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The Netherlands uses seemingly cheap natural gas to grow about $0.7
billion worth of tomatoes per year--over 700,000 tons--in more than
3,800 acres of greenhouses. Cold, cloudy Holland is not an obvious
place to grow tomatoes. It takes over 100 times as much energy to
produce them as the tomatoes actually contain. Over three-quarters of
the fuel heats the greenhouse, and 18 percent goes toward processing,
mainly canning. About two-thirds less energy would be needed to grow
the tomatoes in, say, Sicily and air-freight them to Holland.
Instead, Dutch tomatoes, most of which are not actually consumed
there, are loaded into giant trucks that rumble across the continent
to exploit slightly lower labor costs of laxer regulations, before
being eaten or winding up in a tube of tomato paste.
		-- Natural Capitalism, Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L.
		   Hunter Lovins, p. 200

Tags: netherlands holland twothirds tomatoes continent naturalgas greenhouse sicily greenhouses airfreight threequarters tomatopaste naturalcapitalism gianttrucks paulhawken amorylovins lhunterlovins