Tag Archives: agriculture

So you want to start a vertical farm?

Posted on July 26, 2019 by

Preface. Vertical farms sound even more impossible than rooftop farms, which at least can use free sunshine. And they use massive amounts of energy to heat, cool, ventilate, light, and so on, not a good direction to go given energy … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture | Tagged , | 6 Comments

France is trying to get rid of pesticides

Posted on July 14, 2019 by

Preface.  This article discusses how France is doing so far in their attempt to use less pesticides.  This is the direction we should be going in post fossils.  Many of the solutions are too high-tech to be used after the … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Pesticides | Tagged , | Comments Off on France is trying to get rid of pesticides

Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America

Posted on May 27, 2019 by

Before the fossil fuel age began, about 80 to 90% of people farmed to make a living. Since the end of the oil age will send us back to the past, farmland and farmers will once again comprise the greatest … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Overpopulation, Soil | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Replacing diesel tractors with horses or oxen – what will that be like?

Posted on April 27, 2019 by

Preface.  Since fossil fuels are clearly finite, at some point increasing numbers of farmers with diesel vehicles and equipment will want to replace them with horses, which can do the work of six people.  Here’s what  energy expert Vaclav Smil … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Life Before Oil, Muscle Power, Peak Food, Vaclav Smil | Tagged , , , | 10 Comments

Book review of Dirt: the erosion of civilization

Posted on March 16, 2019 by

Preface. On average civilizations collapsed after 800 to 2,000 years because they’d destroyed their topsoil. Today, industrial agriculture is doing this far faster – in most of the United States half of the original topsoil is gone from the richest … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Peak Food, Soil | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

Solar PV requires too much land to replace fossils

Posted on December 4, 2018 by

Preface. This is a brief summary of the Capellan-Perez paper that calculates the land needed to use solar to replace electricity as well as the land needed if solar were to replace all of societies use of energy (i.e. transportation, … Continue reading →

Posted in Solar | Tagged , , , , , | 9 Comments

Would we be happier as hunter gatherers than farming?

Posted on July 13, 2018 by

[ Someone posted an article in facebook from the New Yorker titled “The case against civilization. Did our hunter-gatherer ancestors have it better?”  And the author’s answer is a resounding “yes” backed only by bullshit.  I was so annoyed I … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Agriculture, Human Nature | Tagged , , , | 4 Comments

Why world leaders are terrified of water shortages

Posted on June 28, 2018 by

[ The article blow shows how water crisis in Yemen and Syria led to civil war, mass migration, roadblocks by angry citizens, water riots, increased dengue fever as people hard water, and 1 million refugees fleeing to Europe.  Egypt also … Continue reading →

Posted in Caused by Scarce Resources, Drought, Mass migrations, Middle East, Social Uprising, Starvation, Water | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

From wood to fossil fueled civilizations — the greatest tragedy mankind will ever know

Posted on April 23, 2018 by

[ These are my notes from this book about how we went from an organic sustainable economy to a temporary fossil-fueled one.  It’s one of the few books I’ve found that explains what life was like before fossil fuels in … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Experts, Life Before Oil, Supply Chains | Tagged , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Pigeon towers to cope with peak phosphate and natural gas fertilizer?

Posted on August 20, 2017 by

[ Natural gas based fertilizers intensified crop production per acre up to 5-fold, yet natural gas, like phosphate, is finite.  We are going to be forced to reinvent our fossil-based agriculture, why not start with pigeon towers? Beats going to … Continue reading →

Posted in Agriculture, Phosphorus | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments