tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9695147.post3355527204990067169..comments2007-05-30T01:34:27.292+13:00Ronnie Horeshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05025464679362642331noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9695147.post-47518585651158987052007-05-30T01:34:00.000+13:002007-05-30T01:34:00.000+13:00Thanks Harald; I saw a wide range of estimates for the 'oil calories' embodied in food and chose the lowest (by a factor of 10), so of course you are right to be skeptical. Much depends on the boundaries we choose for the analysis: do we include the oil cost of mining the metal that goes into the manufacture of the tractor etc? However, I'm not sure about arguing this on the basis of the absence of a relationship between oil and food prices. My recollection of Economics lectures is that the sale price of something is completely independent of its cost of production - at least in the short run. Both agricultural and oil prices are a complete fiction anyway; largely set by government subsidies and regulation. Farming in the rich countries seems these days to be largely about making capital gains from land value appreciation. However, the broader point and the one you also make is that a handful of government bureaucrats today has no idea whether walking or driving, cars or planes, hybrids or SUVs, etc is better for the environment today; still less which will be better in the future. Which is why I would argue that we should subordinate our policy to outcomes: contract the job of finding out the efficiency or otherwise of all the options to an adaptive and motivated market. RegardsRonnie Horeshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05025464679362642331noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9695147.post-35311428795821298842007-05-29T19:51:00.000+13:002007-05-29T19:51:00.000+13:00Now as a genunine peak oil worryer, I don't want to belittle the importance of our dependence on oil, but I have to point out that these "oil calories" numbers are grossly inflated. They are artifacts of highly creative bookkeeping: yes, tractors use fuel, and transport uses fuel, but very little per unit of food. A simple investigation into how connected food prices are to oil prices should show the weakness of these arguments.<BR/><BR/>Unfortunately, I can't trust any study that says hybrid cars are more lifetime efficient than SUVs, or that trucks are more efficient than trains, or vice versa, because there is just too much wriggle room in how the environmental costs are accounted for.Harald Korneliussenhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02909854185625282505noreply@blogger.com