We can't build out tried and tested nuclear reactors but we can and will continue to do this. I am so done with the "green" movement.
Yes, the corn lobby's pressure is totally comparable to the entire push for green energy /s
U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
41–50 of 264 posts
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
The DOE lists three benefits - energy security, jobs and offset carbon emissions. If the net carbon one turns out to be bogus, the other two benefits remain https://afdc.energy.gov/fuels/ethanol_benefits.html
Jobs for the jobs god is just the broken window fallacy though. If employing people in ethanol production is hastening the ruination of our environment, lets just give them money not to do that instead.
We do that too. It doesn’t work: https://www.politico.com/news/2021/08/29/usda-farmers-conser...
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ethanol is required as an anti-knock additive. The past alternative was tetraethyllead, which had catastrophic environmental impact. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Antiknock_agent
Not true. We went decades without lead or ethanol. You can still get ethanol-free gas if you look hard, and modern engines run quite happily on it.
It's not like lead-free and eathanol-free gas is devoid of anti-knock agents... for much of those decades MTBE was used which was part of a groundwater contamination scandal.
Wikipedia has an interesting article on the subject @
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
More energy in the form of diesel and fossil fuel derived fertilizer went into corn ethanol than you get out in usable fuel
I think that the post was saying that it doesn’t require us to take carbon out from deep within earth and put it into the atmosphere.
The issues is that it does. Using tractors to farm and harvest it all, all the industrial processes to create fertilizer all require carbon to be taken from within the earth. If you only look at the corn to fuel yes it doesn't produce as much additional carbon, but once you include all the externalities you have more carbon emitting processes.
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#45And it generally gets much worse MPG compared to regular gasoline!
I wonder if this doesn't need to be the case. With the higher octane rating couldn't you in theory run a much more efficient and higher compression engine?
That is the theory behind "flex fuel" vehicles. In practice, the optimizations don't materialize in real world usage. This is likely because of safety factors built into the ECM preventing the engine from running enough timing advance to take advantage of the octane of a blended fuel.
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#46I still don't understand why we're still doing bio fuels. We've known for decades that they are a disaster. Am I missing something, is there evidence to the contrary?
For now I can't see how we can just stop fossil fuels without starving half the world (as we need them for fertilizer production). Never mind cement, plastics and steel.
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
More energy in the form of diesel and fossil fuel derived fertilizer went into corn ethanol than you get out in usable fuel
Compared to the alternative, though? The corn will be grown either way. It's not hard to see 100 bushel per acre swings in corn yield between growing years even within normal growing parameters, never mind times of crop catastrophes. While everyone hopes for a good year every year, you can't plan for a good year. As such, there will always be times where there is way more corn than we can handle. Which is what happen…
>The corn will be grown either way.
Citation needed
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#48And it generally gets much worse MPG compared to regular gasoline!
I've been tracking my flex-fuel usage - mostly E85 fillips - for a while now, tracking price and MPG. At least with the prices I've been getting, I typically get around 15% less MPG, but the price is between 10-15% cheaper. My 'cents per mile' price has generally remained the same over the last year or so I've been tracking (been tracking longer than a year, but have been using E85 more regularly in the last year).
Now... I've got a small car/engine. The MPG might be markedly worse on a bigger car. Don't know. But at least in my case, cents/mile is about the same.
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#49A link to the study referenced if you are interested: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2101084119
Thanks for the link.
As expected, the press distorted the study's conclusions to the point of actually lying:
"we find that the production of corn-based ethanol in the United States has failed to meet the policy’s own greenhouse gas emissions targets and negatively affected water quality, the area of land used for conservation, and other ecosystem processes"
Re: U.S. corn-based ethanol worse for the climate than gasoline, study finds
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, it's an agricultural subsidy that is important to states that appear early in presidential primaries so its pretty well locked in for now.
Iowa is losing that status this coming cycle, so things may begin to shift.
It's Probably losing it's place in the DNC primary, but Michigan which plants 2 million acres of corn will be 5th and Iowa still might be on Super Tuesday. If the RNC keeps the early caucus it might turn into a more partisan issue which might be worse.