SFagan NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 Fossil Fuels You might not think about it, but our modern food production system is based on turning fossil fuels into food. A largely inefficient system, with about 10 units of fossil energy converting to about 1 unit of food energy, it’s unsustainable as the global population continues to rise. So, who is researching the innovations we need to become more energy efficient in our food system? How can we use less energy? How can we create more? In conjunction with Inside Energy, we’re taking a deep dive into the energy that goes into food and the methods producers are discovering to create energy from our food. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z7LO4eCLiQ NPR Digital Services RSS Generator 0.94 Feasting On Fuel Thu, 16 Sep 2021 08:02:50 +0000 https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org SFagan To make or not to make a homemade pie? That is a classic holiday dilemma. Do you take the easy way out and buy a fairly decent frozen pie, or do you risk making your own, resulting in a potentially burnt and lumpy version? While there is something special about that homemade option, every cook knows that it takes a lot of your own time and energy. Here in the U.S., we are increasingly relying on a different kind of energy to produce our food: fossil-fueled machines that bring us pre-made pie dough, bagged lettuce, and those chicken strips with perfect grill marks. But that convenience comes with a growing energy cost. Before we get into the meat of food processing, I wanted to find out how hard it really is to make your own apple pie. I drove down to Fort Collins, Colo., to visit with Chef Kathy Guler, owner of Foodies Culinary Academy . It is no surprise that she is strongly against the shortcut mentioned above. “You can buy a frozen pie and if you never made a pie you might not even https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/rising-energy-costs-convenience-kitchen-0 205 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Thu, 14 Jan 2016 06:00:00 +0000 The Rising Energy Costs Of Convenience In The Kitchen Grant Gerlock By some estimates, producing our food consumes about a fifth of the nation’s energy supply . It takes a lot of diesel to move tractors and semis around the farm, and electricity to pump water and dry grain. But some farmers are trying to cut back on the coal and gas they use and make our food system more energy efficient. When winter comes to Greg Brummond’s farm in northeast Nebraska, he spends his days in the machine shed fixing all the things that broke through the year. The shed is huge. There’s room for a semi, sprayer, combine, saws, grinders, drills and even a kitchen. It uses the most power on the farm. And on Brummond’s farm that includes solar power. Down the hill is an old, red and white shed that was going unused, until Brummond installed a brand-new 10-kilowatt solar array on top. The system now delivers about half of the farm’s electricity. “We’ve got 36 panels down there,” Brummond said pointing to the rows of black panels on the shed’s white steel roof. “It just made https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/growing-renewable-energy-resources-farm-less-fossil-fuels 204 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Mon, 11 Jan 2016 06:00:00 +0000 Growing Renewable Energy Resources To Farm With Less Fossil Fuels SFagan Every day, a facility on the outskirts of Grand Junction, Colorado, takes in 8 million gallons of what people have flushed down their toilets and washed down their sinks. The water coming out the other end of the Persigo Wastewater Treatment Plant is cleaner than the Colorado River it flows into. The organic solids strained from that water are now serving a new purpose — producing fuel for city vehicles. The solids at Persigo have been processed for decades so they can be safely dumped at a landfill. That processing produces methane, which the plant used to just burn off into the air. Yet, using more infrastructure to further refine that methane, they now end up with natural gas that’s chemically identical to what’s drilled from underground. Grand Junction has been replacing an aging fleet of garbage trucks and city buses with compressed natural gas vehicles, fueled mostly by the human sourced gas from the treatment plant. The city’s wastewater services manager, Dan Tonello, says Grand https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/making-energy-waste-other-natural-gas 203 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Mon, 04 Jan 2016 06:00:00 +0000 Making Energy From Waste: The Other Natural Gas Abby Wendle The U.S. may be on the verge of a boom in new fertilizer plants, which could be good news for farmers, but not the environment. Today’s farmers can produce more from their land than ever before thanks, in part, to nitrogen fertilizer, a key ingredient that has never been more widely available. New technologies, especially hydraulic fracturing, “fracking,” have increased domestic production of natural gas, which is essential to making nitrogen fertilizer. The fossil fuel is used to both power the plants and as the main ingredient in the product, making nitrogen fertilizer just one more way we use fuel to grow our crops. “We’ve had extremely high fertilizer prices relative to history,” said David Asbridge, senior economist and founder of the industry advisory group, NPK Fertilizer Advisory Service (NPKFAS). “And the fertilizer producers have made a lot of money. Particularly the nitrogen guys because natural gas prices have dropped at the same time.” The fertilizer industry is taking the https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/more-fertilizer-plants-come-online-and-bring-their-baggage-co2 197 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Fri, 11 Dec 2015 06:00:00 +0000 More Fertilizer Plants Come Online And Bring Their Baggage: CO2 SFagan From apples to zucchini, from milk to cheese, from chicken to chorizo, our modern food production turns energy from fossil fuels into food. Some food products have a light environmental touch. But some of the foods we eat have a massive impact. How much do you know? As part of our Feasting On Fuel project, Inside Energy’s Jordan Wirfs-Brock has created this simple quiz to test your knowledge, or best guesses, on how much energy it takes to create basic food products. https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/quiz-how-much-energy-does-it-take-make-your-food 210 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Tue, 08 Dec 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Quiz: How Much Energy Does It Take To Make Your Food? Dan Boyce You might not think about it, but our modern food production system is based on turning fossil fuels into food. A largely inefficient system, with about 10 units of fossil energy converting to about 1 unit of food energy, it’s unsustainable as the global population continues to rise. Though our turkey dinner gets us sleepy, food is energy for our bodies. It’s the same energy that heats our homes, runs our cars, charges our phones. This Holiday season, we’re looking in to the energy we’re consuming in partnership with Inside Energy . Check out the video to learn more about how we’re Feasting on Fuel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5z7LO4eCLiQ https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/watch-how-were-feasting-fuel 251 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Thu, 03 Dec 2015 20:06:18 +0000 Watch: How We're Feasting On Fuel SFagan There are few places where the connection between energy and food is more obvious than at the Bright Agrotech warehouse in Laramie, Wyo. Most of the building is filled floor to ceiling with giant shelves of cardboard boxes and tubing — equipment Bright Agrotech sells to farmers — but in one corner of the warehouse, there’s a small farm: rows and rows of greens and herbs, growing in white vertical towers under dozens of bright LEDs. The hum of electricity is palpable. “We’re always thinking about energy, because it costs us money,” Bright Agrotech CEO Nate Storey explained. Conventional farmers also pay for energy — for fuel to run their tractors, electricity for irrigation and fertilizers made from natural gas. But the energy inputs are more quantifiable here, in this brightly lit warehouse: electricity comes in, food goes out. “Food is energy, it’s just converted into a different form. I mean when we eat a salad, we are consuming diesel and we’re consuming electricity and we’re https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org/post/fuel-it-s-what-s-dinner 195 as https://www.harvestpublicmedia.org Thu, 03 Dec 2015 06:00:00 +0000 Fuel: It’s What’s For Dinner