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livingontheland - Re: [Livingontheland] Efficiency

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Subject: Healthy soil and sustainable growing

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  • From: <activism98201@verizon.net>
  • To: 'Healthy soil and sustainable growing' <livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org>, ryalbinger@earthlink.net
  • Subject: Re: [Livingontheland] Efficiency
  • Date: Mon, 24 Dec 2007 12:12:58 -0600 (CST)

Efficiency is relative; plus, it's mostly a red herring.

The current mess of a system is ALL about transportation. It's how the
rulers control us: they skim off all the transactions occurring from/through
transportation (exchange); the more of it going on, the more they can skim
(think about the Banksters and their volume of transactions that they get in
the middle of).

Before anyone thinks about efficiency it's best to understand these things:

1) Does it scale?
2) Is there anything in nature that is similar? (if not, then it's highly
likely that it really can't work.scale);
3) Jevons Paradox states that the more efficient we become doing something
the more that we will do it, meaning that total/overall conservation is
likely to be ignored (we're far more efficient about extracting oil out of
the ground, but we're using more and more of it as a result).

The problem isn't that we need MORE transportation or more "efficient"
transportation, but that we need LESS transportation.


-Mark Nagel
Everett, WA

=====================
From: Phil Bunch <pbunch@cox.net>

IMHO this is one heck of a good topic. Perhaps we could explore it a bit.
BTW I'm all for looking at externalized costs.

-----Original Message-----
From: livingontheland-bounces@lists.ibiblio.org

A quick look at fuel effcientcy here:

30 miles at 15 miles per gallon hauling 1500 pounds of manure = 2.66
gallons of fuel per ton of mannure

30 miles at 6 miles per gallon hauling 25 ton of manure = 0.2 gallons of
fuel per ton of manure

The large confinement operation can haul organic material at 10x effcientcy
or another way said, can grow 10 times the crop from the manure for the
same input in fuel hauling. OR even if the large confinement grows
food/feed at 1/2 the effciencty of the smaller grower, the confinement guy
is still producing crop at 5 times the fuel effcientcy of the smaller
farmer.

Just because there is less gallons used, in general, doesn't mean it is
effecient. We need to be cognizant of the means to the end result in this
energy budget.

On a another note, how many chickens are needed to supply yearly nutrient
needs on 1000 square feet of garden space?

Ryan


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