Let me start with the following principle: “Energy is the only universal currency: one of its many forms must be transformed in order to do anything..” Economies are nothing more than intricate systems created to make those transformations, and all economically significant energy conversions have (often highly undesirable) environmental impacts. Consequently, as far as the biosphere is concerned, the best anthropogenic energy conversions are those that never occur: no emissions of gases (whether greenhouse or acidifying), no generation of solid or liquid waste, no destruction of ecosystems . The best way to do this has been to convert energy more efficiently – without widespread adoption (whether in large diesel and jet engines, combined cycle gas turbines, light emitting diodes, steel smelting or ammonia synthesis). ) we would need to convert a significantly greater amount of primary energy, with all the environmental impacts that this entails.
On the contrary, what then could be more wasteful, more undesirable and more irrational than denying a large part of these conversion gains by wasting them? Yet precisely this continues to happen (and to unassailably high degrees) with all end uses of energy. Buildings consume around a fifth of all the world’s energybut due to inadequate wall and ceiling insulation, single-pane windows and poor ventilation, they waste at least one-fifth to one-third, compared to well-designed interior spaces. A typical SUV is now twice as large as a typical pre-SUV vehicle and requires at least a third more energy to perform the same task.
The most offensive of these wasteful practices is our food production. The modern food system (from the energies used in the cultivation of new varieties, the synthesis of fertilizers and other agrochemicals and the manufacture of agricultural machinery to the energy used in harvesting, transportation, processing, storage, retail minor and the kitchen) claims about 20 percent of the world’s primary fuels and electricity.—and we waste as much as 40 percent of all foods produced. Some food waste is unavoidable. However, current food waste is more than indefensible. It is, in many ways, criminal.
Fighting it is difficult for many reasons. First, there are many ways to waste food: from losses in the field to spoilage in storage, from perishable seasonal surpluses to “perfect” store displays, from excessive portions when eating out to food spoilage. homemade.
Second, food now travels very far before reaching consumers: the average distance that a typical food travels is 1,500 to 2,500 miles before being purchased.
Third, still too cheap in relation to other expenses. Despite recent increases in food prices, families now spend only about 11 percent of their disposable income on food (in 1960 it was about 20 percent). Spending on food away from home (typically more wasteful than eating at home) now accounts for more than half of that total. And finally, as consumers, we have an excessive variety of food options at our disposal: just think that the average American supermarket now sells more than 30,000 food products.
Our society is apparently quite happy to waste 40 percent of the nearly 20 percent of all the energy it spends on food. Unfortunately, in 2025 this shocking level of waste will not receive more attention. In fact, the situation will only get worse. As long as we continue to invest billions in the search for energy “solutions”—ranging from new nuclear reactors (even fusion!) to green hydrogen, all with their own environmental burdens—in 2025, we will still not address the enormous waste of energy, foods whose production required both fuel and electricity.