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The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Discussions of conventional and alternative energy production technologies.

Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 19:34:46

Newfie wrote:our young folks are not encouraged to think along the lines you suggest, your suggestions are generally alien to the vast majority. And even if they “get it” how do they do it? The culture is against it.
If you don’t have a meaningful list of things that are truly important then it’s easy to get derailed and off onto lessor things.


Good points, Newf. I am trying to focus on just a few people that I can help along with my personal experiences. What I talk about is not movement material but it is an add-on to those who may be movement material. I am simply saying humans have failed and the planet is now driving change, accept this and start your journey. That journey is individual and local. Just like your sailing adventure to the Caribbean. There is a future for sailing in a world in decline. This is something you might be able to teach to a few worthy individuals. I have made my peace with the planet. The planet is speaking through me. It does not matter if there are results that impact me like personal recognition. What matter is the planet is speaking through me and may touch others even if that is only one or two.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 19:52:50

Local production of resources uses more resources per capita than the current system. This is true from topics ranging from food distribution to solar power. Economies of scale advantages are very real. On the surface it may appear cities are some ungodly resource hog and rural living is the true sustainable option. But rural users use more resources per capita than city users.

kublikhan wrote: I frequently hear that our far flung food distribution system is made possible only by cheap oil and once cheap oil goes bye bye we will have to switch to a local distribution system to cope. IE, 3000 mile ceasar salad = bad, local farmer's market = good. But it has been suggested that food-miles is not what we should be looking at, rather it should be pound-gallons, and by this metric, the current food distribution system uses far less fuel than local farmers markets. For example: a 5 mpg semi-trailer carrying 40,000 pounds of food traveling 1500 miles from the farm to your local supermarket uses far less fuel than dozens of farmers driving 50 miles with 200 pounds of goods.

In fact, local food currently uses much more fossil fuel, especially in distribution, on a per pound basis. This is so painfully the case that one example will suffice, my own.

I drive seventy miles round trip to the farmers market on Saturdays. Some people drive more, some people drive less. I think that on average, my mileage is not untypical, but the average might be closer to fifty miles. This market season, on a bad day, I would sell ten pounds of meat (an amount that does not cover the cost of gas to get there). On a good day, I would sell forty to fifty. One of the biggest farmers market meat sellers in our area that I am aware of probably sells about 200 pounds a week.

Lets take a good day for me:
Miles per pound — 70 (miles driven) divided by 50 (pounds of meat) = 1.4 miles per pound

Gallons of fuel per pound — 70 (miles driven) divided by 12 (miles per gallon) = 5.8 (gallons of fuel) divided by 50 (pounds of meat) = 0.116 gallons per pound

Industrial [3000 mile ceasar salad]:
Miles per pound — 1500 (avg. miles driven) divided by 40,000 (pounds of chicken on a tractor trailer) = 0.0375 miles per pound

Gallons of fuel per pound — 1500 (avg. miles driven) divided by 5 (miles per gallon) = 300 (gallons of fuel) divided by 40,000 (pounds of chicken) = 0.0075 gallons per pound

I would have to sell 750 pounds of meat every week to match the gallons per pound efficiency of industrial distribution. That is fifteen times more than I currently sell, and 3.75 times more than the biggest seller in our area that I am aware of


frankthetank wrote:If i did my math correct, a container ship used .0054 gallons of fuel per pound of cargo for a trip between China and Los Angeles... Very approximate with lots of rounding to get that figure...may be completely wrong... Then add the trucking from Los Angeles to La Crosse where i live...about 2000 miles...so a semi used.... .0074 gallons of fuel (using diesel in both cases, although i think ships use bunker fuel) to ship my 1lb of veggies...

SO to ship my 1lb of veggies from China to La Crosse consumed .0128 gallons of fuel vs my car using .4 gallons to get to the store and back!!! Holy crap..

edit: I think it shows you that hauling large amounts is a heck of a lot more efficient then small amounts
Pound-Gallons, Not Food Miles

The study found that the cost of generating energy from 300 MW of utility-scale PV solar is roughly one-half the cost per kWh of electricity produced from an equivalent 300 MW of 5kW residential-scale systems. Utility-scale solar remained more cost effective in all scenarios considered in the study, scenarios having different tax credits, monetizations, and inflation rates. The study also concluded that 300 MW of PV solar deployed in a utility-scale configuration avoids approximately 50% more carbon emissions than an equivalent amount of residential-scale PV solar. The large difference in costs between utility- and residential-scale systems was attributed to economies of scale and greater solar electric output resulting from optimized panel orientation and tracking assumed for utility-scale systems. The improved orientation and tracking of utility-scale solar resulted in a higher capacity factor than for rooftop solar.

“Over the last decade, solar energy costs for both rooftop and bulk-power applications have come down dramatically. But utility-scale solar will remain substantially less expensive per kWh generated than rooftop PV. In addition, utility-scale PV allows everyone access to solar power. From the standpoint of cost, equity, and environmental benefits, large-scale solar is a crucial resource.”
Which Is Cheaper -- Rooftop Solar Or Utility-Scale Solar?

More than half the U.S. population is packed into three dozen well-lit metro areas, each one home to at least a million power-hungry people. Surely Americans could save money and energy by living somewhere simpler. Right? You'd think so, especially looking at nighttime satellite photos that show dark landscapes illuminated by glowing urban dots. On the surface, these seem like clear evidence of city dwellers' oversized energy footprints.

Transportation
Cities win the head-to-head efficiency matchup in transportation thanks to their mass transit systems and denser layouts, which promote walking and bicycling. Small-town and suburban residents usually have to drive themselves to get around, which isn't cheap. According to EIA data, urban U.S. households own an average of 1.8 vehicles each, compared with 2.2 for each rural household. Urban families also drive about 7,000 fewer miles annually than their rural counterparts, saving more than 400 gallons of gasoline.

Housing
Cities have the lowest annual energy use per household (85.3 million Btu) and household member (33.7 million Btu) of all four categories. Rural areas consume about 95 million Btu per household each year.

Why the difference? Aside from environmental factors, it's a combination of infrastructure and behavior, Battles says. The compact construction of urban condo towers and apartment buildings helps insulate their indoor climates, while large homes common in less dense areas need more energy for heating and cooling, and have a harder time keeping air from leaking outside.
Urban or Rural: Which Is More Energy-Efficient?
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 20:08:32

kublikhan wrote:Local production of resources uses more resources per capita than the current system. This is true from topics ranging from food distribution to solar power. Economies of scale advantages are very real. On the surface it may appear cities are some ungodly resource hog and rural living is the true sustainable option. But rural users use more resources per capita than city users.


Don't confuse green growth economies of scale with degrowthed localism. You comparing apples to oranges. Degrowthed localism in a world of less is very different to a pseudo localism based in the status quo of globalism embracing a green globalism. Globalism cannot be greened up. The physics don't add up. I agree the reality of the way things work for the vast majority is your green growth with economies of scale and profit. A large solar farm is more potent than the summation of many rooftop solar but it can also get stranded easier. Dispersion verses centralization is a complicated topic. I am talking about a different way of life that attempts to leave the techno world of the modern green. Its practice is a mostly behavioral not techno although tech is part of it as the follow up. I accept the best we can do to get as much green energy out there as we can is what you are promoting. Yet, what you are promoting is human failure packaged as our only hope. You are selling a religion to the sheeples going to slaughter. You have not made it to acceptance. You are still bargaining. Good luck and I hope you succeed with green over new oil wells and Nascar tracks but Your green washed techno optimism is not REAL Green localism.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 20:30:06

So you start up a website, push your beliefs onto others, talk about how the planet is speaking through you, and yet I'm the one selling religion. I have a question for you: Do you own a mirror? If so, please use it. Because to me it sounds like you are the one who is bargaining. Going local will not solve the problem. It will make it worse. I stated the reasons why in my previous post.

