Commercial energy

Traditional farms rely on labor, draught animals, and hand tools. The only commercial energy input in traditional farming is that required to produce hand... 

With modern production methods 1500 kilograms of petroleum per hectare are needed for rice and 700 kilograms for maize. However, with this commercial energy use, yields of 5.8 metric tons per hectare have been obtained for rice and 5 metric tons per hectare for maize—about five times those obtained with traditional methods. Thus, 20 to 25 people can be fed on an all-grain diet from a single hectare compared with 4 to 6 people by traditional methods. 

Irrigation with mechanically powered pumps substantially increases commercial energy requirements but also increases yields. (Corbis-Eettmann)... 

During the late 1990s annual consumption rates of commercial energy ranged from less than 25 kgoe (or... 

Indochina, and most of rural India—consumed a mere 2.5 percent of all commercial energy. The poorest people in the poorest countries, including mostly subsistence peasants bnt also millions of destitute people in large cities, do not directly consnmc any commercial fuels or electricity at all ... 

Nearly twice as much commercial energy is used for processing than for production of food. About 4.8% of the total U. S. energy consumption is used for processing crops and animals into food (1976), as compared to 2.9% for production of that food (Table II). 

Early in the century the amount of energy output in the form of food was about equal to the commercial energy input to the crop and livestock. That was before electricity, natural gas, and petroleum products were available to the farm. Now at least 10 kcal of commercial energy is used for each kcal of food energy produced. This change has occurred as a result of mechanization, irrigation, and consumer demand for low fat foods and for precooked and prepared foods. 

Proposed legislation in 1988 called for a 50% reduction in C02 in the United States early in the next century. Our residential and commercial energy use is about 35% of the total energy used. Industrial energy use is about 38% and transportation is about 27%. 

The methods were applied to determine caffeine in commercial energy drinks and the results obtained are compared. It was found that these methods don t reqitire expensive solvents and can confidently be used for rapid, precise and sensitive qirantitation of caffeine in energy drinks, especially for routine quality control analyses. 

Let him [a Londoner] go to one of the larger towns well outside his Home Counties, and he will have it forced in on him that he has no municipal buildings costing well-nigh a million, that he has no ship-canals, that his atmosphere has not half the corrosive properties that it should have to betoken the last word of wealth, of progress, and of commercial energy. 

---