Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
Analyses of policies related to fossil fuel usage usually focus on the negative impacts from that usage, while generally ignoring the positive aspects, such as their contribution to global food production and, through that, the alleviation of hunger which, it should be noted, is the first step to maintaining a healthy and productive population. Fossil fuels, however, are critical for food production worldwide. They contribute to food production via a number of pathways:
-
They serve as raw materials for the production of fertilizers and pesticides, without which yields would be substantially lower.
-
They provide most of the energy needed to move agricultural inputs (including water) and agricultural outputs to and from farms, markets and consumers.
-
Fossil fuels also provide the energy for running farm machinery.
-
They have helped increase atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, which increases the rate of photosynthesis and water use efficiency in crops (and other vegetation).
-
Much of the decrease in post-harvest losses, from farm to eventual consumption, also depends on fossil fuel powered technologies (e.g., refrigeration, storage in plastic products, and more rapid delivery systems).
Here I will develop a lower bound estimate of the contribution of fossil fuels to global food production. Specifically, I will address nitrogen fertilizers and pesticides, that is, only the first of the five pathways identified above by which fossil fuels enhance food supplies. Consequently, considering only this pathway would understate the contribution of fossil fuels to global food production.
Also since fossil fuels help increase agricultural yields, that limits the amount of habitat converted to cropland. Notably, such conversion is generally regarded to be the greatest threat to ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide (Wilcove et al., 1998; Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Therefore higher yields imply higher habitat conservation (Goklany 1998). Here, I will also provide a lower bound estimate the amount of land that has been “saved” from being converted to cropland.
Contribution of Nitrogen Fertilizers to Global Food Production:
Nitrogen, the fourth most abundant element in the human body, is critical for life on earth. It is an essential component of amino acids, proteins, RNA and DNA. Without it, plants would not grow and there would be no food.
It is also the most abundant gas in the atmosphere. However, plants are generally unable to directly use the nitrogen in the air for their growth. For that, nitrogen has to be “fixed” in the soil (or other growth medium) via either natural processes (e.g., through the action of various soil or aquatic bacteria) or synthetic processes. Generally, natural processes are unable to fix nitrogen in the amounts needed to feed humanity. This is why synthetic processes have to be used to fix nitrogen in the form of fertilizers which can then be used to grow crops.
Synthetic fixation of nitrogen is accomplished via the Haber-Bosch process. [Vaclav Smil, writing in Nature, called the Haber-Bosch process the most important invention of the twentieth century (firewalled). I agree. Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch—both Nobel Prizewinners before the Nobel Prize was devalued by the political shenanigans of the Norwegian committee awarding the Nobel Peace Prize—received Nobel Prizes in Chemistry (I believe) in 1918 and 1931, respectively.]
In this process, invented in 1908, hydrogen is first produced from natural gas, and then reacted with nitrogen from the air under very high temperature and pressure in the presence of a catalyst (generally iron). Because the hydrogen is derived from natural gas, and the need for high temperatures and pressures, the entire process is very energy-intensive. According to one estimate, 1% of world’s energy is used for this process.]
Erisman et al. (2008) estimate that in the 100 years since the invention of the Haber-Bosch process, that even as the global population has increased, the percentage of global food production dependent on nitrogen from the Haber-Bosch process has grown. By 2008, they estimate, it was responsible for 48 percent of global food production (see Figure 1). Thus, as they note, “the lives of around half of humanity are made possible by Haber–Bosch nitrogen.” Their estimate, which is generally consistent with earlier estimates (e.g., Smil 1999, Stewart et al. 2005), assumes that in the absence of the Haber-Bosch process, other substitute technologies would have boosted productivity by 20% between 1950 and 2000.
Figure : The percentage of the world’s population estimated to be fed through the Haber-Bosch process, 1908 to 2008 (indicated by the short dashed line, right axis). Trends in human population and nitrogen use throughout the twentieth century are also shown. The total world population is shown by the solid gray line (left axis). The estimate of the number of people that could be sustained without nitrogen from the Haber–Bosch process is shown by the long brown dashed line. The average fertilizer use per hectare of agricultural land (blue symbols) and per capita meat production (green symbols) is also shown. Source: Erisman et al. (2008).
Figure 1 shows that in the absence of the Haber-Bosch process, the world would have had enough food to feed only 3.5 billion people (out of a world population of 6.7 billion) in 2008. It would be even fewer if there were no fossil fuels.
This is because regardless of which substitute technologies are used they would more likely than not rely on energy to one degree or another: No substance can be extracted, moved, processed and distributed without an investment of energy. And in today’s world, energy is synonymous with fossil fuels for practical purposes. Currently, 81% of the world’s energy consumption is derived from fossil fuels (and 6% from nuclear). Consequently, the 48% estimate derived by Erisman et al. (2008) as the contribution of the Haber-Bosch process to world food production is a lower-bound estimate.
Contribution of Pesticides to Global Food Production
Oerke (2006), used data from 19 regions around the world for 2001–03 to estimate losses in five major food crops from the full gamut of pests: pathogens (fungi, chromista, bacteria), viruses, animal pests, and weeds. He estimates that in the absence of pesticides, 50–77 percent of the world’s wheat, rice, corn, potatoes and soybean crop would be lost to pests. Fortunately, pesticides have reduced these losses to 26–40 percent. But most pesticides are made from feedstock derived from petroleum, another fossil fuel.
If one assumes that the mid-point of the above ranges for actual and potential losses due to pests applies to global food production, then in the absence of any pesticides, yields would be 46% lower. However, one ought to expect that in the absence of fossil fuels, substitute pest control methods would be employed. In the following, I will assume that in the absence of fossil fuels, actual yields would be 10% lower, although that might be an overestimat
e. But it will serve the purpose of developing a lower-bound estimate of the contribution of fossil fuels to food production.
A Lower-Bound Estimate of the Contribution of Fossil Fuels to Global Food Production
Combining the lower bound estimates of the contribution of fossil fuels to food production via nitrogenous fertilizer and pesticides indicates that because of fossil fuels, food production increased by at least 114% in 2008. That is, in their absence, food production would have been at least 53% lower.
A Lower-Bound Estimate of the Contribution of Fossil Fuels to Habitat Conservation
The corollary to the above estimate is that, in the absence of fossil fuels, the world would have needed at least 114% more cropland in 2008 to produce the same amount of food as it actually produced with the help of fossil fuels. But, as noted, conversion of habitat to cropland is probably the primary threat to ecosystems and biodiversity worldwide.
The above estimate assumes that the new cropland is just as productive on average as current cropland. But this is doubtful, since the best cropland is likely to already be in use currently. This reinforces the fact that the 114% is a lower bound estimate.
Since today there are 1.53 billion hectares of cropland worldwide (FAOSTAT), we would need an additional 1.75 billion hectares to meet the present level of food demand. To put this number in context, in 2006, the World Resources Institute estimates that there were a total of 1.41 billion hectares set aside for full or partial protection of biodiversity. This includes areas set aside for strict protection to areas set aside for sustainable use of resources.
So it seems fossil fuels have preserved more land from being converted to human use than all the other preservation effort undertaken to date (despite Prince Charles and Richard Attenborough’s best efforts).
Summary
Just the contribution of fossil fuels to global food production would outweigh whatever damage that has been attributed to fossil fuels, whether it is from real pollutants (e.g., particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, etc.) or from hypothesized bogey-molecules such as carbon dioxide. That they have, moreover, also “saved” more habitat from conversion to agriculture is a bonus beyond compare.
So the war with fossil fuels would seem to be counterproductive.
References:
Erisman, J.W., Sutton, M.A., Galloway, J., Klimont, Z, and Winiwarte, W. 2008. How a century of ammonia synthesis changed the world. Nature Geoscience 1: 636–639.
Fogel, R.W. 1995. The Contribution of Improved Nutrition to the Decline of Mortality Rates in Europe and America. In: Simon, J.L. Ed. The State of Humanity. Cambridge, MA, Blackwell, 61–71.
Goklany, I.M. 1998. Saving Habitat and Conserving Biodiversity on a Crowded Planet. BioScience 48: 941-953.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [MEA]. 2005. Synthesis Report. Washington, DC, Island Press.
Oerke, E.-C. 2006. Centenary Review: Crop Losses to Pests. Journal of Agricultural Science 144: 31–43.
Smil, V. 1999. Detonator of the population explosion. Nature 400: 415.
Stewart, W.M., Dibb, D.W., Johnston, A.E., and Smyth, T.J. 2005. The Contribution of Commercial Fertilizer Nutrients to Food Production. Agronomy Journal 97: 1–6.
Wilcove, D.S., Rothstein, D., Dubow, J., Phillips, A. and Losos, E. 1998. Quantifying threats to imperiled species in the United States. BioScience 48: 607–615.
A. Scott says:
December 12, 2011 at 1:15 am
The amount [of fossil fuel] though IS finite, and with as important as this essay shows fossil fuels are we have to rationally pursue real alternative energy sources and look at realistic conservation measures to prolong depletion of the finite supply.
Yes, but there’s a lot of “finite” to go before we get anywhere “close” to the infinite, especially as concerns energy and the human mind. Therefore, I resist any argument moving backward toward Totalitarianism, say, in the interests of “saving” or “correctly redistributing” resources. Unless, of course, it is me who becomes Ruler of The World, “before it’s too late!”
Dave Springer 12/12 at 6:15a.m……WOW!!! Just WOW!!!! Many thanks.
RE: John West: (December 12, 2011 at 6:38 am)
“The Earth is not our only resource.
“At some point in the future we could be mining hydrocarbons from Titan’s methane/ethane lakes:”
I tend to discount outer space as a source of energy and other resources because of the energy that must be expended just getting out there. Supposedly, there is enough thorium on the surface of the Earth to supply all our current needs far beyond the expected life of the sun.
As I understand it, there remain nontrivial technical issues to be resolved in order to extract thorium energy, but work on these problems was stopped 40 years ago, because they already had a working alternative solid-state nuclear technology that was good enough for the time. The promises that liquid-state thorium/uranium reactors might be almost 100 times more efficient and consume most of their dangerous long-lived transuranic wastes were beside the point.
BTW, I understand there is a move afoot to gather signatures for an initiative in the state of California that would cause the closure of all nuclear power plants there. Especially after Fukushima, I think a vote on this issue might be expected to go along the same lines as the vote on the California Clean Air Act.
Dave Springer says:
December 12, 2011 at 6:15 am
“This technology is real, proven in concept by nature herself, and imminent. Synthetic biology is advancing at breakneck speed reminiscent of the rapid advances in semi-conductor technology.”
See my post at … ah, other thread, here. Calculate for me the surface area needed to make, say, a 70% dent in our energy demands as of today. Then, calculate the amount of material needed to construct the infrastructure for your cultures. If you do it right, you will find figures on the order of 100’s of years of present production.
These bugs are not magical. They can only convert as much energy as they get from the incident sunlight. And, that sunlight has to be collected over a prohibitive area. The energy density is poor.
Please do not respond until you have done the calculations and can show your work. I am increasingly weary of proof by assertion such as the warmists tend to use, and will almost certainly respond intemperately to it.
Indur, an interesting article and one much needed. Another thing that can be added to the benefit of “fossil” fuels is the economic welfare derived from the production of Inexpensive energy. As one who teaches environmental science, I constantly tell my students that it is “cheep” energy, which fossil fuels have provided, that is necessary for economic prosperity, and it is this prosperity that has allowed the Highly Developed Countries to solve environmental problems such as pollution and production of sufficient food. I know from personal experience in Africa and India that the lack of economic resources results in high levels of environmental damage. If you are simply struggling to get enough food to eat, you do not have anything left over for much else.
Inexpensive energy is also the answer to controlling population growth. The correlation between economic prosperity and reduced birth rates is obvious. If the economies of the Least Developed Countries would improve their birth rates would drop without us having to do anything like what the Chinese and Malthusians have done or would do, given the opportunity.
I believe the answer to the environmental problems, of which AGW is NOT one, is to assist the LDCs in deleveloping inexpensive energy, not in a massive transfer of wealth to line the pockets of the corrupt politicians.
Tom Curtis;
Having no reason to dispute Indur Goklany’s figures, figures, I won’t.
I will, however, point out that this makes fossil fuels a critical resource in the near term for the well being of the human race.>>>
So, having been showen that reducing our dependance on fossil fuels is a death sentence for billions, you’re advocating that we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels to extend the life of these critical resources. So you seriously believe that the REASON for reducing dependence on fossil fuels changes the number of people killed by doing so?
BTW – We’ve been running out of fossil fuels within the next ten years for about 40 years now, and somehow have more than we’ve ever had before. The war cry of the lunatic green misanthropists to starve billions to death has now gone full circle. From “we’re running out” to “we’re not running out but we’re going to cause spontaneous planetary combustion” to “we’re running out”. Why is it that the problem is a lie, so switch to a different lie, and when that gets expeosed as a lie, switch to the first lie? And why is that the solution to every problem is to liquidate hald the human population?
The only real problem we have is that human beings (at least some percentage of them) seem to be born with an instinctive belief that disaster looms over every horizon, and can only be fought by sacrificing ourselves en masse. Some other percentage of the population instinctively finds new solutions to actual problems, which the misanthropists gladly avail themselves of while screaming to throw more virgins into volcanoes.
The arguments for “saving resources” for generations 1000 years down the road is not our responsibility. Planning for things more than 30 years down the road is impractical and ill advised. Given our technological evolution only for the last 30 years, we do not have a clue what resources our grandchildren will have access to. We currently recover only a tiny percentage of the fossil fuels in the ground, and new technology is being found to enhance this as we speak.
Population will necessarily reach a sustainable equilibrium one day. It will more than likely will be a very gradual and natural transition. If and when the technologies which allow us to insulate ourselves from environmental threats are globally available, population will likely decrease. All of this can happen without unnatural dictates from a world governing body. Nature works if we let it.
RE: Dave Springer: (December 12, 2011 at 6:15 am)
“Well then we’re screwed because there just aren’t any materials that can simultaneously withstand the corrosion from molten salts and embrittlement by high neutron flux long enough to make a thorium reactor reach economic break-even. You have a constant costly maintenance program of shutting down for inspections and replacement of pumps and plumbing. This same need is what makes conventional nuclear plants twice as expensive as natural gas at providing steam for turbines. And in conventional nuclear plants it’s only embrittlement that’s the problem.
All I can say is that there are seemingly intelligent people, such as Dr. David LeBlanc, who do not see this as a problem. One would think that such problems would have been apparent in the early Oak Ridge demonstration reactor. As the liquid fluoride salt operates at low ambient pressure, it does not have the explosive problem of high-pressure, super-heated water used in conventional reactors. Both China and India appear to be working on thorium energy extraction. At this stage, the energy appears to be there, and as far as I know, no one has ever really proved that it cannot be extracted economically.
As for bio-solar power, I have seen one estimate that PV solar panels only collect, on average, about 20 watts per square meter. I do not know if plants are more efficient than this. That implies huge areas of the earth devoted to solar energy collection to fill our current needs. I am not sure that bio-solar power (in effect: advanced agriculture) can really support a population much greater than simple agriculture did in 1880.
In much the same way the book “The Forgotten Man” by Amity Shales uncovers the unseen parts of the picture of the Depression this sort of article illuminates the one sided thinking that infects the environmental movement …
Try to grow your own food and see how far you get without fossil fuels. You may be able to sustain yourself but try and feed 100 other families and you will soon see the folly. Of course if you try long enough you won’t have to feed the 100 other families, you may be down to 50.
A rather ordinary observation (fossil fuels are used to make nitrogen fertilizer) leads to the spectacular conclusion (and make possible the very existence of half the people on the planet at this time)! Not to mention those fossil fuels also provide the CO2 fertilizer in the atmosphere which indiscriminately enhances the growth of every plant on earth. How valuable are fossil fuels and how foolish is the administration’s war on them. I love that sort of thing. Thanks.
Philip Bradley: The only viable ‘renewable’ means of generating a large proportion of the energy we consume is hydro-electricity.
Why do you say that? In India and North Africa there is more energy available from sunlight than from falling water. I think the same is true in Texas and Western China.
Dave Springer: No other alternative energy scenario is both practical and acheivable with current technology. Anyone who believes otherwise either hasn’t done their homework or has some vested short-term interest in one of the impractical alternatives.
Contemporary concentrated PV panels are about 40% efficient, and can operate year-round by maintaining the proper angle to the sun (obviously shorter days in the winter, but not the complete shut-down that plants do.) The electricity can power catalysts that make syngas and butanol. Per acre of area, this probably can produce more fuel than biofuels. But the decisions in the market won’t depend on current technology, they will depend on which technologies develop the most and most rapidly reduce the total costs of production.
Sunlight acting directly on catalysts can produce H2 or (different catalysts) syngas. Again, both technologies are under development, and their usefulness will depend on how rapidly total costs can be reduced as the processes are upscaled.
Electricity from wind can likewise be used with catalysts and feedstocks to make fuel. The principle feedstocks are CO2 and H2O, same as with electricity from solar. And wind turbines, unlike plants, can operate at night and in winter.
There is no good reason to focus on biofuels to the exclusion of other renewable energy sources, or to focus on current technology.
All kinds of energy developments can be followed here:http://www.energy-daily.com/
The scale of the work is vast, and hard to summarize briefly.
Here is just one item about wind power in Brazil: http://www.winddaily.com/reports/Brazils_wind_power_growth_draws_investors_999.html
Septic Matthew says:
December 12, 2011 at 1:20 pm
“The scale of the work is vast, and hard to summarize briefly.”
Actually, it’s pretty easy. There is no possible way to derive more energy from these things than is transferred by sunlight striking the total energy transforming surface. The surface area required to make a sizable dent in our energy appetite is so vast that even the supporting structure for the apparatus alone is beyond our ability to construct in at least half a century, more likely several. And, don’t even start thinking about the environmental impact of such a vast structure, even unto the climate changing properties of absorbing all that heat at ground level.
Practical means of energy production require compact, energy dense technology. There are only two sources available which meet the requirements: fossil fuels and nuclear power. All else is a distraction.
Here’s an exercise for those interested: at current rate of worldwide production of aluminum of 40 million tons per annum, calculate how many years it would take to cover a 100 X 100 mile area with a 1 inch sheet if every ounce of production were dedicated to the project. Those are the kinds of numbers we are dealing with.
Bart,
What you have shown is that renewable sources can not power everything now. Imagine the effort that would have been required for someone in 1911 to imagine the work required to manufacture hundreds of aircraft to carry millions of passengers across the oceans each year.
The energy return on energy invested for PV panels is greater than the energy returned on energy invested for tar sands. All that is needed now is for the prices to be reduced, and price reductions are ongoing.
I favor nuclear power, however — I don’t disagree with you on that. But right now a factory can output more than 1 GW of PV panel electrical generating capacity in one year. So it needs space — even China and India can make more electrical generating capacity from PV cells per year than they can nuclear. To insist on what can’t be accomplished in 20 – 100 years is foolish.
The tipping point, I think, will be when a PV panel fabrication plant is 100% powered by PV cells that it has manufactured.
Bart:
100 miles = ~528000 ft
so, 528000 x 528000 x 1/12 = 2.32×10^10 cubic ft
@ur momisugly ~172 lb/ ft^3 = ~4 x 10^12 lbs =~ 2×10^9 tons
2×10^9 tons / 40×10^6 tons/year =~ 50 years
(Why did I just do that?)
Spector says:
“I tend to discount outer space as a source of energy and other resources because of the energy that must be expended just getting out there. ”
You’re thinking in terms of the current situation, 1000 or 10000 years from now a sustantial portion of us may be already up there and going back and forth might be as easy as an elevator ride.
I agree that nuclear certainly works in various configurations, and I’m all for going down that path. I wish the US would have built more nuclear power plants in the 70’s and 80’s in response to the “energy crisis”.
Septic Matthew:
“What you have shown is that renewable sources can not power everything now. “
Or, at any time in the fairly long term using unreasonably, even insanely, optimistic estimates of the resources needed to bring to bear.
Nuclear power can do the job right now at a fraction of the effort and cost. There are opportunity costs involved here. The resources directed toward building an inefficient, ponderous network of passive electrical generating capacity over a stretch of several generations of descendants would be far more beneficial directed elsewhere.
And, don’t forget the environmental impact. Taking over that much real estate to generate our power would be ecologically and climatically devastating. We’re talking MAJOR disruption of migratory routes and UHI effect on a massive scale, to say the least.
“…1 GW of PV panel electrical generating capacity…”
Slash by half for night and day. Slash by half unless you intend to track the Sun over the day (and, up the resources and maintenance required considerably, as well as the real estate required to avoid shading). Slash by half again for cloudy days. Slash by half again for continuous cleaning away of dirt and detritus, and replacing wiring eaten by rodents and squirrels. And, on and on.
The devil is in the details. None of the rosy scenarios for wind power have panned out in Europe. This is the same. It just takes too much effort per erg of energy gained, and it isn’t worth it.
Well, that’s enough for my little rant today. I’m just so tired of this folderal. Quick buck artists have been promising renewable “free” energy all my life, and never delivered. Because, they cannot, and never will. When you’ve seen the same movie or play two or three times, and you know how it inevitably ends, you find it increasingly galling to sit through another performance, and less concerned with spoiling the plot for the newbies. The butler did it. In the library. With the rib roast. Let’s go home and do something productive.
Excellent!
As an independent check on the numbers, can be found in the USDA ‘s A History of American Agriculture 1776-1990
“Primitive” farming methods without factory-made agricultural machinery, Irrigation, Mixed chemical fertilizers sold commercially or Hybrid seed produced 100 bushels of wheat from 5 acres (1830)
This was before the first grain elevator or silos were used to preserve grain.
Today the US produces 100 bushels of wheat from 3 acres of land.
http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blfarm1.htm
Between better utilization of the farmland and better methods of transport and preservation, your numbers seem spot on.
Tom Curtis says:
December 11, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Having no reason to dispute Indur Goklany’s figures, figures, I won’t.
I will, however, point out that this makes fossil fuels a critical resource in the near term for the well being of the human race. Consuming all natural methane in the next 50 years for energy production, as we are on target to do is a waste of a critical resource in light of the fact that standing energy use can be supplied from renewable resources……
____________________________________________
As a chemist I certainly agree with that.
Burning such a useful substance as petroleum when we could be using nuclear instead is insanity.
charles nelson says:
December 11, 2011 at 11:59 pm
The truth is always difficult.
I agree wholeheartedly and a hundred percent with the analysis above, but would continue to respectfully point out that a HUGE porportion of the nitrates and nitrites intended to feed plants ends up in the watercourses where it does incalculable damage to the subtle creatures that live there.
Very often farmers over fertilize their crops and are actually, literally throwing good money down the drain……
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
A darn good reason to have grass filter strips between crop land and water courses. Also tree wind breaks and “green manure” clover or annual grass used in the fall to prevent erosion of bare fields and add organic mater in the spring.
Unfortunately the big Ag companies want to do away with grass filter strips and tree wind breaks and use “sterile bare earth” (rolls eyes) – http://farmwars.info/?p=1284