Now I am all for behavioral changes that reduce resource consumption, in this system or in another. Smaller families, telecommuting, car pooling, insulating your home, turning down the thermostat, eating less meat, switching to a heat pump, etc. If everyone did these things there would be significant energy savings.

On the other hand if we all unplugged from the grid and went rooftop solar, switched to local farmer's market instead of the global food distribution system, etc, we would all increase our resource consumption. It's simple economies of scale. You are not REAL green if your electricity releases 50% more pollution and uses 50% more resources that the equivalent grid system. You are not REAL green if you food distribution system uses 30 times as much fossil fuels as the current system.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 21:23:33

kublikhan wrote:So you start up a website, push your beliefs onto others, talk about how the planet is speaking through you, and yet I'm the one selling religion. .


I would hardly call a minor blog a website?? I am not forcing my beliefs onto anyone. The planet is speaking though me. Anything I say you are welcome to take as your own. It is not mine. What I have learned has come from others and I give it back to others. You are selling the religion of modern man and that is techno optimism. It is firmly in control and will not be dethroned except by collpase.

kublikhan wrote:I have a question for you: Do you own a mirror? If so, please use it. Because to me it sounds like you are the one who is bargaining. Going local will not solve the problem. It will make it worse. I stated the reasons why in my previous post. .


Oh, the mirror thing, yes I do and I look in it. This is why I call REAL Green realistic green not real green as in the right green way. No bargaining here. I accept I am trapped and my fellow humans are as well. Your way is not going to solve the existential problem either. Going local or not is not the point really because only a few can. The point is localism is the better way for those who can. It is properly scaled and is where the individual can impact his trap the best. He can help the planet the best locally. The problem is a predicament for all and presents itself as a trap. My way is behavioral and starts by admitting defeat and from there going forward. You go forward believing in success as an article of faith in human ingenuity. Failure for you is not an option. I respect you for being greener but you are not green and what you are preaching is just more steps into the trap


kublikhan wrote:Now I am all for behavioral changes that reduce resource consumption, in this system or in another. Smaller families, telecommuting, car pooling, insulating your home, turning down the thermostat, eating less meat, switching to a heat pump, etc. If everyone did these things there would be significant energy savings. .


Sounds great so Me-Too but where we differ is it is more than energy that is the subject. If it were only energy it would be a lot easier.

kublikhan wrote:On the other hand if we all unplugged from the grid and went rooftop solar, switched to local farmer's market instead of the global food distribution system, etc, we would all increase our resource consumption. .


You are talking about a world undefined. You can’t define such a world in a few lines. Please try to tell me a third world subsistence farmer uses more resources than you do. You may be able to make a point of a wealthy person who can afford to power up off the grid and play green. Yea, they use more resources but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about low carbon capture and remining in one place as best one can manage and do this as a life system. This person will use less I guarantee it. His comfort level will go down for sure but for many their experience of meaning goes up.

kublikhan wrote:It's simple economies of scale. You are not REAL green if your electricity releases 50% more pollution and uses 50% more resources that the equivalent grid system. You are not REAL green if you food distribution system uses 30 times as much fossil fuels as the current system.


No, it is simple behavior then economies and tech. If you chose to have a smaller footprint then you will make wise choices. This is not an either or thing. I use the grid and I am off the grid. I practice conservation and natural restoration. I try to reduce driving but I have no choice but to drive. I participate in the consumer world but in a smart way to reduce that participation. I have some great tech that I apply to the old ways of animals, grass, and wood. Electricity is only part of it. And I wonder where you got your 50% figure?? You don’t even know what life I live in. My food system is adapted with permaculture. I produce more food calories than I consume. You are losing me on the 30 times more fossil fuel figure. Again REAL Green is realistic not real. When I talk of real green like you are I call it TRUE Green. Many aboriginal are true green.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby ralfy » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 21:45:23

Many people go "local" worldwide not because they choose to do so but because they are poor. Most of them don't want to be poor, which is why they want industrialization, which involves going "global."

In terms of income levels, around 70 pct of workers worldwide earn less than $10 a day. They want to earn more in order to ensure that they have access to basic needs, if not receive middle class conveniences like cars and smart phones. The remaining 30 pct are counting on that because their own income and returns on investment are dependent on rising sales of cars, smart phones, etc.

The current global consumption level is around 20 TW of energy and over 2 global hectares per capita on average, which is above biocapacity. In order to ensure what the 70 pct need, both energy use and ecological footprint have to increase significantly.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 22:06:10

REAL Green wrote:You are selling the religion of modern man and that is techno optimism. It is firmly in control and will not be dethroned except by collpase.
I'm not selling anything. I'm pointing out the path you have chosen will actually make things worse, not better. I understand your intentions come from a good place, to make things better. Yet good intentions are not enough. You have to properly evaluate the medicine you are prescribing actually works. Otherwise you are just doing the equivalent of bloodletting.

REAL Green wrote:The point is localism is the better way for those who can. It is properly scaled and is where the individual can impact his trap the best. He can help the planet the best locally.
I disagree. If behavioral or technological changes reduce the consumption of the global herd by 1% or even .1%, that is orders of magnitude better for the planet the a few reducing their footprint.

REAL Green wrote:You are talking about a world undefined. You can’t define such a world in a few lines. Please try to tell me a third world subsistence farmer uses more resources than you do. You may be able to make a point of a wealthy person who can afford to power up off the grid and play green. Yea, they use more resources but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about low carbon capture and remining in one place as best one can manage and do this as a life system. This person will use less I guarantee it. His comfort level will go down for sure but for many their experience of meaning goes up.
You are talking here about degrowth. This can happen in a global system with economies of scale or with a local system. Yet if it happened in the global system you have resources savings of degrowth plus economies of scale savings. If you did in in the latter system, you would have resources savings of degrowth minus the added cost of doing everything locally without economies of scale. Just look at one example, electricity:

The Impacts of Fossil Fuel Back-up Generators in Developing Countries

About 1.5 billion people around the world live day-to-day with “broken” electricity grids and experience blackouts for hundreds and sometimes thousands of hours a year. For this population, reliance on distributed diesel and gasoline backup generators, or BUGS, is a common stopgap measure. These generators are deployed across the globe on a large scale both on- and off-grid, at homes, businesses, and industrial sites. They support access to energy but come with significant costs.

Major Findings
The fleet of generators in the developing countries modeled serves 20 to 30 million sites with an installed capacity of 350 to 500 gigawatts (GW), equivalent to 700 to 1000 large coal power stations. The fleet has a replacement value of $70 billion and about $7 billion in annual equipment investment. Electricity from backup generators is expensive, with $28 billion to $50 billion spent by generator users on fuel each year.

