Google. :-)

I believe this comment was intended for The Oil Drum crowd as I had asked him to write something for The Oil Drum about Belize as so many were mentioning it as a potential hidey hole.

I have long considered such a move myself. I spent three weeks in Northern Honduras and the Bay Islands in 1997, and three weeks in Guatemala, around the Rio Dulce area, in 2000, looking for a place to retire, perhaps on my boat.

But I have since had second thoughts. I now believe an American that living in a third world country, when things really get tough, would be disastrous. Such a person would suffer the wrath of every starving person in the country.

"When law enforcement vanishes, all manner of violence breaks out: looting, settling old scores, ethnic cleansing, and petty warfare among gangs, warlords, and mafias. This was obvious in the remnants of Yugoslavia, the Soviet Union, and parts of Africa in the 1990s, but can also happen in countries with long tradition of civility.”
- Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate.

Just being a member of any minority in any country would be a perilous position to be in. All manner of civil behavior would disappear. “Others” are always blamed for the misfortunes people suffer during times of crisis. And no better a target would exist than an American living amongst pitiful starving masses of a different culture and language, especially if law enforcement disappears. And one thing I found while in Honduras and Guatemala that law enforcement is already in very short supply there. It could completely disappear with little provocation.

While in La Cebia, Honduras, I was shocked to see an armed guard, with a shotgun, standing outside the local Burger King. Then I noticed the same thing at KFC, and everywhere else. Because robbery is so easy and the police so scarce, even fast food restaurants are forced to hire their own armed guards. I believe such a place would be an extremely dangerous place for an American during a local insurrection. And insurrections will be everywhere as we tumble over the cliff of diminishing fuel supplies.

Ron Patterson

On location and re-location.

I think that my best option is to continue to "bloom where I am planted" and work on making things better here.

Of course any plans can change due to unforeseen developments, which are not necesarily PO related.

I do think that it is good to evaluate where one might like to live in terms of peak oil and global warming.

A good time to make any changes might be sooner rather than later.

I am in a pretty good location with some good relationships and fairly local options for short-distance relaocation if things get too crazy in the city. (Minneapolis, MN)

Other thoughts on the "stay put" vs "find a new place in the sun" issue?

I think we will all die, so we just need to figure out what we want to do betweeen now and then. My priority has slightly less to do with long-term survival than with living for positive change while I can amidst the mainstream culture. Tilting at windmills, perhaps.

Actually, I believe the opposite - that is, common Americans have been travelling less for a generation, and that is not merely coincidental. A silly example - in the early 1990s, the number of Malaysian students studying at American universities was greater than the entire number of American university students studying overseas.

Essentially, at this point, the message most Americans hear about overseas concerns 'threats' to their safety. The groups that tend to travel this most in American society also tend to be inured to actually integrating - Mormon and other missionaries, military personnel, the upper class.

This lack of experience of a broader world is one of the more useful tools available to ensure that Americans have no way to compare and contrast their own way of living with any others.

This may be one of the more interesting things about Sicko - it actually seems to open a window into certain aspects of daily life in other societies - and apparently, even this short glimpse is almost revolutionary.

Americans have become so American-centric they seem even unaware of it - any observations about how they live which don't fit their own opinions or self-image is immediately dismissed as being 'anti-American.'

Facts, like the example above concerning university students, play little role in American discourse at this point. It remains one of the attractions of peak oil to me.

Oh, and as a little side note - notice how the price of oil has been climbing steadily since Gonu? What an odd little juxtaposition - unprecendented and vicious storm in a major oil producing region, and afterwards, rising prices, as if the amount of oil available was less than the market anticipated. Merely a factor in a very complex situation, of course, possibly one which doesn't even exist - or one which has simply faded into the background, just like the permanent destruction of oil infrastructure in the Gulf Of Mexico.

Thanks for your concern, my other main potential place to move would be Costa Rica, which has an excellent public health system.
Belize just isn't that remote. Its about 1,000 miles south of Houston, although the plane service is through Miami. I know at least 4 people who've moved there and lived there over the last 30 years. Its also close to both Mexico City and Havana, both places with good medical care.

