On Sat, 13 May 2000 07:42:20 -0700, Joel B. Gruver wrote:
>The critique starts with a list of 6 important ideas revealed by energy
>studies:
[snip]
>The bibliographic info for this critique is as follows:
>
>Hill, S.B. and J.A. Ramsay. 1977. Limitations of the energy approach in
>defining priorities in agriculture. In Lockeretz, W. (ed.) Energy in
>Agriculture.
Just a word of caution here. Stuart Hill is an entomologist (one of my
professors, and a friend). Jennifer Ramsey was a grad student at McGill
in the mid-70s. I don't honestly think their critique should carry a
whole lot of weight. Interesting insights, perhaps, but probably not
much more, especially given that the work is 25 years old.
Some rather more important energy work has also got lost in the
politicisation of agriculture ... the woeful inefficiency of using corn
to produce ethanol as a fuel. David Pimentel of Cornell (another
entomologist, BTW) pulled together numbers demonstrating that it takes
about 130,000 BTU of energy to grow corn, harvest it, and ferment it
into one gallon ethanol. Ethanol has 76,000 BTU of energy per gallon.
Oops.
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