The agri-food chain consumes about one third of the world's energy production with about 12% of it for crop production and nearly 80% for processing, distribution, retail, preparation and cooking. The agri-food chain also accounts for 80-90% of total global freshwater use where 70% alone is for irrigation. Additionally, on a global scale, freshwater production consumes nearly 15% of the entire energy production. It can therefore be argued that making agriculture and the agri-food supply chain independent from fossil fuel use has a huge potential to contribute to global food security and climate protection not only for the next decades but also for the coming century. Provision of secure, accessible and environmentally sustainable supplies of water, energy and food must thus be a priority.
One of the major objectives of the world's scientists, farmers, decisions makers and industrialists is to overcome the present dependence on fossil fuels in the agro-food sector. This dependency increases the volatility of food prices and affects economic access to sustenance.
This book provides a critical review of recent developments in solar, wind and geothermal energy applications in agriculture and the agro-food sector such as processing, distribution, retail, preparation and cooking.
About the Author: Jochen Bundschuh (1960, Germany), finished his PhD on numerical modeling of heat transport in aquifers in Tubingen in 1990. He is working in geothermics, subsurface and surface hydrology and integrated water resources management, and connected disciplines. Since 2005, he is an affiliate professor of the Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. In 2006, he was elected Vice-President of the International Society of Groundwater for Sustainable Development (ISGSD). From 2009-2011 he was visiting professor at the Department of Earth Sciences at the National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan.
Since 2012, Dr. Bundschuh is a professor in hydrogeology at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, Australia where he leads the Platform for Water in the Nexus of Sustainable Development working in the wide field of water resources and low/middle enthalpy geothermal resources, water and wastewater treatment and sustainable and renewable energy resources.
Dr. Bundschuh is author of the books Low-Enthalpy Geothermal Resources for Power Generation (2008) and Introduction to the Numerical Modeling of Groundwater and Geothermal Systems: Fundamentals of Mass, Energy and Solute Transport in Poroelastic Rocks. He is editor of 18 books and editor of the book series Multiphysics Modeling, Arsenic in the Environment, Sustainable Energy Developments and Sustainable Water Developments (all CRC Press/Balkema, Taylor & Francis Group). Since 2015, he is an editor in chief of the Elsevier journal Groundwater for Sustainable Development.
Dr. Guangnan Chen graduated from the University of Sydney, Australia, with a PhD degree in 1994. Before joining the University of Southern Queensland as an academic in early 2002, he worked for two years as a post-doctoral fellow and more than five years as a Senior Research Consultant in a private consulting company based in New Zealand. Dr. Chen has extensive experience in conducting both fundamental and applied research. His current research focuses on the sustainable agriculture and energy use. The researches aim to develop a common framework and tools to assess energy uses and greenhouse gas emissions in different agricultural sectors. These projects are funded by various government agencies and farmer organisations. Guangnan has also conducted significant research to compare the life cycle energy consumption of alternative farming systems, including the impact of machinery operation, conservation farming practice, irrigation, and applications of new technologies and alternative and renewable energy.
He has so far published more than 100 papers in international journals and conferences, including one edited book on sustainable energy solutions in agriculture and eight invited book chapters on various topics. He serves as a Section Editor for the International Journal of Agricultural & Biological Engineering (IJABE), and was the Guest Editor of a special issue of the journal of Applied Energy in 2014. He is currently the Secretary of Board of Technical Section IV (Energy in Agriculture), CIGR (Commission Internationale du Genie Rural), which is one of the world's top professional bodies in agricultural and biosystems engineering.
Dornadula Chandrasekharam is Chair Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IITB). He obtained his MSc in Applied Geology (1972) and PhD (1980) from IITB, and has been working in the fields of geothermal energy resources, volcanology, and groundwater pollution for the past 30 years.
Dornadula extensively conducted research in low-enthalpy geothermal resources in India and is currently the Chairman of M/s GeoSyndicate Power Private Ltd., the only geothermal company in India. He is an elected board member of the International Geothermal Association, and has widely represented the country in several international geothermal conferences. He has supervised 18 PhD students and published 95 papers in international and 35 papers in national journals of repute and published 5 books in the field of groundwater pollution and geothermal energy resources, a book on geothermal energy resources Geothermal Energy Resources for Developing Countries (2002) and on Low Enthalpy Geothermal Resources for Power Generation (2008).
Janusz Piechocki graduated from the Technical University in Gdansk (Poland) in 1973, finished his PhD in 1981, and is Professor since 1998. He carries out research in the area of agricultural engineering, renewable energy sources, energy, electric engineering, assessment of the economic and energy effectiveness and sustainable energy development with reducing air pollutant emissions systems. Janusz was Vice-Rector of University of Warmia and Mazury in Olsztyn (Poland) in the years 1999-2008 and 2012-2016. He was Dean of Faculty of Technical Sciences at this University in years 2008-2012. He has published over 130 original research papers.
