ABSTRACT
The unequal distribution of renewable natural resources available for food and fiber production in relation to population requirements among countries of the world will be the source of more serious political tensions as the world food situation tightens. Resources for food production in the United States far exceed the needs of people, even with the high-level (quantitatively and qualitatively) diets enjoy. In the aggregate, food production in the 1980s and 1990s is expected to follow a promising trend of expansion, with annual rates of increase averaging slightly more than 2 percent. One of the characteristics of a large segment of renewable energy resources-for example, windmills, solar collectors, and solar electric converters—is that they must be used on a distributed basis. As a practical matter for most of the nation, all of those distributed uses would have to be tied into a backup facility.