Backup generators are a significant source of air pollutants that negatively impacts health and the environment. As a pollution source, generators are often hidden from policymakers since their fuel consumption may be lumped in with the transport sector in official statistics. Generators consume the same fuels and also emit the same pollutants as cars and trucks, except they are used in closer proximity to people’s homes and businesses. Often, emission limits for generators are also less stringent than for vehicles. As a result, the pollutants emitted from generators may represent meaningful but largely unaccounted or misclassified impacts on population health and the environment. . Generators emit the same pollutants as cars and trucks, except they are used in closer proximity to people’s homes and businesses, and emission limits are often less stringent than for vehicles. In Sub-Saharan Africa, we estimate that generators account for the majority of power sector emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx) and fine particulate matter.

Overall, our results indicate a significant opportunity to reduce costs and negative health and environmental externalities by replacing diesel and gasoline generators.
The Dirty Footprint of the Broken Grid

And that's just the backup power. There are similar economy of scale savings for the solar PV panels, storage, etc.

REAL Green wrote:Electricity is only part of it. And I wonder where you got your 50% figure??
From here:

The study found that the cost of generating energy from 300 MW of utility-scale PV solar is roughly one-half the cost per kWh of electricity produced from an equivalent 300 MW of 5kW residential-scale systems. The study also concluded that 300 MW of PV solar deployed in a utility-scale configuration avoids approximately 50% more carbon emissions than an equivalent amount of residential-scale PV solar.
Which Is Cheaper -- Rooftop Solar Or Utility-Scale Solar?

REAL Green wrote:You are losing me on the 30 times more fossil fuel figure.
It was from frankthetank doing the math to ship veggies from China to his town vs the local gasoline consumption of driving to the farmer's market. The huge amount of goods cargo ships, semi trucks, rail cars, etc can ship makes the amount of fuel consumed per pound of goods shipped miniscule in comparison to hopping into your pickup truck to drive to the local farmer's market. This applies to the farmer driving to the market as well as the consumer. The last leg of the food delivery journey(to and from the local market) consumes an order of magnitude more fuel than shipping your veggies across country. It's all in the economies of scale.

frankthetank wrote:If i did my math correct, a container ship used .0054 gallons of fuel per pound of cargo for a trip between China and Los Angeles... Very approximate with lots of rounding to get that figure...may be completely wrong... Then add the trucking from Los Angeles to La Crosse where i live...about 2000 miles...so a semi used.... .0074 gallons of fuel (using diesel in both cases, although i think ships use bunker fuel) to ship my 1lb of veggies...

SO to ship my 1lb of veggies from China to La Crosse consumed .0128 gallons of fuel vs my car using .4 gallons to get to the store and back!!![IE, 30x as much fuel] Holy crap..

edit: I think it shows you that hauling large amounts is a heck of a lot more efficient then small amounts


In fact, local food currently uses much more fossil fuel, especially in distribution, on a per pound basis. This is so painfully the case that one example will suffice, my own.
...
I would have to sell 750 pounds of meat every week to match the gallons per pound efficiency of industrial distribution. That is fifteen times more than I currently sell.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby careinke » Tue 30 Jun 2020, 23:48:06

kublikhan wrote:Local production of resources uses more resources per capita than the current system. This is true from topics ranging from food distribution to solar power. Economies of scale advantages are very real. On the surface it may appear cities are some ungodly resource hog and rural living is the true sustainable option. But rural users use more resources per capita than city users.


Well the industrial food portion basically tastes like shit, and will probably kill you.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 06:41:11

kublikhan wrote:
REAL Green wrote:You are selling the religion of modern man and that is techno optimism. It is firmly in control and will not be dethroned except by collpase.
I'm not selling anything. I'm pointing out the path you have chosen will actually make things worse, not better. I understand your intentions come from a good place, to make things better. Yet good intentions are not enough. You have to properly evaluate the medicine you are prescribing actually works. Otherwise you are just doing the equivalent of bloodletting. .


You don’t even know my path. You are assuming what REAL Green is and saying it is a localism that disregards centralization and maximization of efficiency. This is the typical problem with techno optimistic solution of the modern green who I call FAKE Green. This is part of the carbon trap and the path of dependency on past ways of life. Your way has hit diminishing returns both physical and economic. It has come a long way but the journey is almost over.

My way is a hybrid way of lowering energy consumption primarily by limiting travel and use of distant monocultures for food. This is done by growing your own food where you can. It is done by heating your own place with wood produced next to your home which is an example for some. A very good heat pump with energy efficient design and features of passive and active strategies works too becuase I am not saying don't use "best" tech just adapt it with local low carbon capture too. Solar system with batteries for increased resilience is of high value for more than power but you refuse to consider overall value. It is about limiting consumerism to the best things that can help low carbon capture be more manageable. Many people can not afford all this but the point is relative change with what the individual can do. All you talk about is the macro. You also fail to understand resilience that requires redundancy and less efficiency where that efficiency is not resilient.

Most of all REAL Green is about behavior changes of acceptance of human failure. The reason for the behavioral aspect is because you will be in a surreal world of growth orientation when the planet is forcing degrowth from limits of growth. The individual is conned into growth world REAL Green behavior seeks to limits this not end it becuase this is a trap. It is about avoiding the dopamine desires of the status quo. I am not talking about leaving the FAKE Green world I am talking about adapting it. The world of the Brown is even worse at least your world is greener

REAL Green wrote:The point is localism is the better way for those who can. It is properly scaled and is where the individual can impact his trap the best. He can help the planet the best locally.
kublikhan wrote: I disagree. If behavioral or technological changes reduce the consumption of the global herd by 1% or even .1%, that is orders of magnitude better for the planet the a few reducing their footprint. .


Reducing consumption is reducing the footprint. Except it hasn’t happen in your world. You are talking about “ifs”. I am talking about real action for the individual or small group. You are talking the macro which is lost and I am talking the micro for the individual who can make things better. You are also talking about what is usually the case with behavioral and technological changes of the techno optimist and that is more risk from less resilience. You all want more complicated centralized systems with people living in denser arrangements for efficiency. That is clearly not resillient to shocks as Covid has shown. Plus a 1% reduction in consumption is not going to save us so you are pissing in the wind.

REAL Green wrote:You are talking about a world undefined. You can’t define such a world in a few lines. Please try to tell me a third world subsistence farmer uses more resources than you do. You may be able to make a point of a wealthy person who can afford to power up off the grid and play green. Yea, they use more resources but that is not what I am talking about. I am talking about low carbon capture and remining in one place as best one can manage and do this as a life system. This person will use less I guarantee it. His comfort level will go down for sure but for many their experience of meaning goes up.
kublikhan wrote:You are talking here about degrowth. This can happen in a global system with economies of scale or with a local system. Yet if it happened in the global system you have resources savings of degrowth plus economies of scale savings. If you did in in the latter system, you would have resources savings of degrowth minus the added cost of doing everything locally without economies of scale. Just look at one example, electricity.