I never discounted the potential or actual, for the few, wealth of Mexico. Nothing magic happens at the border that suddenly condemns them to poverty. What I am referring to are the shanties constructed of tin scraps on a foundation of tires that from time to time slide down onto the 'freeway'. I've spent plenty of time in the backwoods of Mexico and speak the language and culture almost too well.

Lots of 'real' money comes into Mexico daily. Resorts, tourism, investments have definitely dealt the Mexicans a good hand in comparison to the paltry amount of 'tourodollars' that end up in United Fruit/Honduras for example. The tragedy of Mexico is that just when the possibility of of a chance at first world opulence appears, the oil revenue looks set to fall. I'm not saying that the result would be a wholesale rush to the border because by that time the USA won't be in great shape either.

Subtract the oil revenue from your figures and tell me how far up the list Mexico is. Then subtract the amount of foreign capital that would be gone if the oil revenue falls off. Then tell me how wonderfully the economy will function. Then subtract a whole pile of tourist money when jet travel takes a fall.

Westtexas export land model is about to occur just south of the Rio Grande. I don't personally care how many Mexicans cross the border or whatever. Whether my tone happens to coincide with US politicians is not my concern; Mexicans are. You can't help but love those people and they deserve far better than they have got. I don't give a crap what Americans think of the situation; it just is, and it isn't likely to get any prettier, unfortunately.

I used to spend my free time in Mexico but the drug situation just got to the point that you are not safe except in the tourist zones. For a limited time in the 70's and 80's there was relative freedom and safety, but now it is over. I used to travel by motorcycle down there and live pretty close to the ground, but I'm glad I did that then and not now.

Wher there's no greed there's no fear.

What do you mean by "all shuttle missions are military missions"? The last military mission was STS-53 in 1992, after that all the missions are civilian. Or is building ISS a military mission in your book?

I think that robotics in space is a sadly unexplored field.
We never really got the cheap launchers needed to launch small robots into space. If you did then you could send up complex system in pieces. I've always thought rail guns would have been a good approach to this cheap small payload launch system. But we tied our manned space program and unmanned programs tightly together even though the unmanned program does not have the problem of high g launches and can handle much higher losses if done correctly. You could do a lot of stuff with high speed cheap launches of say 100 kg.
Even 1-10kg could be enough today with our ability to miniaturize. It would be natural to look to the moon or beyond for raw materials with this sort of system thus it leads far more naturally to a real space based ecosystem instead of getting everything from earth.

Sending people up when needed could have then been done with a much smaller and less complex shuttle or rocket.

But we decided to not treat getting stuff into space as a different problems from getting people into space.

Its a bit funny but if we do have the problems some expect we can expect NASA to be gutted so it might actually lead to a real space program.

I've also been a great non-fan of the space shuttle ever since its inception. Seems like its only purpose has been to send astronauts on joy rides in low-earth orbit. The international space station was invented later mainly for the purpose of giving the shuttle crews something to do, as well as for the sake of being a showpiece of "international cooperation".

It's changed as it went.

• In the beginning, the Shuttle was going to be a cheap launcher with fast turnaround, with dual-purpose military and civilian missions.  (Well, aside from its role in replacing the fully-operational Saturn V and keeping the R&D funds flowing.)  The wing design was specified to allow enough cross-range landing capability to permit a launch from Vandenberg AFB, dropping a satellite, and landing at Vandenberg after one orbit.
• When it became obvious that the Shuttle wouldn't have the lifting capability or rapid turnaround for military missions, it became a way to keep lots of contractors employed.
• When the ISS was agreed upon, it acquired a foreign policy mission:  it helped to keep Russian rocket scientists employed in civilian jobs rather than working for Saddam Hussein, Iraq or N. Korea.

Actually doing science in space, putting people on the Moon or Mars, and things like that are very much the red-headed stepchildren of the people who determine NASA's budget.

LLNL took some of its money for random research and came up with a space-station concept which could have been launched in one shot of a Titan booster.  Because it was inflatable and made mostly of Kevlar and the like, it was dubbed the "community space suit".  It could have been put up for a few billion dollars (about as much as one Shuttle mission) and was designed to spin for artificial gravity (allowing simulation of both Lunar and Martian conditions).

