2.7 Energy Resources
2.7.1 Predictions
As mechanization spreads globally, open-field intensive agriculture increasingly relies heavily on fossil fuels to power farm machinery and for transportation of fertilizers as well as farm products, as well as to run the equipment for processing, packaging and storage. In 2010, the OECD International Energy Agency predicted that global energy consumption would grow by up to 50% by 2035; the FAO has also estimated that 30% of global energy consumption is devoted to food production and its supply chain (FAO 2011). Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with fossil fuels (approximately 14% in lifecycle analysis) added to those from fertilizer manufacturing (16%) and nitrous oxide from average soils (44%) (Camargo et al. 2013), all contribute substantially to the environmental impacts of farming. A trend in the twenty-first century to produce crop-based biofuels (e.g. corn for ethanol) to replace fossil fuels has increased pressure on the clearing of rainforests, peatlands, savannas and grasslands for agricultural production. However, studies point to creation of a ‘carbon debt’ from such practices, since the overall release of COsub2/sub exceeds the reductions in GHGs they provide by displacing fossil fuels (Fargione et al. 2008). Arguably a similar carbon debt exists when clearing land to raise food crops via conventional agriculture that relies on fossil fuels.
In a comparative analysis of agricultural production systems, trawling fisheries and recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) were found to emit GHGs 2—2.5 times that of non-trawling fisheries and non-RAS (pen, raceway) aquaculture. In RAS, these energy requirements relate primarily to the functioning of pumps and filters (Michael and David 2017). Similarly, greenhouse production systems can emit up to three times more GHGs than open-field crop production if energy is required to maintain heat and light within optimal ranges (ibid.). However, these GHG figures do not take into account other environmental impacts of non-RAS systems, such as eutrophication or potential pathogen transfers to wild stocks. Nor do they consider GHG from the production, transportation and application of herbicides and pesticides used in open-field cultivation, nor methane and nitrous oxide from associated livestock production, both of which have a 100-year greenhouse warming potential (GWP) 25 and 298 times that of COsub2/sub, respectively (Camargo et al. 2013; Eggleston et al. 2006).
These sobering estimates of present and future energy consumption and GHG emissions associated with food production have prompted new modelling and approaches, for example, the UN’s water-food-energy nexus approach mentioned in Sect. 2.1. The UN’s Sustainable Development Goals have pinpointed the vulnerability of food production to fluctuations in energy prices as a key driver of food insecurity. This has prompted efforts to make agrifood systems ’energy smart’ with an emphasis on improving energy efficiencies, increasing use of renewable energy sources and encouraging integration of food and energy production (FAO 2011).
2.7.2 Aquaponics and Energy Conservation
Technological advances in aquaponic system operations are moving towards being increasingly ’energy smart’ and reducing the carbon debt from pumps, filters and heating/cooling devices by using electricity generated from renewable sources. Even in temperate latitudes, many new designs allow the energy involved in heating and cooling of fish tanks and greenhouses to be fully reintegrated, such that these systems do not require inputs beyond solar arrays or the electricity/heat generated from bacterial biogas production of aquaculture-derived sludge (Ezebuiro and Körner 2017; Goddek and Keesman 2018; Kloas et al. 2015; Yogev et al. 2016). In addition, aquaponic systems can use microbial denitrification to convert nitrous oxide to nitrogen gas if enough carbon sources from wastes are available, such that heterotrophic and facultative anaerobic bacteria can convert excess nitrates to nitrogen gas (Van Rijn et al. 2006). As noted in Sect. 2.7.1, nitrous oxide is a potent GHG and microbes already present in closed aquaponics systems can facilitate its conversion into nitrogen gas.