Degrowth is not either or it can happen in both places but you are not talking degrowth. You don’t understand degrowth and economies of scale. Degrowth is a negative force to economies of scale. Degrowth is about more poverty not more development and development is what you are really calling for. Degrowth locally is about less things but also smarter things. Triage and prioritization will limit everything becuase degrowth is less. Localized smarter is only efficiency to a point then it becomes smarter behavioral changes of less things and activities. You are mixing up strategies that don’t go together. I am saying less travel and consumption is concrete. You are talking abstractly about the greater system.

kublikhan wrote:About 1.5 billion people around the world live day-to-day with “broken” electricity grids and experience blackouts for hundreds and sometimes thousands of hours a year. For this population, reliance on distributed diesel and gasoline backup generators, or BUGS, is a common stopgap measure. Major Findings


Except your world is not affordable. You want to fix this world for the poor when more poor are on the way. You want to do this at the same time you want to build a new developed world of techno infrastructure. Your dream world is physically and economically limited now. I am not saying don’t do your greener development. Do it, my localism is not going to stop that. BTW, if these 1.5BIL people where to embrace your techno optimistic behavior less then that would be less things needed to support them. It is all the other crap that goes along with your techno life that gets in the way of savings. You want things to solve problems and talk vaguely about behaviors.



REAL Green wrote:Electricity is only part of it. And I wonder where you got your 50% figure??
kublikhan wrote:From here:
The study found that the cost of generating energy from 300 MW of utility-scale PV solar is roughly one-half the cost per kWh of electricity produced from an equivalent 300 MW of 5kW residential-scale systems]


Except you miss my point. Your point is purely technical about one small aspect of the issue of electricity. I talk about a hybrid of grid and off grid. Residential solar has a place for some and utility scale for others. I do both except my grid is very little renewable. You don’t understand what I am talking about but instead are preaching your centralized is better than decentralized strictly from an electricity point of view. I am talking about leaving your resource intensive world though footprint reducing behavior. You are talking more development of what has got humans into trouble and occasionally throwing out degrowth which you are not going to do any of.

REAL Green wrote:You are losing me on the 30 times more fossil fuel figure.
kublikhan wrote: It was from frankthetank doing the math to ship veggies from China to his town vs the local gasoline consumption of driving to the farmer's market. The huge amount of goods cargo ships, semi trucks, rail cars, etc can ship makes the amount of fuel consumed per pound of goods shipped miniscule in comparison to hopping into your pickup truck to drive to the local farmer's market. This applies to the farmer driving to the market as well as the consumer. The last leg of the food delivery journey(to and from the local market) consumes an order of magnitude more fuel than shipping your veggies across country. It's all in the economies of scale. ]


My God that is crap. First you conveniently chip in the part about driving for the local food guy as if your monoculture guy is not. I am saying growing your own in communities that are close together also as in no or little driving. You are mixing this up and fail to realize that your fossil fuel drenched monoculture food from China then has to be driven to also. You leave out your last mile of consumption and add it on to your local food guy. That is dishonest or intellectual negligence. Plus you fail to understand just how drenched industrial agriculture is to begin with. WTF, do you think that China veggie is dropping straight into your house? No, you are driving to the store to get it in your pickup. Your economy of scale thing is fossil fuel drenched then you add your trip to the store that is no different than a trip to the farmers market.

kublikhan wrote:
frankthetank wrote:
If i did my math correct"


I have followed your comments in the past and you do way too much math that then is applied in a sloppy way to a complex system. This is the problem with the techno optimist of significantly theory and math but not very well applied. I am talking hands on things an individual can do you are vaguely talking about the big picture with sloppy comparisons.

kublikhan wrote: think it shows you that hauling large amounts is a heck of a lot more efficient then small amounts


Sure but the problem is hauling huge amounts in the first place that is hugely fossil fuel drenched. And then you try to say that is more efficient than small amounts locally. Nope you are just delusional and make your attack by making your assumptions of the end mile when your fossil fuel drenched China veggie has to go that last mile too.

If you really understood my REAL Green localism then you would understand I am under no illusion we can leave mono-cultures and economies of scale. I am about adapting that with the reality of decline and limits to growth. It is behavioral about accepting failure of the human narrative of more for less. I am saying diminishing returns has hit and the planet is in abrupt change that will be even more limiting. Adapting locally builds up an individuals place not our way of further delocalizing it. Your way is subject to hot wars and trade wars. It is subject to fuel shocks and that inconvenient part of JIT that does not come on time or at all then the whole value chain paralyzes. Then tell me all about your efficient large amount stuck in port and you are hungry

kublikhan wrote: In fact, local food currently uses much more fossil fuel, especially in distribution, on a per pound basis. This is so painfully the case that one example will suffice, my own.


BS, I just proved you wrong. You forgot your last mile of your fossil fuel drenched monoculture and you did not even take into account how much fossil fuels were used to grow the stuff or what it did to the planet in intensive agriculture of vast sterilized fields of one food type.
...
kublikhan wrote: [b]I would have to sell 750 pounds of meat every week to match the gallons per pound efficiency of industrial distribution. That is fifteen times more than I currently sell.


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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby mousepad » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 08:13:45

kublikhan wrote:It was from frankthetank doing the math to ship veggies from China to his town vs the local gasoline consumption of driving to the farmer's market.


I don't really understand this. Farmer's market are mostly supplied by small farms, not industrial AG with semi loading docks. What's the difference if they drive their goods to the store or to the farmer's market? What's the difference if the customer drives to the farmer's market or the grocery store?

Shipping vegetables/fruits (perishable goods) across the nation requires a high level of expensive infrastructure in place (freeways/gas stations etc.). Your cost calculation only makes sense if this expensive infrastructure is shared with transportation of other goods and also personal traffic. Or in other words, it requires an underlying high energy society (BAU) to function.

The local farmer on the other hand can distribute his products across pothole ridden dirt roads to local customers.

For "degrowth", the local options is clearly the better one, instead of trying to wring out even more efficiency of an already fragile system.

Look at 3rd world nations for guidance of how this looks like. A small truck picks up produce from many small farms early in the morning and drives it to the central "mercado". Customers share taxis/buses or walk to the mercado to pick it up on a daily need basis. Pretty efficient, minimal energy cost. Pretty resilient, too.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 17:56:43

REAL Green wrote:Reducing consumption is reducing the footprint. Except it hasn’t happen in your world. You are talking about “ifs”. I am talking about real action for the individual or small group. You are talking the macro which is lost and I am talking the micro for the individual who can make things better. You are also talking about what is usually the case with behavioral and technological changes of the techno optimist and that is more risk from less resilience. You all want more complicated centralized systems with people living in denser arrangements for efficiency. That is clearly not resillient to shocks as Covid has shown. Plus a 1% reduction in consumption is not going to save us so you are pissing in the wind.
Wow that point went right over over your head. I'll try and explain this again. Your way has a small handful of people lowering their footprint. In the big picture, that is nothing. The global consumption level goes from 100% this year to 99.99999999999999999999999999999% next year because of your actions. Talk about pissing in the wind. I was proposing lower the footprint of everyone. Not just you and your posse. In the big picture, it gets far more results than your approach.

REAL Green wrote:Degrowth is not either or it can happen in both places but you are not talking degrowth. You don’t understand degrowth and economies of scale. Degrowth is a negative force to economies of scale. Degrowth is about more poverty not more development and development is what you are really calling for. Degrowth locally is about less things but also smarter things. Triage and prioritization will limit everything becuase degrowth is less. Localized smarter is only efficiency to a point then it becomes smarter behavioral changes of less things and activities. You are mixing up strategies that don’t go together. I am saying less travel and consumption is concrete. You are talking abstractly about the greater system.
On the contrary. It is you who do not understand. You don't seem to understand that those distant monocultures of food are exactly the centralization and maximization of efficiency that you claim to be in favor of. Yet you propose dismantling them and replacing them with thousands of individual farms. That is the exact opposite of centralization and maximization of efficiency.