This concept would have destroyed the ISS gravy train, and it was immediately buried.  I recall reading that the unrestricted research funds that LLNL used to come up with this great advancement were cut off, so that uppity engineers couldn't threaten the entrenched interests with anything so gauche as a better idea.

If the US manned space program has a problem, it is that it has too much money for its missions.  Less money would get rid of the gravy train and force changes.  Just putting the remaining Shuttles in museums (the real tragedy of Columbia is that it should have been at the Smithsonian) would allow more people to more things in space for less.

I don't have a problem with manned vs unmanned I just don't think the two problems should not be tied together. They are simply two different problems that need to be solved.
One involves reducing risk to launch a human in space, unmanned only requires reasonable cost/benefit numbers and has far fewer constraints.

The Federal Transportation Agency spends about $1.5 billion/year on "New Starts"; new Urban Rail Projects.

For $16 billion you could build the 2nd Avenue subway and extend the Los Angeles Red Line subway at least to UCLA, and perhaps to Santa Monica.

and the next year ...

Alan

Hello Dipchip,

Thxs for responding. Recall my pre-Cyclone Gonu posting where I said the Omanis had no idea of how bad their flash-flooding would be, and how the Omani Govt. should tell everyone to park their vehicles on safe high ground. That way their cars would merely get a good storm-washing instead of the interiors and drivetrains being filled with mud and sand. Unfortunately, the post-mortem photos showed lots of wrecked cars and an entire new car dealership thrashed by floodwaters.

Do you have any idea if the same lack of preparation is occuring in your area? Any dealerships under water or did they safely move the new & used cars first? Thxs for any reply.

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

the useful life of solar cells is much greater than 25 years.

a rough assumption may be that solar cells depreciate in power output by 0.5% a year, which puts a halving time at well over 135 years. It would typically be components that fail, and improved manufacturing techniques(matching coefficients of thermal expansion, or by choosing materials with low coefficients of expansion) as well as joining techniques(right now it is epoyx) a change to a more solid state panel would be amazing.

if the above is implemented, a produced cell can expect to produce for 60-80 years with no maintenance beyond washing with water.

Please keep in mind the danger warnings I have given in repeated posts about information regarding alternative and renewable energy:

There is and will be a concerted attack of slander, bad infortation, false statistics and outright untruth concerning them over the next several years.
The technologies that show real promise of delivering a full paradigm change in energy production, distribution and use will be the ones under greatest attack. Some of the things you will read and hear will be beyond all belief, but the entrenched industry knows that most folks have no technical background, and will not be able to ask questions, must less search for answers. The idea is to kil the alternatives in the crib.

A great example is the link we are responding to:
http://xtronics.com/reference/energy_density.htm

First let us say that the energy density chart is very useful and interesting, and most of the data seems to conform to that given by other authoritve sources (I have not had time to backcheck them all, but it is always a good thing to do....just because it is an authoritive looking chart does not make it correct!) But the trick comes on down the page, in the remarks:
{my reply will be in brackets}

"Solar Cells  As of today, it takes about 20 years of constant use to get the energy used in manufacturer back out - if the life span of solar cells that long. Perhaps lower energy manufacturing methods will one day be figured out - they would have to be a magnitude or two improved to make these practical."

{as several posters have already demonstrated, that claim would have to be considered pretty outragous, and could be viewed as outright disinformation.
Also not mentioned is the generation of solar already being installed in the real world, in which the PV cells are actually integral to the roof. The benefit is staggering in that the roofing costs, which consumes tons of asphalt to install, are reduced by a huge factor, and many of these solar roof integrated systems have a warranty that is twice as long as the older style roof would have been (20 years, with expectations that they will go even longer) Ås stated above, the attack on PV solar is becoming increasingly desperate and slanderous.}

"Hydrogen    Embrittles its container (explodes pores in metals - forms brittle hydrates) is one of the most dangerous gases to handle - explosive from 4 - 96% concentration.  You would have to store vehicles outside - no tunnel use etc."
{The embrittlement charge is absolutely correct. One must assume that this problem is not considered insurmountable, however, and already there has been promising work in carbon fiber and ceramic lined containers. But the problem is far from solved.

