There are certain basics which we need to stay alive. For any animal, food and water top that list, since survival is impossible without them, but sufficient warmth and shelter come a close second. The needs of hunter/gatherer communities are much the same as for groups of animals with similar diets, although the use of fire increases the range of foods consumed.
The emergence of farming allowed larger settlements to develop, although food security was by no means guaranteed. Even today, with an enormous variety of food available to the great majority of the population of the developed world for the first time in history, around one billion people – principally in South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa – are chronically undernourished.
Should we conclude, therefore, that food security is the biggest issue facing the world today? For the remaining bands of hunter/gatherers, it is certainly the key focus of their existence. But the great majority of those who go to bed hungry do not rely on game animals or wild plants; they are either subsistence farmers or the urban poor. In the first case, they are dependent on the success of their own harvests and do not have the money to buy additional food (nor, in many cases, the opportunity). For the urban poor, the problem is purely and simply a lack of money.
So, although food remains at the apex of the pyramid of needs, what we should really be considering is what is needed to either grow more food or to become prosperous enough to be able to afford to buy it. And the answer is: energy. Food is itself energy for the human body. For those of us lucky enough to live in the industrialised world (and for the minority of kleptocrats in poor countries) the enjoyment of food is one of the pleasures of life, with entire industries growing up to supply our needs (food manufacturers, retailers, restaurants and celebrity chefs, for example). But, ultimately, we eat to stay alive and healthy and be able to work to grow more food or earn money to buy it.
Subsistence farmers have only their own muscle power and that of any animals they may own to till their fields, plant, tend, weed and harvest their crops. This is a major constraint on both the area of land they can manage and the harvest they can expect from it. Yield is further limited by the availability of key nutrients: particularly nitrogen, but also potassium and phosphorus. So it was also in Europe until the industrial era.
Then the availability of steam power began an extended process of replacing the horse or ox (themselves offering a considerable advantage over puny humans) by the tractor. The invention of the Haber-Bosch process and its first commercial-scale use 100 years ago made synthetic nitrogen fertilizers widely available and greatly increased the yield potential of existing land.
Nowadays, a relative handful of people grow much more food than produced from the same area at a time when the majority of people worked on the land. Rapid urbanisation in developing countries will mean that, before too long, agriculture will be a minor part of the economy of nearly every country, rather than being one of the largest sectors as at present for much of sub-Saharan Africa and South and South East Asia. But this seemingly unstoppable process of development can only continue if there is a reliable and affordable supply of energy to replace muscle power.
This is why, despite its engagement with the travelling circus that is the ongoing round of climate change negotiations, China will not be stopping building new power stations anytime soon. As some will point out, the country is installing lots of wind farms and solar panels but, in a country with such enormous energy needs, these pale into virtual insignificance compared to the coal-fired and nuclear capacity being installed.
According to a recently-posted web article (ChinaFAQs: Renewable Energy in China – An Overview), the country gets about 8% of total primary energy from non-fossil sources. However, much of this is hydroelectricity: it has nearly 230GW of installed capacity (the largest of any country), compared to 75GW of wind and just 7GW of solar PV. China may be the world’s largest producer of PV cells (many of which are exported) and plans many more wind farms, but this does not represent a shift away from fossil fuels.
An article in the Guardian from late last year tells the story: More than 1,000 new coal plants planned worldwide, figures show. The World Resources Institute found that 1,200 coal stations were being planned, about two-thirds of them in China and India. Some coal-fired plants in Beijing are being replaced by gas-fired ones, in a bid to reduce the capital’s notorious air pollution problem, but it seems clear that China and India are set for coal-fired growth for the next few decades.
China’s main comparative advantage is in low-cost manufacturing and this will not be compromised by raising energy prices unnecessarily. India, although with a less dynamic economy than its northern neighbour, can really only boost growth by exploiting similar labour cost advantages. And only by growing the economy will it be able to reduce the shockingly high level of undernourishment across the country.
Cheap and secure energy is the key to economic growth and productive farming. It is also, ultimately, the answer to the growing problem of fresh water scarcity. Water per se is not a limiting resource, but it is often either in the wrong place or too saline to use. A secure and expandable energy supply enables reverse osmosis to purify seawater, as well as powering more intelligent irrigation systems.
Global warming may or may not cause problems later this century, but a prosperous, well-fed population will be in a much better position to deal with this than a world where a billion people remain malnourished. Energy security is today’s imperative.
Martin Livermore
The Scientific Alliance
St John’s Innovation Centre
Cowley Road
Cambridge CB4 0WS
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