permaculture

[jeff <jko@bsn1.net>]

On Friday 14 May 2004 10:37 am, dwoodard@becon.org wrote:
> Howard Odum's "emergy" concept said that the solar cost of oil is the
> amount of solar energy that went into growing the organisms nned to
> produce the oil that came down to us. He assumes that the energy needed to
> produce say solar cells comes from oil.

I don't understand what Odum was trying to accomplish.  Wouldn't
a more useful approach try to forcast solar cell manufacturing energy
in term of producing solar cells.  If the energy from one cell can be used
to manufacture 10 cells then that would be a useful measure.  We could
then factor in human energy used in the manufacture as a cost factor.

Anyway, thanks for adding some insight on this issue.  In the future
this will become a major topic and may be the single most persuasive
incentive for people to look at Permacultlure.  I don't know how many
years of oil are left but it is clear that the fight for oil has begun.
Those locked into the oil economy will suffer and cultural change could
be a little violent.  It is difficult to say what will happen.

The last issue of HomePower had a great debate on the hydrogen
economy and both sides agreed on one thing,   the current administration
here in America doesn't have a clue.

Getting back to Permaculture, if we view grass as a solar collector
and the useful engine it runs an animal (horse, human, etc.)  We 
might be able to describe most of Permaculture in terms of energy.
I've been thinking about this for a few years and find the change
of perspective interesting.

jeff (Is the universe just a big bang of energy)