{The idea that a hydrogen powered vehicle could not be used in tunnels has to be one of oddest I have heard in years, given that propane and natural gas vehicles are used in them all the time. The "one of the most dangerous gases to handle" charge must be taken in context. The chemical makeup of natural gas and LPG is very close to hydrogen, and methane gas, which must be dealt with in many industrial and mining situations every day, is almost straight hydrogen.
But again, no context is given to the remarks concerning the safety charge, and the writer knows that what the public will read is "dangerous" and "explosive". Gee, it's a good thing that gasoline isn't, right?}

Batteries  No one talks about battery wear out - energy density goes down as the batteries wear out. Manufacturing exotic batteries causes more pollution than they could possibly prevent. Energy density is still 2 magnitudes from practical.

{All I have heard is talk about the fact that "batteries wear out"! In fact, this is the absolute wall we must get through for plug hybrid and electric cars to succeed. People WILL NOT consider them if they have to carry the risk of a failed battery pack (several thousands of dollar liability) all by themselves. The petroleum industry knows this. This is why they hammer at that point over and over.

But of course, warrenty arrangements will be possible to insure the buyer against such loss, when the manufacturers are certain that they have achieved reliability. The issue is deep and repeated charge and discharge. In every other way (power per weight, power per volume,etc, the batteries of today are ready for prime time. As for the charge " Manufacturing exotic batteries causes more pollution than they could possibly prevent.", given the bogus and farcical nature of the comments about solar panels at the energy density page, I would have to see third party proof from a reliable and non petroleum industry funded source to buy that one. What is "No one talks about" is the fact that batteries are and will be recycled.}

You have to love the opening disclaimer on the page:
"The following information may have errors; It is not permissible to be viewed or used by anyone who is or has ever met a lawyer. Use is also confined to Engineers with more than 370 course hours of engineering and should only be used for theoretical studies."

Funny! :-)
The remarks at the bottom of the page should also be placed off limits to anyone with a healthy dose of scientific curiosity and skepticism.

But sadly, the author of the "energy density" webpage uses a pathetic device to attempt to avoid any questioning of his version of facts":

"You could write your congressman to change the laws of physics. Often, reality doesn't fit our emotional wants and desires, but reality can be a stubborn thing to deal with - it doesn't go away when you quit believing in it."

This is an old propaganda tool, equating to "If you don't believe me, you are a fool and denialist who will not accept the reality I am preaching."
Now I may be. Or I may not be. But of course, in true scientific discourse, my desire to question your facts proves nothing about my being a fool. You still have to defend your "facts". There are many "scientific" and "psuedo-scientific" so called "facts" being thrown around. Why should I accept only yours on faith alone?

Thank you
Roger Conner Jr.

Remember, we are only one cubic mile from freedom

I think that line of argument (that market price is the best reflection of embedded energy cost) has been thoroughly demolished elsewhere - you only need to look at the price of, say, oil - it's gone from $10 to $60bpd in a few years with no change in energy density.
I'm willing to bet the cost of manufacturing PV panels can be cut by at least a factor of 4 or 5 with sufficient economies of scale, and once the current refined silicon shortages are overcome. And with a bit more competition and higher demand, profit margins are inevitably going to be tightened up, so retail costs will come down even more. That's all without any improvements in the actual technology, which could easily double the EROEI in the next 5-10 years.

I know this definition of payback is not the same as the energy payback of making the cells

Indeed it's not.  It includes the the inverter, the installation, and a heck of a lot of hand labor for the assembly of most panels.  What we need is:

• Automated assembly (requires higher volume).
• The effects of cheaper silicon (coming from at least 2 different processes) to work through the system.
• Inverters as cheap per-watt as computer power supplies.
• A default design for panels so that they can function as roofing and displace another expensive building component.
• Uniform building and electrical codes so that installation has no expensive overhead.

A panel made from Evergreen Solar's ribbon cells would appear to lend itself to automated assembly.  At SRI's price of ~$14/kg, a square meter would cost about $4 for the raw silicon.  Call it $40 for the finished cells and their interconnects; you're up to 30-40¢/watt, then you need low-iron plate glass, sealants and the edge treatments.  You can get a computer power supply for well under 1¢/watt; $1/watt system cost seems entirely achievable.