REAL Green wrote:Except your world is not affordable. You want to fix this world for the poor when more poor are on the way. You want to do this at the same time you want to build a new developed world of techno infrastructure. Your dream world is physically and economically limited now. I am not saying don’t do your greener development. Do it, my localism is not going to stop that. BTW, if these 1.5BIL people where to embrace your techno optimistic behavior less then that would be less things needed to support them. It is all the other crap that goes along with your techno life that gets in the way of savings. You want things to solve problems and talk vaguely about behaviors.
I said not a single word about my dream. I said I would welcome behavoir changes that reduce consumption in this system or another. What I said was dismantling of centralization and maximization of efficiency, all else being equal, will increase consumption. IE, your localism approach will make things worse. It is not your degrowth argument I was arguing against. It was the localism.

REAL Green wrote:Except you miss my point. Your point is purely technical about one small aspect of the issue of electricity. I talk about a hybrid of grid and off grid. Residential solar has a place for some and utility scale for others. I do both except my grid is very little renewable. You don’t understand what I am talking about but instead are preaching your centralized is better than decentralized strictly from an electricity point of view. I am talking about leaving your resource intensive world though footprint reducing behavior. You are talking more development of what has got humans into trouble and occasionally throwing out degrowth which you are not going to do any of.
Except you miss my point. Ecomomies of scale advantages apply to ALL systems. I just used solar and food to illustrate my point with REAL examples. I never uttered a single word about more development. Infact just the opposite. I said reducing the consumption of everyone a small amount will produce far larger results than reducing the consumption of the few by alot.

REAL Green wrote:My God that is crap. First you conveniently chip in the part about driving for the local food guy as if your monoculture guy is not. I am saying growing your own in communities that are close together also as in no or little driving. You are mixing this up and fail to realize that your fossil fuel drenched monoculture food from China then has to be driven to also. You leave out your last mile of consumption and add it on to your local food guy. That is dishonest or intellectual negligence. Plus you fail to understand just how drenched industrial agriculture is to begin with. WTF, do you think that China veggie is dropping straight into your house? No, you are driving to the store to get it in your pickup. Your economy of scale thing is fossil fuel drenched then you add your trip to the store that is no different than a trip to the farmers market.
Again you miss my point. I said this applies to both the consumer and the farmer driving to the market. And the part about the consumer was to illustrate exactly where the most damage was being done. It was not from driving the food across country like most people think. It was from you and me driving to the store. As for your dream about no driving being involved, in the REAL world that is not what is going on. Sure maybe a tiny fraction of people might be willing to abandon their life and go live the amish lifestyle. But in the REAL world that ain't going to happen.

REAL Green wrote:I have followed your comments in the past and you do way too much math that then is applied in a sloppy way to a complex system. This is the problem with the techno optimist of significantly theory and math but not very well applied. I am talking hands on things an individual can do you are vaguely talking about the big picture with sloppy comparisons.
You are talking about a few people doing the amish lifestyle. That isn't going to make a dent in the problem. And if everyone tried to it would not work. IE, it is not a REAL solution. It is your fantasy.

REAL Green wrote:Sure but the problem is hauling huge amounts in the first place that is hugely fossil fuel drenched. And then you try to say that is more efficient than small amounts locally. Nope you are just delusional and make your attack by making your assumptions of the end mile when your fossil fuel drenched China veggie has to go that last mile too.
I see the point went over your head again. I'll explain it nice and slow for you here. The point was one semi truck or cargo ship shipping veggies uses a miniscule amount of fossil fuels per pound of food shipped. But the farmer driving his produce to the market uses an order of magnitude more fuel than the semitruck delivering the food. Do you get it now? The food does not magically arrive at the store. The current food delivery system has economies of scale advantages that use tiny amounts of fuel delivering the food. 1 Semi truck with 40,000 pounds of capacity vs hundreds of farmers driving pickup trucks with a few dozen pounds of goods.

REAL Green wrote:If you really understood my REAL Green localism then you would understand I am under no illusion we can leave mono-cultures and economies of scale. I am about adapting that with the reality of decline and limits to growth. It is behavioral about accepting failure of the human narrative of more for less. I am saying diminishing returns has hit and the planet is in abrupt change that will be even more limiting. Adapting locally builds up an individuals place not our way of further delocalizing it. Your way is subject to hot wars and trade wars. It is subject to fuel shocks and that inconvenient part of JIT that does not come on time or at all then the whole value chain paralyzes. Then tell me all about your efficient large amount stuck in port and you are hungry
You make it sound like you cannot add resiliency to the current system. Resiliency can be added if we are willing to pay for it. How much do you want to sacrifice now in the name of future safety? Many would say "very little" or "I want a lot of future safety but I want someone else to pay for it." It is a matter of degrees.

REAL Green wrote:BS, I just proved you wrong. You forgot your last mile of your fossil fuel drenched monoculture and you did not even take into account how much fossil fuels were used to grow the stuff or what it did to the planet in intensive agriculture of vast sterilized fields of one food type.
For the last time, I did not forget, was dishonest, etc. I made two points. One about the consumer, the other point was about the farmer driving to the market. Get it now? And you did not prove me wrong, as I just demonstrated above. Or see my original post on the topic for the full math.

REAL Green wrote:More talking out your ass
Right over your head again.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 18:00:53

mousepad wrote:I don't really understand this. Farmer's market are mostly supplied by small farms, not industrial AG with semi loading docks. What's the difference if they drive their goods to the store or to the farmer's market?
One semi truck hauling 40,000 pounds of goods to the grocery store consumes far less fuel than hundreds of farmers in pickup trucks hauling a few dozen pounds of goods to a farmer's market. This was from a farmer who delivers his goods to a farmer's market:

In fact, local food currently uses much more fossil fuel, especially in distribution, on a per pound basis. This is so painfully the case that one example will suffice, my own.

I drive seventy miles round trip to the farmers market on Saturdays. Some people drive more, some people drive less. I think that on average, my mileage is not untypical, but the average might be closer to fifty miles. This market season, on a bad day, I would sell ten pounds of meat (an amount that does not cover the cost of gas to get there). On a good day, I would sell forty to fifty. One of the biggest farmers market meat sellers in our area that I am aware of probably sells about 200 pounds a week.

Lets take a good day for me:
Miles per pound — 70 (miles driven) divided by 50 (pounds of meat) = 1.4 miles per pound

Gallons of fuel per pound — 70 (miles driven) divided by 12 (miles per gallon) = 5.8 (gallons of fuel) divided by 50 (pounds of meat) = 0.116 gallons per pound

Industrial [3000 mile ceasar salad]:
Miles per pound — 1500 (avg. miles driven) divided by 40,000 (pounds of chicken on a tractor trailer) = 0.0375 miles per pound

Gallons of fuel per pound — 1500 (avg. miles driven) divided by 5 (miles per gallon) = 300 (gallons of fuel) divided by 40,000 (pounds of chicken) = 0.0075 gallons per pound

I would have to sell 750 pounds of meat every week to match the gallons per pound efficiency of industrial distribution. That is fifteen times more than I currently sell, and 3.75 times more than the biggest seller in our area that I am aware of


mousepad wrote:Shipping vegetables/fruits (perishable goods) across the nation requires a high level of expensive infrastructure in place (freeways/gas stations etc.). Your cost calculation only makes sense if this expensive infrastructure is shared with transportation of other goods and also personal traffic. Or in other words, it requires an underlying high energy society (BAU) to function.

