korrents

What Chris Smaje thinks about energy

@chris-smaje · 10 positions · 1 change of mind

Social scientist turned smallholder, who ran a market garden in Somerset for fifteen years and writes the Small Farm Future blog. Author of A Small Farm Future and Saying NO to a Farm-Free Future, the book-length reply to George Monbiot's Regenesis, and the leading English-language voice for agrarian localism against ecomodernist food technology.

Chris Smaje did not write this page.

We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.

7 dated positions, 2023 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Chris Smaje has said — not written or endorsed by them.

  1. Our reading"Food from thin air" is not from thin air: it runs on water, minerals, ammonia and industrial plant.

    Their wordsAnother is that it isn’t ‘food from thin air’ as is often claimed – as well as the high energy use, it’s food from a lot of tap water, minerals, ammonia and industrial infrastructure.

    ↗Saving the world from bad ideas: the continuing failure of food ecomodernismchrissmaje.com 1st of 7 in this piece

    infrastructure

    Interesting

  3. Our readingFactory-made bacterial protein cannot feed the world, because meeting humanity's protein needs that way would take more electricity than the planet generates from renewables.

    Their wordsTo meet the global population’s protein needs through factory-produced bacterial protein in 2024 would have used more than the total global electricity generated using renewable (hydro, photovoltaic and wind) energy

    ↗Saving the world from bad ideas: the continuing failure of food ecomodernismchrissmaje.com 2nd of 7 in this piece

    Interesting

  5. Our readingFarming is the one large sector still powered directly by free sunlight, and replacing it with factory food would spend the renewable electricity every other sector needs.

    Their wordsAgriculture is the only major sector that at present is significantly energised directly by zero cost and zero carbon sunlight.

    ↗Saving the world from bad ideas: the continuing failure of food ecomodernismchrissmaje.com 3rd of 7 in this piece

    Interesting

  7. Our readingA future of constrained energy will need more people working the land, and that is not the same as going back to the past.

    Their wordsbut I do think that in a future of probable energy constraint there will be a need for a more peopled agriculture, with populations spreading out to tap diffuse solar energy input.

    ↗Saving the world from bad ideas: the continuing failure of food ecomodernismchrissmaje.com 4th of 7 in this piece

    solar

    Interesting

  9. Our readingToday's level of city living depends on cheap fossil fuels and is unlikely to survive without them.

    Their wordsHowever, in our non-ideal biophysical reality, present levels of urbanism are unlikely to be sustainable without cheap fossil fuels, and the human cost of that could be horrific unless we address it urgently.

    ↗Saving the world from bad ideas: the continuing failure of food ecomodernismchrissmaje.com 5th of 7 in this piece

    Interesting

  11. Our readingEfficiency is the wrong measure of a food system; what matters is what it costs at a level of energy and materials that can be sustained.

    Their wordsa more relevant metric in the long term is the cost, not the efficiency, of food production methods at sustainable levels of energetic and material throughput.

    ↗Saving the world from bad ideas: the continuing failure of food ecomodernismchrissmaje.com 6th of 7 in this piece

    Interesting
  12. 3 years earlier

  13. Our readingFood is grown wherever land, labour, energy and capital are cheapest, which is why the world now depends on a few vulnerable breadbaskets.

    Their wordswherever in the world can be found the cheapest assemblage of land, labour, energy and capital to produce a given food commodity, that will be a preferential site of its production.

    ↗Food, land, work and rent: the real story of Vallis Vegchrissmaje.com 4th of 4 in this piece

    Interesting