Workshop on the Implications of Declining Net Energy for Complex Food/Energy/Water Systems

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Industrial agriculture is heavily dependent on affordable fossil fuels to power every step of the food supply chain - to move water, produce and apply critical inputs (fertilizer, pesticides), cultivate, harvest, process and distribute food and fiber from a diverse array of crops, and finally to power all the steps around preparing and consuming these materials and manageing the resultant waste streams. However, a transition from fossil fuels to other energy sources (e.g. biofuels, solar) may be needed to modify key drivers of climate change. This transition may have serious implications for net energy availability in food-energy-water (FEW) systems. Net energy is the energy that remains after the energy costs of procuring and processing or refining an energy resource are subtracted. There has been insufficient attention to the potentially enormous implications for society of a decline in the net energy available to power systems within the FEW nexus. Additionally, while there may be substitutes for energy-dense fossil fuels, substitutes for water do not exist. Since FEW economic development strategies hinge on water availability, a key focus of research ahead will need to be aimed at understanding how net energy decline may impact water needs in industrial agriculture, especially in the U.S. Effective measures to address these bottlenecks in and enhance sustainability of FEW systems will need to link larger social, political, and economic processes with net energy realities. There is great need to bring social, behavioral, and economic disciplines squarely into research on net energy implications for the FEW system. Linfield College will host a two and half day conference to examine net energy challenges facing FEW systems and the social, political, and economic dimensions of net energy in the context of FEW systems. Specifically, this workshop will discuss two key elements of the FEW nexus: 1) implications of trends in the net energy available to power food and water systems, and 2) societal challenges stemming from declining net energy working through food systems. This workshop will also identify gaps in current FEW system knowledge, particularly those that emerge from systemic and exogenous factors relating to declining net energy. Workshop participants will include scientists with net energy and complex systems expertise drawn from the social and physical sciences, including: economists, anthropologists, sociologists, political scientists, physicists, chemists, and engineers. This workshop will also include practitioners with applied FEW nexus experience from the US and other countries.