| It might well be possible. I don't know if you have the patience for it, but this is a very interesting talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjzvtM-Wo4c Basically he argues that yes you can. There are a few reasons this makes sense. 1. All food comes from the sun to begin with (except for what diesel you add in via plowing, etc) 2. There aren't huge variations in different plant's ability to perform photosynthesis (might be 2x, might be 5x, but probably not 1000x) 3. This means it doesn't matter too much if you grow the grain, harvest it, transport it, feed it to cows or if you just grow grass and let them eat it 4. Grasses grow according to a S-curve meaning that there's an optimal height to grow a grass up to, and harvest it down to, for maximal production which is entirely different than annual crops I'd really encourage you to watch the video, though, if you can stand it because it's very enlightening. |
Nitpick, but all energy we use comes from the Sun (ok, ultra-nitpick, some come from the previous star, but we're talking nuclear reactions in Earth's core here) - all fossil fuels, as well as wind and hydro are nothing but accumulated and transformed solar power.