the research consultancy for energy technologies
…shortages. This is not a romantic portrayal of pre-industrial civilization, some simpler time “before fossil fuels”. It is a horror show of deficiencies, in lifespans, food, heat, mobility, freight, materials,…
…sometimes said that the modern agricultural system can be described as the conversion of fossil energy into food energy. Or numbers would suggest this statement is about 9% true! Implications…
…also explores the links between outright revolutions and food-energy price spikes, reviewing a dozen examples, from the French Revolution to the Iranian Revolution and Arab Spring. Food and energy prices…
…briquettes, wood pellets, charcoal. A reference for food energy units is given on page 14, converting from calories into kWh, for different food products, within the world’s 10GTpa food production….
…emissions that whether you are cooking on a gas or electric stove top. Another efficiency question-mark is the risk of over-cooking or burning food. Technically, in these cases, the heater…
Biochar is a miraculous material, improving soils, enhancing agricultural yields and avoiding 1.4kg of net CO2 emissions per kg of waste biomass (that would otherwise have decomposed). IRRs surpass 20%…
This model illustrates the economics for conservation agriculture, restoring soil carbon to improve agricultural yields, while also sequestering 5-30T of CO2 per acre per year. Agricultural economics are transformed from…
…food crops and energy crops, fixing 10-20 tons per acre per year of CO2. But only a portion of that dry biomass is directly usable, for example as corn (45%…
…Other applications, back in the traditional industrial landscape, use vacuum pumps. Ranging from the food manufacturing industry (one company website that we reviewed comprehensively lists how their technology is used…
…rationale for vertical greenhouses is to grow food closer to the consumer, which can save 0.6kg of trucking CO2 per kg of food. Eliminating freight is much simpler than decarbonizing…