* around 150GW net 24x7 to maintain this island at its current state of population and standard of living. Maybe
300GW grossPlus about another 300GW in china to make all the stuff we buy off them.
At 10% efficiency, that's about 30,000 square kilometers of solar panels. Probably the most efficient sun-> energy there is.
At 1% efficiency - the very best mechanised agriculture there is - that more than the total area of the UK.
Let alone its prime agricultural land.
At 0.1 % efficiency, its 3 million square kilometres. About the total area of Europe.
So if we simply kill off all the rest of Europe with our nuclear arsenal, and cove it in crops to make biofuel, windmills and PV panels, and turn lake Geneva into a huge pumped storage battery, we might just about be able to support 60 million people Europe wide.;
That's about 8% of what it is right now. And if you think a 92% reduction in population in 50 years-100 years can be accomplished whilst preserving any sort of technical infrastructure, think again. The 'lost' civilisations of the world bear testimony to the fact that when it happens, it happens fast, amidst total breakdown of the very mechanisms that held it together for so long.
THAT'S the 'green' solution. Google Olduvai theory..not that that's without flaws, but its got the right general shape.
Massive ethnic cleansing and slaughter, to achieve 'sustainability'.
Where is Adolf, when you need him?
He was a veggie, too. Pure in heart, pure in mind, and ruthless with the vermin of the world.. ;-)
Anyway, there is but one resource left we can potentially exploit, and that's the radioactive minerals and ultra high tech use of them..so we actually raid the mass of the planet for energy.
Note that we are NOT limited to the actual radioactive minerals themselves: breeder technology can enable un-radioactive minerals to be made fissionable as well.
The rest is just greenpissing-in-the-wind.
Its way worse than that.
conversion efficiency of cow->milk on good pasture is abysmal. Better to eat the cows...
Indeed, because you simply have no idea. ou cab switch he computer of now, and get to work weaving your underpants from nettles, right now.
Technology DEMANDS an excess of energy.
Have you any IDEA how much energy there is in making even a sickle?
well a horse needs at least 5 acres to live, plus silage.
Let's face it, you have no idea of the numbers at all.
But Henry will need several acres of his own to feed himself so where is that going to come from with every peasant trying to scratch an existence from the one acre that is everyone's share of the land.
Anyway this is all pie-in-the-sky. By the time oil runs out Dribble and his mates will have turned most of the more productive land into housing so the poor peasants will have to make do with a good bit less than one acre. Since much land will be disadvantaged or severely disadvantaged will those who get the short straw get more land to compensate for its lack of productivity and those who get the better land less?
It is.
But of you don't respond to basic facts, there isn't much more to be said.
Populations that find niches to exploit, expand until they are into reducing standards of living as they approach the base subsistence level of sustainability: when they have used exhaustible resources to achieve even higher populations, they face die back.
That's the way the world is.
Thinking you know better just makes you look dim.
Its very simple: we have half the village with shotguns, patrolling the boundaries and shooting anyone they don't recognise.
That's those that made it out of the towns on their two legs, which wont be many, since few people know how to walk more ha 400 yards at most.
I was actually thinking of suckler herds. If you want to continue eating beef you need a bull and at least one cow to provide junior cattle for slaughter. One bull to every cow isn't really viable so some measure of cooperation is inevitable even if the population is reduced down to the
10 million or so of our population that might have a chance of surviving when civilisation crumbles.In message , Tabby writes
Umm.. who told you sewage is not used in agriculture?
Lime cake has been used ... forever:-) The current polymer process also produces a spreadable residue. Liquid waste has been injected to minimise odour but I believe on site fermentation now makes this unnecessary.
regards
Peak Reality
------------
Are you seriously suggesting that at the same time as you imagine oil energy runs out, the same peak will occur with all other forms of energy? Ever hear of coal, nuclear, wind, solarthermal, waste to fuel, hydro and all the rest? Ever consider that by the time this maybe scenario occurs there will probably be a good deal more energy produced than today by various non-oil means.
For you to claim that it will really be a case of one person one acre with no external input has little to do with reality /even/ if we swallowed peak oil.
NT
- fish harvests
- switch from luxuries to maximum yielding crops
- remove animal farming entirely, due to its wild inefficiency
I've no interest in posting personal information
One would think it obvious that technology has moved on a long way since the horse & cart days
I painted no picture, gave no details. What I said is we do have an acre per person.
Ever heard of nuclear energy? And all the others.
your scenario is an unrealistic fantasy.
NT
Once again, I didnt claim none was was used. More would be used without oil derived fertilisers.
NT
So far your take has centred on an entirely unrealistic proposed scenario.
NT
It will be unless we embrace massive nuclear power. Its the only ace up our sleeves. The rest are deuces and jokers.
Living in a vegan paradise - oh joy. Kill me now... ..
--=20 Halmyre
This is the most powerful sigfile in the world and will probably blow your = head clean off.
Thus completely removing forever marginal land like the fells and highlands, whose ONLY edible product is sheep or deer meat.
We will take that as a 'I live in suburban luxury'' then.
Sadly, the laws of nature have not.
But them I am a technologist. What do I Know?
Compared with Green Faith priests.
Not of prime agricultural lad.
Been staring in the mirror, again Narcissus?
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