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U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

reuters.com

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Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#71

Post by dilap »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #12

Corn in the US is mostly used for harmful purposes. It's used for producing fodder for intensive cattle farming (which of course produces lots of CO2). It's used for biofuel production, which as the article observes releases more CO2 than that it saves. And it's used for producing corn syrup which is an ingredient that nobody needs in their diet. The rest, which would be usage for e.g. corn bread or other staples of…

Post-NAFTA, artificially low-priced US corn flooded the mexican market and devastated traditional small Mexican growers.

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#72

Post by masklinn »

assttoasstmgr wrote: post #18
hedora wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brazilian E85 is made from sugar cane, not corn. It’s significantly less carbon-intensive.

Correct. However, Brazil's gasohol program was developed as a response to shortages produced by the 1973 oil crisis. Sugar cane is plentiful in Brazil, unlike Nebraska; it was not chosen for its carbon properties.

The carbon properties can be a nice side-effect of something selected for other reasons though.

I have no idea about brazilian gasohol, but that’s basically the story of french nukes, they were motivated by geopolitics and economics (the 1974 “messmer plan”, the plan actually led to overbuild as electricity demand did not pick up anywhere as much as expected), but resulted in french electricity being one of the least carbon intensive in europe if not the world, and basically only beaten by countries with ubiquitous hydro.

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#73

Post by patch_collector »

jillesvangurp wrote: post #12

Corn in the US is mostly used for harmful purposes. It's used for producing fodder for intensive cattle farming (which of course produces lots of CO2). It's used for biofuel production, which as the article observes releases more CO2 than that it saves. And it's used for producing corn syrup which is an ingredient that nobody needs in their diet. The rest, which would be usage for e.g. corn bread or other staples of…

A few years back, I caught a ride with a cattle rancher while hitchhiking across South Dakota. We stopped by another rancher's property to give him an estimate of how his cows would sell at market. While we were there, we got to talking about how he'd pulled the cows off of one of his fields, and planted corn instead. Thanks to subsidies, it was more profitable to do that, even though herding cattle is really what he wanted to be doing.

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#74

Post by giantg2 »

kortilla wrote: post #36
jillesvangurp wrote: post #12

Corn in the US is mostly used for harmful purposes. It's used for producing fodder for intensive cattle farming (which of course produces lots of CO2). It's used for biofuel production, which as the article observes releases more CO2 than that it saves. And it's used for producing corn syrup which is an ingredient that nobody needs in their diet. The rest, which would be usage for e.g. corn bread or other staples of…

> Nothing wrong with e.g. organically farmed corn. There is nothing wrong with “factory”, “industrially”, or “sustainably” farmed corn either. Farming at scale is the only thing that allows all 8 billion people to eat.

Depends on how you look at it. Agriculture generally requires a lot of water. Much of this corn is being irrigated with water from the aquifers.

Sustainable farming is good, but I don't think we do very much of it. I wonder if there's any evidence that we can sustainably support 8 billion people.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/kansas-aqu...

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#76

Post by Cthulhu_ »

kortilla wrote: post #36
jillesvangurp wrote: post #12

Corn in the US is mostly used for harmful purposes. It's used for producing fodder for intensive cattle farming (which of course produces lots of CO2). It's used for biofuel production, which as the article observes releases more CO2 than that it saves. And it's used for producing corn syrup which is an ingredient that nobody needs in their diet. The rest, which would be usage for e.g. corn bread or other staples of…

> Nothing wrong with e.g. organically farmed corn. There is nothing wrong with “factory”, “industrially”, or “sustainably” farmed corn either. Farming at scale is the only thing that allows all 8 billion people to eat.

> Farming at scale is the only thing that allows all 8 billion people to eat.

False; you can feed 8 billion people using small scale / non-industrial farming as well, it just means more people would be working in the farming industry and the cost might go up. But industrial farming is not to provide food, but to provide raw resources - I mean this very article is about growing corn to turn into bioethanol to mix in fuel for cars.

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#77

Post by giantg2 »

spiderfarmer wrote: post #41
kortilla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing wrong with e.g. organically farmed corn. There is nothing wrong with “factory”, “industrially”, or “sustainably” farmed corn either. Farming at scale is the only thing that allows all 8 billion people to eat.

The romantic view people have of peasant farms is ruining all discourse about agriculture. I blame the books people read to toddlers. Peasant farms were labor intensive, disease ridden, high risk, low reward businesses that shortened lives and ruined families. But somehow for a lot of people this episode in the history of farming is seen as the optimal blueprint for sustainable farming. They ignore the fact that all…

What was that one on Netflix that sold organic specialty produce to restaurants in Chicago? I thought that one was profitable without any sort of assistance.

Either way, we have several examples of local "peasant" farms, some organic, that do well.

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#78

Post by nerdponx »

giantg2 wrote: post #74
kortilla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Nothing wrong with e.g. organically farmed corn. There is nothing wrong with “factory”, “industrially”, or “sustainably” farmed corn either. Farming at scale is the only thing that allows all 8 billion people to eat.

Depends on how you look at it. Agriculture generally requires a lot of water. Much of this corn is being irrigated with water from the aquifers. Sustainable farming is good, but I don't think we do very much of it. I wonder if there's any evidence that we can sustainably support 8 billion people. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/12/kansas-aqu...

And this is why I get so bothered by all the hand-wringing over declining population growth.

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#79

Post by giantg2 »

Retric wrote: post #68
lobocinza wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Farming is an efficient market due to the sheer number of competing agents, that drives the price to be close to the cost. Markets are cyclic. When demand is higher than supply, prices go up, companies profit more and there's incentive for investment. Within time supply exceeds demand and prices go down, so companies barely make enough to pay off and those which are inefficient go broken and are sold, hopefully, to b…

What separates poor farmers from say poor food truck owners? The issue with farm subsidies is they don’t actually change profitability long term, they simply result in over production. It’s vastly more efficient to build up a long term storage of surplus say 2 years of corn per American stored at -40C which should last ~100 years. Then let huge swaths of American farmers go bankrupt as you scale back production. This…

"There are also secondary effects as subsidizing farm insurance etc, keeps incompetent farmers in business."

Any data to back that up? If you're incompetent and your crops repeatedly, then you're not going to be reimbursed enough to make it.

"It’s vastly more efficient to build up a long term storage of surplus say 2 years of corn per American stored at -40C which should last ~100 years."

Any data to back this up? This is a huge volume. Freezers capable of those temperatures are expensive and consume a lot of energy.

"The issue with farm subsidies is they don’t actually change profitability long term, they simply result in over production."

I think farm subsidies need to be changed or reduced, but for a slightly different reason. We are basically subsidizing other countries. A lot of our grains get exported, basically sending the fruits of those tax dollars overseas.

Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline

#80

Post by AniseAbyss »

njarboe wrote: post #19
jillesvangurp wrote: post #12

Corn in the US is mostly used for harmful purposes. It's used for producing fodder for intensive cattle farming (which of course produces lots of CO2). It's used for biofuel production, which as the article observes releases more CO2 than that it saves. And it's used for producing corn syrup which is an ingredient that nobody needs in their diet. The rest, which would be usage for e.g. corn bread or other staples of…

Iowa has the first primary every year in the US[1]. Iowa produces more corn than any state[2] while being 32nd in population. Corn is very important to people in Iowa and as long as the first two facts remain the same, corn will continue to be highly subsidized and supported in other ways by the US government. [1] https://www.uspresidentialelectionnews.com/2024-primary-sche... [2] https://www.cropprophet.com/us-corn-…

I always thought the GOP hates welfare programs...
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