Module B1 Study Book - the Graduate School of the Environment

with some coal in Europe, Asia, and North America). With the advent of oil
however, humanity started living off our planet’s ‘sunlight-reserves’. We had
discovered a massive energy “bank account”. A single day’s oil consumption
now represents a line of barrels long enough to encircle the earth.
We also discovered we could use oil for plastics and chemicals too, so it has
become indispensable to almost every aspect of Welsh life. It’s not just food,
it’s also drinking water, home heating, manufacturing, communications and
personal transport, and that’s just the start.
So, how on earth can we Britain begin to reduce our excessive and addictive
use of fossil fuels in order to converge with the majority world at some
global fair share? The path I am suggesting is one of ‘Powerdown plus
Renewables’.
Powerdown
We are energy obese; we use far more energy than is good for us. So much
so that we have to spend even more energy driving to special places where
special machines use yet more energy to give us the exercise to keep our
bodies working properly. Richard Heinberg’s original concept of ‘Powerdown’
is a sane response to humanity’s increasingly grave problems. Powerdown
is not the same as energy efficiency: it goes very much further. We drive
an oil powered machine to plough the land, and another to plant the seed.
We then use fertilisers and pesticides made with oil, and irrigate with water
pumped by oil. We harvest the crop with oil-powered tractors and process
it with fossil-fuelled electrical equipment. Finally it is packed in plastic and
driven further than you ever imagined. The bottom line is that we eat ten
calories of fossil fuel energy for every calorie of food we consume. Switching
to a locally sourced, mostly organic, less-processed, low-meat diet will not
only increase our general health and well being, it can massively reduce the
fossil fuel dependence of our eating habits.
The potential powerdown which could be achieved through a re-think of our
food alone is massive. For starters, we export some 102,000 tones of lamb to
the EU, whilst also importing 125,000 tonnes from the EU. Similar paradoxes
exist for most other products. Local food chains are not only more energy
efficient, they are considerably more reliable. But could we still feed ourselves
if oil became expensive and scarce? With a re-think, many people believe we
could. Firstly it would require a change of diet, but that’s something we need
to do in any case. Secondly supermarkets reject around 30% of vegetables
because they are the wrong shape, colour or size. Further waste occurs
when food is processed into ready meals. Finally, consumers bin about 30%
of what they buy. If we stopped this wastage then we could be far more selfreliant
in food and vastly reduce the oil needed to provide it.
Above the basic level needed to provide food, clothes and shelter, using
extra energy does not necessarily make us any happier. Since the 1970s the
UK’s GDP has doubled, but our perceived ‘satisfaction with life’ has hardly
changed. We’re suffering from Affluenza. This infectious disease is straining
Lecture: Energy futures 15