In his response to my post on eating less meat, frequent commenter and really smart guy Glenn Doty writes:
….the average American burns 2 gallons of gasoline (72 kWh) per day in transportation. The production and distribution of is ~88% efficient, so this works out to ~82 kWh worth of energy required to transport us around. We Americans used ~35 kWh/day of electricity between home, work, and leisure. The average fossil electricity on the grid is ~34% efficient, so this works out to ~103 kWh worth of energy to satisfy our lifestyle. We eat ~3 kWh, we drive ~82 kWh, and we live, work and play in ~103 kWh… Yes eating meat is more energy intensive than eating salad, and yes animals fart… but in the grand scheme of things this is NOT the bigger issue.
Glenn appears to be comparing the energy intensiveness of our food with that of our transportation. I don’t see the validity of this comparison, and point to this analysis of the resources (energy, water and land use) required to grow beef vs. vegetables. In summary, growing a calorie of beef takes 20 – 25 times more fossil energy, 200 times more water, and about 9 times more land than growing a calorie of vegetables.
