Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 248 posts

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

#181

Post by exabrial »

Something Conservatives and Democrats can agree on: Ethanol sucks. There is a rare moment where both sides could see past their differences to accomplish something here.

* It makes muscle cars slower

* It is terrible for engines, no matter what the lobbyists tell you

* Ethanol plants smell

* Corn uses a ton of ground water, depleting the Ogallala Aquifer and destroying habitats

* Using diesel fuel to harvest corn which makes ethanol... is just stupid. You'd be better off just burning the diesel in cars.

* The EPA was successfully paid off to implement Ethanol. They should be held accontable.

I think the only sharp resistance is going to be Nebraska, but generally, everyone hates it and it needs to go.

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

#182

Post by csee »

ramesh31 wrote: post #163
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…

>Kill the subsidies and that whole industry slowly dies. That would be a good thing. For you, maybe. Not for the millions of rural Americans whose livelihood depends on agriculture subsidies. There's a reason why we have the Senate, a place where Nebraska has the same power as California. It's exactly for situations like this. The US is a massive country full of competing interests, and our founders knew that eventua…

Industries and business absolutely have to be allowed to die if they are no longer necessary and desired by the market. If not, you're just kicking the can down the road. Give them a UBI if you are so concerned. Don't prop up zombie industries.

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

#183

Post by [deleted] »

gruez wrote: post #118
Retric wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> What separates poor farmers from say poor food truck owners? If all food trucks and restaurants disappeared off the face of the earth, people would mostly be able to feed themselves. The same is not true for farms.

[deleted]

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

#184

Post by HWR_14 »

gruez wrote: post #122
AniseAbyss wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought the GOP hates welfare programs...

As always, a party's political beliefs are more complicated than being pro-[thing] or anti-[thing]. To steelman the GOP, I'd say that they're against welfare for individuals because for the most part they're transfer payments that don't require any "work" to obtain (short of filling out some forms). They think that's bad because it encourages laziness. To my knowledge farm subsidies aren't implemented that way. They'…

> To my knowledge farm subsidies aren't implemented that way.

You'd be wrong. Farm subsidies exist in several forms, but one is for letting fields that could produce x lying unused. Some "farmers" just sign up for that program every year and havent planted anything since they inherited the farm.

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

#185

Post by bradfa »

jimbob45 wrote: post #170
bradfa wrote: post #70

The octane rating of fuels in the USA is fairly standardized, a majority of gasoline cars require a minimum of 87 octane (on the US measurement system) and some even require or recommend a minimum of 91 octane. These requirements are usually for emissions and warranty/reliability reasons, but in some higher performance vehicles (which are a small subset) it's also for performance reasons. Using ethanol in a gasoline…

The octane rating of your fuel does not in any way affect the emissions of your car[0]. You should use whatever octane-rated fuel that your manufacturer recommends. Using a higher-rated fuel will not confer any additional benefits whatsoever onto your car. [0] https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/ask-mr-green/does-premium-...

But using a lower octane fuel than specified by the vehicle manufacturer may damage the engine or the emissions equipment: https://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/octane.shtml

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

#186

Post by MomoXenosaga »

gruez wrote: post #122
AniseAbyss wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always thought the GOP hates welfare programs...

As always, a party's political beliefs are more complicated than being pro-[thing] or anti-[thing]. To steelman the GOP, I'd say that they're against welfare for individuals because for the most part they're transfer payments that don't require any "work" to obtain (short of filling out some forms). They think that's bad because it encourages laziness. To my knowledge farm subsidies aren't implemented that way. They'…

That kinda sounds like the planned economy of the USSR. Just produce anything to spruce up the propaganda statistics regardless if the market wants it.

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

#187

Post by paxys »

refurb wrote: post #108
patch_collector wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So your story is farmer stops doing activity A and does activity B because it makes more money?

> because it makes more money

Because it gets taxpayer money for no reason

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

#188

Post by [deleted] »

alistairSH wrote: post #160
bsenftner wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iowa. Former Iowans here. The nation's politics have screwed Iowa, with it being the first primary state all manner of overt attempts of political favoritism occurs in there. The economy is screwed left, right, and sideways with all the attempts at political favoritism. And the intellectual mind there is equally turned around with large helpings of religious infringement on world views, and a material amount of corpo…

The nation's politics have screwed Iowa Iowa's own laws have screwed Iowa. State law mandates the caucus occur at least eight days prior to any other state's proceedings (similarly, NH law mandates they be the first primary election). The DNC and RNC might also like it that way, but both states are complicit.

[deleted]

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

#189

Post by akomtu »

ramesh31 wrote: post #163
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…

>Kill the subsidies and that whole industry slowly dies. That would be a good thing. For you, maybe. Not for the millions of rural Americans whose livelihood depends on agriculture subsidies. There's a reason why we have the Senate, a place where Nebraska has the same power as California. It's exactly for situations like this. The US is a massive country full of competing interests, and our founders knew that eventua…

That's the Civil War argument: "we know that slavery is wrong, but we can't just end it because livelihood of millions of good upstanding citizens depends on slavery." And just like slavery, the corn syrup industry exists solely because of a law protecting it.

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

#190

Post by nickysielicki »

It also kills small engines, especially those used seasonally, which results in a lot of waste as these engines fail early.

https://youtu.be/bEf9Fdvx_Sc

My theory is that the automotive industry is complicit in not fighting back against ethanol mandates because they know that it’s ultimately good for business if their cars last 10 years instead of 15.

Post reply on HN