The local farmer on the other hand can distribute his products across pothole ridden dirt roads to local customers.

For "degrowth", the local options is clearly the better one, instead of trying to wring out even more efficiency of an already fragile system.

Look at 3rd world nations for guidance of how this looks like. A small truck picks up produce from many small farms early in the morning and drives it to the central "mercado". Customers share taxis/buses or walk to the mercado to pick it up on a daily need basis. Pretty efficient, minimal energy cost. Pretty resilient, too.
It's not as efficient as a centralized system. That's why we continue to see small local shops disappear in favor of centralized international conglomerates. It's the same process that has been going on for centuries:

The leading American industrialists of the late nineteenth century were aggressive competitors and innovators. To cut costs and thereby reduce prices and win a larger market share, Andrew Carnegie eagerly scrapped his huge investment in Bessemer furnaces and adopted the open-hearth system for making steel rails. In the oil-refining industry, John D. Rockefeller embraced cost cutting by building his own pipeline network; manufacturing his own barrels; and hiring chemists to remove the vile odor from abundant, low-cost crude oil. Gustavus Swift challenged the existing network of local butchers when he created assembly-line meatpacking facilities in Chicago and built his own fleet of refrigerated railroad cars to deliver low-price beef to distant markets. Local merchants also were challenged by Chicago-based Sears Roebuck and Montgomery Ward, which pioneered mail-order sales on a money-back, satisfaction-guaranteed basis.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 18:54:27

kublikhan wrote:
mousepad wrote:I don't really understand this. Farmer's market are mostly supplied by small farms, not industrial AG with semi loading docks. What's the difference if they drive their goods to the store or to the farmer's market?
One semi truck hauling 40,000 pounds of goods to the grocery store consumes far less fuel than hundreds of farmers in pickup trucks hauling a few dozen pounds of goods to a farmer's market. This was from a farmer who delivers his goods to a farmer's market:


How far did the semi travel to bring in the food? How far do the farmers go? Don't you think that math is all over the place? How do you model that and that is what you are doing with a simple example that fits only a small subset. Did the farmers do other task combined with their work at the market? You fail miserably with the produce being hauled that is drenched in energy, chemicals, and probably water compared to what the small farmer does. If we are talking meats then the issue is worse in regards to animal suffering. Industrial animal farms treat animals horrible when a small farm tends to treat them better but you won't put any value on that becuase all you care about is raw efficiency. The small farm many times has better tasting food with better nutrition which you do not value. It is seasonal so it is ripened properly. Many veggies transported in by truck come from greenhouses that are energy intensive or many times the veggies are meant to ripen over time yielding lots of waste from poor timing. Many times the food is refrigerated on the trailer of the semi which is an energy sink. There is also the aspect of community that your example puts no value on. You are barking up a tree.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 19:59:02

REAL Green wrote:How far did the semi travel to bring in the food? How far do the farmers go? Don't you think that math is all over the place? How do you model that and that is what you are doing with a simple example that fits only a small subset. Did the farmers do other task combined with their work at the market? You fail miserably with the produce being hauled that is drenched in energy, chemicals, and probably water compared to what the small farmer does. If we are talking meats then the issue is worse in regards to animal suffering. Industrial animal farms treat animals horrible when a small farm tends to treat them better but you won't put any value on that becuase all you care about is raw efficiency. The small farm many times has better tasting food with better nutrition which you do not value. It is seasonal so it is ripened properly. Many veggies transported in by truck come from greenhouses that are energy intensive or many times the veggies are meant to ripen over time yielding lots of waste from poor timing. Many times the food is refrigerated on the trailer of the semi which is an energy sink. There is also the aspect of community that your example puts no value on. You are barking up a tree.
All the miles traveled are in my original post. And it's not just distribution that is a problem for the small farmer. The problem of economies of scale apply to production and sales as well:

Small, diversified farms are less efficient than large ones. Which means that food grown on them is more expensive. Marc Bellemare, an assistant professor in the University of Minnesota’s department of applied economics, calls farmers market produce “luxury goods,” and Tim Griffin, director of the Agriculture, Food and Environment program at Tufts University’s Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy, explains the dynamic simply: economy of scale. “As the farms get larger, it’s easier to invest in labor-saving machinery, technology and specialized management, and production cost per unit goes down,” he says. It’s Econ 101. Even John Ikerd, professor emeritus of agriculture and applied economics at the University of Missouri and an outspoken advocate of the idea that small organic farms ought to feed the world — an idea Bellemare calls “wishful thinking” — acknowledges that we’d need many more farmers to make that happen, and that food would be more expensive.

Farmers selling directly to their customers aren’t making a living. The USDA defines “small” as a farm with gross sales under $50,000, and 82 percent of the farms selling directly meet that definition. But the majority — 56 percent — don’t have even $10,000 in sales. These are clearly not operations that support farmers, and perhaps not the best pattern on which to plan the future of our agriculture.

What if advocates on each side focused on getting their own house in order? If you’re in the small camp, work on efficiency. Perhaps you can reconsider organic’s natural/synthetic line in the sand, which increases costs without benefiting either customer or environment. Down the line, think about incorporating genetically modified crop varieties that are disease- or drought-resistant. Find ways to cut back on waste. And those in the large, why not make some of the basic organic-style practices, like cover cropping and no-till, standard? Consider a target level of organic matter in the soil, to cut back on water use. How about strengthening the conservation practices required for farms to receive federal dollars, even linking them to results like runoff reductions or increased organic matter?
Notice the last paragraph talking about both parties getting their house in order? Small farmers can work on improving their efficiencies and large farmers can work on their own issues such as chemical use, animal cruelty, etc. It need not be a binary either or choice. Even giant Walmart is sourcing some of it's food locally. Nor are efficiencies the only thing I am concerned with. If you look through some of my old posts you will find I am actually a big proponent of the kind of permaculture you practice. However I am not a proponent of letting the current system crash and burn so we can source our needs locally with solar PV panels, lead acid batteries, backup generators, farmer's markets, etc. If you want to lower everyone's footprint, great do that. However turning every house into a power plant and farm is a massive misallocation of resources IMHO.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby mousepad » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 21:46:16

kublikhan wrote:In fact, local food currently uses much more fossil fuel, especially in distribution, on a per pound basis. This is so painfully the case that one example will suffice, my own.

Big farm also has to deal with the first mile, same as the small farmer. The small farmer drives his produce to the local grocery store, the big farmer drives to the semi transfer hub.

But it gets even better for smart small farmers. 20 clever small farmers banding together and buying a small box truck that goes from farm to farm and drives to local groceries not needing the semi trip across the nation at all.

Or even better. They can combine delivery with buying groceries, other goods, entertainment etc. Essentially making the local delivery practically free.

I drive seventy miles round trip to the farmers market on Saturdays.

70 miles is not local. :-)
You have to be much smarter about it. See above ideas.
If we have events that are far away we always combine it with something useful or something fun, or ride share with neighbor farmers. But our distance to the busiest farmer’s market we go to is 2 miles. That’s what I call local.
And we take opportunity at the farmer's market to also stock up on our grocery needs. We combine 1st mile with last mile and eliminate your efficient semi-ride across the nation. Can you beat that?


It's not as efficient as a centralized system.

A centralized system is the result of cheap energy (for transportation). Once energy becomes more expensive, localization will come back naturally.

