Building a world of resilient communities.    The net energy of
pre-industrial agriculture  Following on from yesterday's
discussion, I want to make a point that seems like it must have
been made before, but I cannot quickly find a good discussion of
it.  That is that the net energy of pre-industrial agriculture,
taken as a whole energy-gathering system, must have been low,
with EROEI probably on the order of 1.1-1.6 depending on place
and time.  Prior to the industrial revolution, the main source
of primary energy in society was biological - agriculture and
forestry, with a significant assist from water mills.  The
biological energy was used to feed horses (used themselves in
ploughing, but also in transportation), as well as agricultural
workers.  The water-mills were primarily used to mill flour (ie
also used in agricultural production, for the most part).  My
point is the following - we know that the vast bulk of the pre-
industrial population were involved full-time in agricultural
production, and so were