According to the US Census Bureau Population clock, the population of the United States on July 4 was more than 328 million – which is up more than 2.3 million people from the same time a year earlier in 2017. That’s a lot of people, and there is a growing demand for food and agricultural products in the United States and worldwide. The question is – how does a country of 328 million get fed? With enough affordable and reliable energy, and that’s especially important for 88 percent of all farms that are small family-run, businesses. These farms need affordable and reliable energy to continue producing the food that stocks American grocery stores and tables.

America Agriculture Energy Usage

Crops require energy from the sun, water, and soil to grow. The essential process of photosynthesis is an important foundation for agriculture. Crops and livestock not only rely on natural processes for energy, they also rely on energy from the farm to grow and produce.

The agriculture industry uses energy in many different forms. In 2012, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) found the US agriculture industry consumes roughly 800 trillion British thermal units (Btu) or almost as much primary energy as the state of Utah. Primary energy is energy that farms use for products such as electricity, fuel, and natural gas. Indirect energy includes the manufacturing process for the chemicals, fertilizers, and pesticides used on the farm to help replenish the soil with nutrients, prevent diseases and infestations from pests and insects. Primary energy consumption on farms can be classified into four different categories: electricity, fertilizer, water, and transportation.

1.     Electricity

Electricity is vital to farming. Electricity powers irrigation equipment, sanitation, machinery for processing, lights, and pumps.

2.     Fertilizer

The indirect usage of energy for agriculture includes fertilizer and pesticide production. Potassium, phosphorus, nitrogen-based and potash fertilizers require natural gas for production. Insecticides, herbicides, and fungicides are produced using petroleum or natural gas, according to the Congressional Research Service.

3.     Water

According to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) crop irrigation accounts for 32% of the nation’s water withdrawal. Crops can be watered using several different irrigation methods. The first is sprinkler irrigation which uses overhead sprinklers that move water from a central location to the field or sub-irrigation which uses a series of pumps, gates, and ditches. Regardless of what method is used, both techniques require energy not just to move water, but also to water the crops.

4.     Transportation

Transportation is considered indirect energy consumption for a farm. Once the crop or livestock is harvested, trucks, railcars, and cargo ships are used to transport the food from the farm to our grocery stores and dinner tables. Fuel is the primary use of energy during this process. If transportation costs increase, Americans will also see an increase in their food costs.

Electricity, fertilizer, water, and transportation are all energy-intensive processes that farms use on a daily basis. As with any business, the cost of production is not absorbed by the producer. These costs are passed onto the consumer. Therefore, farms must have access to affordable and reliable energy to keep grocery bills affordable.

After a long day, it’s nice to come home, flip on the lights and turn on the TV while you change clothes and get ready to start dinner or head out for a workout. Accessing that electricity is the part you see. The part you don’t see is the 640,000 miles of electrical wiring connecting that light, TV, and fridge to the American electrical grid—a system that connects all of the country’s homes and businesses to all of the poles and wires – that you may or may not see – to create their power. Much of the electric infrastructure we use today was built in the 1950s and 1960s, but some parts of the electric grid in cities along the East Coast date back more than 100 years. While the grid still carries electricity to homes and businesses without too many obvious issues, there is a growing awareness that without much-needed upgrades, our access to cheap, reliable power could be compromised.

Severe weather is the leading cause of power outages in the nation, according to a 2013 White House Report by the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability. It found, “Between 2003 and 2012, an estimated 679 widespread power outages occurred due to severe weather,” and during that time period the report, estimated the annual impact to our economy was $18 to $33 billion with inflation-adjusted costs.

While America’s population has grown and become far more dependent on technology, segments of the grid still run on systems that are past the fifty-year lifespan in which it was designed. When these systems were built consumer demand was mostly light and used mainly for refrigeration, whereas now, the large majority of an average American’s day revolves around power usage. Think about much of the technology Americans use, and how much of it revolves around having access to power. You can literally see how much people utilize and prioritize this technology as they sit on floors in lobbies, airport terminals, public restrooms, and even use outdoor electric sockets on streets used to light up trees during the holidays.

Inside the home, it’s everything from charging tablets and smartphones to plugging in all of our appliances as well as other household and personal products that require electricity in some form or another. With American consumption rising, it is worrisome that the American Society of Civil Engineers has given the country’s energy infrastructure a D+.

Let’s be clear though, power itself isn’t the issue. The U.S is generating plenty of electricity and is even making great strides in adding new energy technology, like renewables, to the grid. Whether that energy gets where it’s going is another matter, as shown by the 2003 blackout on the part of the grid known as the Eastern Interconnection. It started in Ohio with a single wire that went out from a downed tree branch and ended with 40 million people losing power as the entire grid went haywire, sending surges of electricity all around the eastern U.S.

In fact, sometimes America has so much power it can become problematic to meet demand. Turbines and solar panels only work when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining, so power companies need to ensure that they have the capacity to supply 100% of the demanded energy if necessary 24 hours a day, seven days a week. But with too much wind or sun, those same companies can face potential line-damaging oversupply and balancing load and generation is an extremely complicated task.

One resolution to the sporadic availability of wind and solar would be to store it when the supply is high and dispense it during peak times. Some batteries have actually been built, and are increasingly deployed across the country, but at the moment their use remains minimal and cost prohibitive.

The most obvious solution to America’s larger grid issues is sustained investments in upgrading existing infrastructure with integrated capabilities that can better manage power flow and improve resiliency during storms or outages. This is an expensive proposition, with cost estimates ranging from $56 billion dollars for repairs to five trillion dollars for a complete overhaul.

Ultimately, fixes that prove most viable may be less about hardware and more about software. Building smart technology into the grid has become a much-talked-about way to better manage the power load. For example, Tennessee Valley Authority, along with a company called Smart Wires, installed equipment to help them monitor where their power goes, allowing them to re-route overloaded lines to less busy ones. The U.S Department of Energy is already looking to make this kind of “smart grid” a national priority, enabling better two-way transmission of energy to accommodate the growing “distributed grid” of solar and wind, faster re-routing to prevent blackouts, and more. Many utilities across the country are investing significant resources into grid modernization and smart grid efforts to help improve reliability and meet increased customer demand.

While the problems facing America’s grid are not insignificant, they are also not being ignored. Even though demand is rising and the landscape of power generation is changing quickly, both public and private research is being funded and tested all across the nation, and there is little fear of your lights going out anytime soon.