That's why we continue to see small local shops disappear in favor of centralized international conglomerates.


Not necessarily. Big means inflexible, burocratic, with suck-ups promoted up to their level of incompetence. Eventually everybody who is capable leaves to start their own or join a small efficient competitor, leaving behind a blob of morons. And how much of the big conglomerate’s “market prowess” is due to them bullying and stomping on competitors while being entangled with pork-politics and getting access to too-big-to-fail bailout money and perks?

Monsanto doesn't deal kindly with small innovative efficient renegade farmers, if you know what I mean.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Wed 01 Jul 2020, 23:44:52

As I posted earlier, I am a proponent of car pooling, trip chaining, small farmers taking actions to improve their efficiencies, etc. This is exactly the kind of behavior I would like to see to get the small farmer to be able to compete with the big guys. However it doesn't mean that everyone is doing that:

The Myth of the Carbon Footprint
It’s not only how far you go but how you get there that counts. What’s often not taken into account is the mode of transport housing those tomatoes or strawberries. Unless local farmers en masse have signed an unknown pact to drive only fuel-efficient vehicles, they are probably producing just as much carbon dioxide on their short runs from farm to farm stand as the conventional distributors are when they drive cross country. Big rigs transport thousands of pounds of food at a time, which will grace at least that many tables. Locally grown produce may travel a shorter distance before it lands on your plate, but less food is being transported during any given trip. Local farmers, particularly those driving gas-guzzling pick-up trucks or SUVs, are producing more carbon dioxide per pound of food than the average food wholesaler does. And what about those fossil-fueled greenhouses? Buying produce grown outdoors in faraway, tropical climate may be a greener choice than opting for those grown indoors in nearby colder climates.
The Local Food Myth: Why Locavores May Be Getting It Wrong

Also, distribution is just one piece of the puzzle:
The author of Just Food is James E. McWilliams, a history professor at Texas State University. His book is aptly sub-titled, Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. In this book, McWilliams' opening concern is with the 'locavore' movement. This movement is very vocal in the United States, selling the idea that eating local will solve the 'food miles' problem. McWilliams argues very convincingly that most of the group's argument is very over-rated hype. It is, he says, essentially a middle-class indulgence in token change and, though nice, eating locally contributes very little to helping feed the expected mid-century population of 10 billion humans. Most of the foods we eat cannot be grown where we live. And of those that can, they cannot be grown economically (for example, hothouses in countries with winter snow). In addition, 'local' is proving a very rubbery concept, varying from farms just outside town to anything within 160 km to anything within one's state (very generous in Western Australia and Texas). But, most importantly, the vast bulk of energy consumed in food production is used in fertilizing farms and in cooking. Transport contributes less than five per cent of energy consumption, no matter where food travels to or from. McWilliams goes on to dismiss the prescribed behaviours of the organic movement as another bit of middle-class indulgence—very nice to do, but expensive and at the cost of lowering productivity.
Just Food: Where Locavores Get It Wrong and How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly

mousepad wrote:A centralized system is the result of cheap energy (for transportation). Once energy becomes more expensive, localization will come back naturally.
I am not convinced of that. Big Ag has been around since ancient times. Even back then they understood the advantages of economies of scale.

kublikhan wrote:Giant mega farms are not a modern phenomenon, they existed even in ancient times. I am not convinced they are going away simply because of fossil fuel depletion. The giant mega farms of the Roman Empire(Latifundia) were also more productive and efficient, yet produced many of the same problems discussed in this thread, such as unemployed, displaced workers.

The latifundia of Roman history were great landed estates, specializing in agriculture destined for export: grain, olive oil, or wine. The latifundia were the closest approximation to industrialized agriculture in Antiquity, and their economics depended upon slave labour.

The latifundia quickly started economic consolidation as larger estates achieved greater economies of scale and senators did not pay land taxes. Owners re-invested their profits by purchasing smaller neighbouring farms, since smaller farms had a lower productivity and could not compete, in an ancient precursor of agribusiness. By the 2nd century AD, latifundia had in fact displaced small farms as the agricultural foundation of the Roman Empire. This effect contributed to the destabilizing of Roman society as well. As the small farms of the Roman peasantry were bought up by the wealthy and their vast supply of slaves, the landless peasantry were forced to idle and squat around the city of Rome, relying greatly on handouts.

Overall, the latifundia increased productivity. It was one of the greatest levels of worker productivity before the 19th century. Such consolidation was not universally approved, as it consolidated more and more land into fewer and fewer hands, mainly Senators and the Roman emperor. Pliny the Elder argued that the latifundia had ruined Italy and would ruin the Roman provinces as well. He reported that at one point just six owners possessed half of the province of Africa.

But then again, Pliny the Elder was very much against the profit-oriented villas as presented in the writings of Columella. His writings can be seen as a part of the 'conservative' reaction to the gain- and profit-oriented new attitudes of the upper classes of the Early Empire.

It can be argued that the latifundia formed part of the economic basis of the European social feudal system.
Latifundia
Where Have All the Farmers Gone?

mousepad wrote:Not necessarily. Big means inflexible, burocratic, with suck-ups promoted up to their level of incompetence. Eventually everybody who is capable leaves to start their own or join a small efficient competitor, leaving behind a blob of morons. And how much of the big conglomerate’s “market prowess” is due to them bullying and stomping on competitors while being entangled with pork-politics and getting access to too-big-to-fail bailout money and perks?

Monsanto doesn't deal kindly with small innovative efficient renegade farmers, if you know what I mean.
Oh I am definitely not a fan of bullying or manipulative tactics or growing on the back of tax payer handouts. Screw that. If you succeed on the back of efficiency, great. But I want to see the kind of prick behavior you mentioned reigned in.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby asg70 » Thu 02 Jul 2020, 01:51:42

Good thread.

I think Kub is right although it's not politically correct to say so in a doomer forum.

I've come to realize that BAU, unsustainable as it may be, is the way it is, for a reason.

Also, I have personally done a lot of gardening on and off and I've come to the conclusion that to be really good at it you have to really immerse yourself in it fulltime, and that means less time to invest in anything else. A big part of BAU is labor specialization. If it does get to the point where we're staring down famine we're going to have a lot of amateurs switching gears and trying to grow stuff and failing miserably. And even those who get good at it, they're likely going to be good at only certain things. Like for me, my interest is in vining plants. If I can just become an expert in that and that alone I'll feel like I've accomplished something.

BOLD PREDICTIONS
-Billions are on the verge of starvation as the lockdown continues. (yoshua, 5/20/20)

HALL OF SHAME:
-Short welched on a bet and should be shunned.
-Frequent-flyers should not cry crocodile-tears over climate-change.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Thu 02 Jul 2020, 02:22:35

And specialization is especially important in agriculture where you are not just talking about labor specialization but also what crops grow in what particular soil conditions, temperature, rainfall, etc.

Implicit in the argument that local farming is better for the environment than industrial agriculture is an assumption that a “relocalized” food system can be just as efficient as today’s modern farming. That assumption is simply wrong. Today’s high crop yields and low costs reflect gains from specialization and trade, as well as scale and scope economies that would be forsaken under the food system that locavores endorse.