At $1/watt, most of the activity will be for non-labor inputs, and the cascade of energy demand will be low.  Of course, as this makes energy cheaper, the demand for more PV will be high....

Integrating the PV as roofing material will cut costs by eliminating other roofing.  It appears to me that raised-seam roofing with overlapping "shingle" tongues between rows may be a good way to go.  You switch to metal roofing below the PV and continue that to the eave.  This eliminates redundant roofing beneath the PV and might allow post-installation access to the panel connections (easy installation and service!).  It's non-cell but essential advances like that which will make the system costs competitive.

That's about my numbers too. I can take my twenty grand and buy a 30 year T-bill at 5% and get a thousand bucks a year. I can put it in the stock market and get lord know what. I can put it on my roof and never pay an electric bill again. I don't care what electricity costs five years from now, ten years from now, thirty years from now.

I understand that PV's high cost is determined in large part by low volumes, which has made its fabrication very labor-intensive.  Having to buy semiconductor-grade silicon is another factor, soon to be history.  I just found that Evergreen Solar is making 100-micron (0.1 mm) polycrystalline wafers, so they only require about 0.3 kg of silicon per square meter of panel.  That's less than $5 worth using SRI's cost figures for silicate reduction.

please don't respond that it pays back in some areas where summer afternoon electricity prices are much higher than normal

Why not?  If it costs less to add PV at the point of use than to buy peaking generators and their fuel, plus upgrading the lines and transformers to handle the extra load, then PV does pay.  The more we buy, the cheaper it gets and the more places it pays to install it.  It's a virtuous cycle.

http://www.sunpower.com/index.php?pg=25
Stirlings can get much higher efficiency, and are made of cheap materials. They do need concentrators.

I am working on a very simple cheap stirling that pumps water. According to a standard simulation program, it will get about 40% thermal efficiency at hot end temp of 600C and heat reject at 60C.

Its the very first of that design.

Party: Not to defend Hugo (because I am not that interested) but it is very inaccurate to state that he has run a formerly prosperous country into the ground (or that he is on the way to doing that). Venezuela wasn't Switzerland when the guy was elected (if it was he wouldn't have been elected in the first place). To compare him to Mugabe is ridiculous. He is attempting to improve the lot of the poor in Venezuela while at the same time growing the economy, which is no easy task.When is the last time a leader of the USA even took on that responsibility? Back in the 60s?

PartyGuy,
Hugo Chavez has been elected and reelected. Twice he has been the choice of the Venezuelan electorate, in spite of a US sponsored coup. He can be called a demagogue, perhaps, but he's less of a dictator than GWB who has never been elected honestly. I've never heard that he arrests people and sends them off to secret prisons for torture either.
And if you'll read the Financial Times article that you linked to, the source of the inflation is the huge influx of dollars from oil exports. The Bolivar is linked to the dollar, and the true rate of US inflation is 10% or higher according to shadow inflation, so the basis of the Venezuelan inflation is linked to the US inflation. Perhaps you feel that Chavez should be spending the excess government revenues on building a military machine?
The squealing that the multinational oil companies are doing is because they had a 1% royalty in the Orinoco Heavy Oil Belt, and Chavez wanted to raise it to 1/6th. When they refused to negotiate, he decided to throw them out. Conoco-Phillips and Exxon are the main companies affected, the others are accepting the terms just as they did when Aramco threw them out. I guess that's socialism, but 80% of the world seems to use the socialist model for oil and gas, or national oil companies.
I really feel that the drum-beating for resource wars against Venezuela and Iran is evil. All war is evil, just as murdering your own citizens through capital punishment is evil, and murdering them through civil wars is evil.

Calling Chavez a distator is factually nonsensical, as are all accusations of un-democratic practices. If you get your news from US press, don't expect to know anything real about any subject. Fact is, Chavez has far more voter support than Bush, and hence can afford to act way more democratic. And does.