Specialization and Trade
Economists have long recognized the welfare gains from specialization and trade. The case for specialization is perhaps nowhere stronger than in agriculture, where the costs of production depend on natural resource endowments, such as temperature, rainfall, and sunlight, as well as soil quality, pest infestations, and land costs. Different crops demand different conditions and vary in their resilience to shocks. So California, with mild winters, warm summers, and fertile soils produces all U.S.-grown almonds and 80 percent of U.S. strawberries and grapes. Idaho, on the other hand, produces 30 percent of the country’s russet potatoes because warm days and cool nights during the season, combined with rich volcanic soils, make for ideal growing conditions. Forsaking comparative advantage in agriculture by localizing means it will take more inputs to grow a given quantity of food, including more land and more chemicals—all of which come at a cost of carbon emissions.

It’s not even clear local production reduces carbon emissions from transportation. The Harvard economist Ed Glaeser estimates that carbon emissions from transportation don’t decline in a locavore future because local farms reduce population density as potential homes are displaced by community gardens. Less-dense cities mean more driving and more carbon emissions.

Economies of Scale
A local food production system would largely upend long-term trends of growing farm size and increasing concentration in food processing and marketing. Local “food sheds” couldn’t support the scale of farming and food processing operations that exist today—and that’s kind of the point. Large, monocrop farms are more dependent on synthetic fertilizers and tilling operations than small polycrop farms, and they face greater pest pressure and waste disposal problems that can lead to environmental damage.

But large operations are also more efficient at converting inputs into outputs. Agricultural economists at UC Davis, for instance, analyzed farm-level surveys from 1996-2000 and concluded that there are “significant” scale economies in modern agriculture and that small farms are “high cost” operations. Absent the efficiencies of large farms, the use of polluting inputs would rise, as would food production costs, which would lead to more expensive food.

From roughly 1940 to 1990, the world’s farmers doubled their output to accommodate a doubling of the world population. And they did it on a shrinking base of cropland. Agricultural productivity can continue to grow, but not by turning back the clock. Local foods may have a place in the market. But they should stand on their own, and local food consumers should understand that they aren’t necessarily buying something that helps the planet, and it may hurt the poor.
The Inefficiency of Local Food
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby REAL Green » Thu 02 Jul 2020, 05:34:09

kublikhan wrote:And specialization is especially important in agriculture where you are not just talking about labor specialization but also what crops grow in what particular soil conditions, temperature, rainfall, etc... The Inefficiency of Local Food


What about when the trucks stop and you are facing hunger? No variable for efficiency there becuase 30% of 0% is still zero. This is about resilience and sustainability of a local and it is not an either or. There is no way with the populations in the world today industrial agriculture can be replaced by local food permaculture. This is about strengthening food security and local community. You are preaching delocalization becuase you say more for less is better. I am saying your attitude is what got us to where we are at and that is on a precipice. You even try to push the idea there is less energy involved with industrial agriculture with dubious examples. I agree with you in quantity but not energy not when local food in my POV is more than farmers markets. Farmer markets is still status quo food just greener than industrial agriculture. In a similar example would be renewables and EV’s to ICE and fossil fuels. Greener has value in this day and age.

What I am talking about is going further to each individual who can should grow stuff. Farmer market food is quality food with lots of labor involved. This is a labor of love too not an economies of scale profit driven activity. You also forget to mention the investments needed and the risk associated with those investments. I am permaculture now and in 2000-2004 I farmed a 1000-acre corn and soy farm with two partners. We had a couple of $MIL in investments with bank payments. That represents a concentrated risk where dispersed farming by individuals in a local is resilient. The amount of energy involved with industrial agriculture is huge. Your studies don't mean you know agriculture. You are cherry picking attractive numbers per your agenda of big and technical is better. Local food can't compete with industrial food on price and raw efficiency but that does not mean it shouldn't be embraced. We are talking increased community and care for the planet becuase local community and agricultural efforts care for people and nature. Industrial profit driven activity doesn’t. I got into that corn and soy farm to try to green up industrial agriculture. I found out it was a struggle just to make my payments. The greening up went out the door.
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Re: The Green New Deal and the Growth of Renewables

Unread postby kublikhan » Thu 02 Jul 2020, 06:51:07

And I say adding resilience to the current system as a whole is a better approach than beefing up resilience in your locale. Covid19 is showing how fragil our JIT system is. Some are already starting to move to add more resilience to it:

As the world counts the human and economic costs of Covid-19, global supply chains – already stretched thin by the turbulent geopolitical environment – are showing the strain.

“There is an enormous impact being felt across the board,” says Michael Sugirin, global head of open account trade at Standard Chartered. “This has been a substantial blow to the electronics sector in particular, given China’s dominant role in that industry, as well as to the automotive sector, with companies like Nissan, Toyota and Hyundai affected by disruptions in component production.” One fact is beyond doubt: Covid-19 has laid bare the vulnerabilities of the world’s supply chains.

A decades-long focus on global sourcing and supply chain optimisation to minimise costs, reduce inventories, and boost asset utilisation has enabled companies to deliver more products to customers at the lowest price with higher profits. Unfortunately, this same globalisation and optimisation means that a disruption at one supplier can be detrimental to operations for a company located half a world away.

Is diversification the answer?
“Even though these are one-off events, there is a definite need for companies to build in greater resilience to mitigate their effects.” The increasingly turbulent geopolitical environment of recent years has already prompted many companies to reassess their sources of inputs. “Even before the coronavirus pandemic, we saw some supply chain diversification as a result of the US-China trade war, particularly in manufacturing and textiles.” “While those corporates that have already diversified their supply chain away from mainland China are probably in a much better situation, the trade wars did not happen overnight,” says Sugirin. “Corporates affected have adjusted to the situation and instead of having just one larger supplier, they have sought out maybe four or five in different countries in order to have a plan B and a plan C. Compare this to when the coronavirus hit. It happened so quickly that nobody was prepared, and nobody had that plan B or plan C.”

Seeking new efficiencies
For many companies, therefore, mitigating risk by adding new suppliers is just part of the solution. To ensure business continuity during this current challenge, many have also begun to broaden their output. “As it stands, we are already starting to see some real innovation in supply chain agility. Several auto and electronics companies are quickly repurposing their production lines and logistics chains to produce masks and ventilators to address current shortages. Some smaller outfits are also starting to delve into 3D printing of masks. These emergency measures may well define the supply chain agility of the future.”

Meanwhile, others still are looking at ways to build in a buffer to shield themselves from the worst effects of unpredictable events such as Covid-19. “To minimise the impact, some corporates are focusing on becoming even more efficient,” says Sugirin. “We’re seeing a significant amplification of the move into digital, and there are a multitude of options available today.” He points to leveraging digital supply networks to gain real-time insights into where supply chains are strained, where there is an opportunity to strengthen them, and where there is an opportunity to obtain finance. “In the past, there was more focus around efficiency and potential weak points. But as we embark upon the data decade, events such as coronavirus bring into sharp focus the opportunity of using data as a means to manage risk and opportunities,” he says. This would also include ending physical or paper-based trade to ensure that a supply chain is fully digitised and all partners along the supply chain are digital as well.

While the disruption brought about by the Covid-19 outbreak is just the latest in a string of events affecting the current supply chain model, it is arguably the most disruptive. As more and more companies start to re-orient from cost competitiveness to risk competitiveness by diversifying their options and leveraging digital tools, the likelihood of building more resilient supply chains to future-proof global trade is strong.
From just in time to just in case: Covid-19 brings supply chain resilience to the fore
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