For most of the 20th century, Venezuela has been one of the biggest oil producing nations in the world, and all profits have gone to foreigners and ther cronies inside the country. Chavez tries a different approach, with overwhelming support from the population. It's quite possible, though, that outside influence will collapse his attempts at a better life for his people.

In the meantime, he doesn't kick out investment because he likes to do so, but he knows that if he doesn't, he will certainly fail. No country has ever benefited from IMF/World Bank investment, for example, other than those who invest.

Everywhere we do business people get treated in terrible ways, and many die. Still, we persist in blabbering about liberty and democracy. That is called delusional.

zimbabwe crops failed because person A took farms away from group B, who also happened to be quite competent at farming and gave the farms to group C who was incompetent at farming.

Thus farming yields dropped.

It was not a leveraging of a natural resource, it was person A bungling up the farming system to appease group C.

Hello Memmel,

Agreed. As I have mentioned numerous times before: It is the Total Context of stewardship towards biosolar living: How well are countries preparing to manage their Overshoot for the postPeak era; to optimize their detritus decline and ramp up what is biosolar achieveable?

Recall my posting yesterday on Pakistan. I would argue that the billion$$$ spent by India and Pakistan on nuke warheads would have been better leveraged instead by Peakoil Outreach and widespread efforts to halt desertification and flash-flooding. Thus, they are enhancing present and future blowback instead of seeking to attenuate it.

These leaders have been aware of Malthus [1798], M. King Hubbert [1956], and the Club of Rome [1970?] for a long time, but never had the cojones to make education and Overshoot reduction a national goal.

So instead, we are all globally sleep-walking into the Tragedy of the Commons, the US included. Zimbabwe is just another convenient example of the Thermo/Gene Collision; a bleeding and leading illustration of a 'canary in the coal mine'. The fact that people are still golfing at Harare National, while others are being eaten by crocs in the Limpopo River trying to escape to South Africa, shows just how bad the level of stewardship is in Zimbabwe.

EDIT: Will Tiger Woods still be golfing while millions of US citizens will be in dire straits? Something to consider.

It was pretty sad to read the posting of the Atlantic newslink where a Pakistani General says the only thing left to do is to nuke his own countrymen so that some youngsters might have a future chance. =(

Recall my other postings explaining the long-run advantage of FF-exporters using their wealth for importing only biosolar goods. If I was the Saudi and/or the U.A.E. King: since my offspring will be dune-riding camels again postPeak, I would be making damn sure the Arabian Peninsula's natural aquifers and oases would be totally topped off by the desalination plants before I ran out of fossil fuels. Instead, they built a refrigerated ski-slope in the desert; the exact opposite of sound preparation. Yikes!

Bob Shaw in Phx,Az Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?

Saudi Arabia seems to be doing a pretty good job of managing their oil resources. But then its not really a country, just a little family business.

Right, when China removed controls and became market oriented, the economy took off. Vietnam too!

Ironic that Iran and Venezuela are trying to swim the other way.

The 55 mph speed limit (traffic camera enforced) would raise the time cost of auto travel and thus reduce gas consuming car trips.

Good for the "second order" energy saving effects.

Best Hopes for a 50 mph Speed Limit (traffic camera enforced) + tolls on all interstates,

Alan

The old deep cycle lead acid batteries run about $3K for the 10 kWh auxillary battery pack. Ideally you have two of these, so the capital cost does go up by about 6K.

Newer batteries apparently can go through many, many more cycles than these lead acid types, they weigh much less too, and they are much more power dense. They cost about 3 times more, but likely worth it if buying new and not cash limited.

This small tractor could handle a 1 kW roof top and on a sunny day, doing light duty it could power itself in the field.

Prior to farming mechanization I believe the old adage was: "One acre per horse per day".

Help me out further please...

A tractor needs a few to several passes over the same area in a year and each pass will require different power levels.

1. Clear sod or cover crop by discing-1-3 passes?
2. Harrow-2 passes?
3. Seed-1 pass
4. Harvest-1 pass
5. Light disc-1 pass
6. Light harrow-1 pass
7. Sow off season cover crop-1 pass
8. Till in or harvest surface only of cover crop-1 pass

In this example, where I am thinking of a grain and clover rotation perhaps, 9-11 passes over the same field occur.

Any comments?

So plowing (assuming no low-till or zero-till practices) takes 1.75 hr/ac and perhaps 2.4 gallons/ac; we are still WAY below the 68 gal/ac of the article.  How fast does planting (assuming not done along with the plowing) and reaping go?  Disc harrow?

I haven't been taking careful note of the numbers on inputs to biodiesel but I believe
1) no battery powered tractor would be powerful enough
2) that oilseed based biodiesel would compete too much with food production.

The contractor preparing my place for canola is using his own 'mineral' diesel. I think the way ahead must be liquid fuel made via gasification of non-food biomass. This is currently way beyond the resources of small communities.

Re time and energy for annual crops. In my earlier life I spent 46 years in farming and partly parallel until now 31 in engineering. On the long days on the tractor you have ample time to make energy calculations! The Farming (wheat, barley)was done with one tool at a time- and not as now with several in one go so I had to pass each m2 8-10 times each year - breaking, 2 times harrow, sowing, compacting, fertilizer, 2-3 times spraying - fungicides- pesticides, harvesting, compacting bales, harrowing etc.
On our Danish farm (25 hectares heavy clay soil)we used a David Brown 70 HP tractor which had a specific energy use at medium loads of 220 gram Diesel fuel per HP/hour.
The least fuel were used for spraying- and the most for ploughing.
I could plough some 7-8 hours on some 30 litres of diesel~ 4 litres per hour~40 kwh/hour/hour~54 HP in average. This was sufficient to pull a 3 blade a. 16 inch= 4 feet in width)plough 8-10 inches deep and at a speed of 3-4 kilometres per hour depending mainly on the weather. A slip of the wheels- with differential blocked of 30 % was common in the fall. The plough brands used were (Kverneland- http://www.classic-combines.com/kverneland.html and Fraugde). This means that with 15 kw~20 hp a little less than the famous 26 HP Ferguson ( http://www.veterantraktorensvenner.dk/mtmar2001/index.shtml ) you kan pull one 12-16 inch plough in heavy soil or maybe 2 x 10 inches in lighter soil.No more. My parents started with one horse (Jydsk) that could pull an approximately 10 inch plough.
I did experiment with reduced "tilling". In a few years weeds will take over the field completely. But 1-2 years in a row is possible.

Regarding energy use in farming, the European litterature has an large number of studies- unfortunately often in local languages- here a typical Danish study
http://www.agrsci.dk/djfpublikation/djfpdf/gvm260.pdf
kind regards/And1

Data for the fuel efficiency of tractors in the 40-50 hp range comes from an international testing agency in Nebraska linked in the article.

How measured?  I could imagine high losses in e.g. hydrostatic transmissions.

Steve Heckeroth uses a figure of 200 gallons per acre of diesel for "intensive" agriculture in the developed world.

Direct or indirect?  If he's including all the chemical inputs and up/downstream processing, it's an apples/watermelons comparison.  Remember, 1 HP = 550 ft-lb/sec; if your power level implies on the order of 10,000 lb of thrust at your speed and your tractor only weighs 2000 lb, you probably have an unrealistic assumption somewhere.

It is confusing to go between electric and diesel motor in the discussion of power.

You need to get down to ft-lb/sec delivered to the transmission, which is going to be the common interface point between concepts.

I am not sure I believe that crop wastes exist.

Rice hulls and straw, wheat chaff, corncobs, excess corn stover.  Many of these present disposal problems.

But to follow along, are you talking about on-board gasification? Do you have experience making biogas in large quantities from on-farm residue? Do you think the anaerobic digestion of biogas production yields nice compost?

Solid fuels would require on-board gasification.  I have zero experience with biogas, but many others do; if you have any animals on the farm, the manure is a likely biogas feedstock.  Anaerobic digestion converts a subtantial amount of the input to gas, but leaves the phosphorus and potassium; the nitrogen appears to be largely converted to ammonia.

I found a presentation which claims that human and plant pathogens are removed by thermophilic anaerobic digestion.  This may fit well with an integrated scheme.  What you'd need is inexpensive and reliable gas cleanup and compression systems.