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

Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

lithub.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 257 posts

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#121

Post by griffzhowl »

jbstack wrote: post #115
scaramanga wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's explained in the article. People aren't going to starve to fill their gas tank so you need to grow more corn to offset that used for biofuel. To do that can require destroying other carbon sinks (wetlands are the example given, sometimes dried and then burned) to turn them into fields. But in any case, carbon from the ground is used to fertilize the fields to grow the corn. For every unit of energy produced by c…

"People aren't going to starve to fill their gas tank so you need to grow more corn to offset that used for biofuel. To do that can require destroying other carbon sinks (wetlands are the example given, sometimes dried and then burned) to turn them into fields" This doesn't make any sense to me. With petrol, you are transferring carbon from a store to the atmosphere every time you use it for energy. With a wetland, y…

I think the idea is that the wetland or forest or whatever is a carbon sink in the sense that they have a net negative effect on carbon in the atmosphere each year. Growing corn and then burning it would at best be net zero if no further atmospheric carbon were produced by the production processes, fertilizers etc., which it is. So the differences between the two scenarios is net negative versus net positive atmospheric carbon each year.

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#122

Post by hibikir »

burnt-resistor wrote: post #56
in_cahoots wrote: post #7

I read the whole article and I still don't see how Big Ag misled anyone. I may be misunderstanding, but it seems that the author is trying to differentiate between growing corn for food vs growing the same corn for ethanol. I assume the entire reason the lobby exists is that farmers want to grow corn for food and ethanol. But the researcher lost interest before proving anything around there. Maybe ethanol is actually…

Corn and most ag subsidies are using taxpayer money for corporate welfare for mostly mega farming consortia with a smattering of medium and smaller farmers, who also can't exist in the rigged market without welfare. 5% of all US land, not just arable land, ALL land is used for mostly cow corn. It's absolute insanity. And then there's the federal US sugar cartel keeping prices artificially (no pun intended) high.

Unfortunately farmers everywhere get subsidies: A lot of European farming would collapse and be replaced by farming done in the southern hemisphere if there weren't subsidies.

As for too much corn, it's a purely economical plan: There's rotation with soybeans in most of the midwest because corn-corn-sobeans is more profitable and treats the land better. Your typical farmer would change to anything else that makes more money per acre, especially if it needs fewer treatments.

As for the total acreage, corn is the second highest in land coverage. There's a worse one: Lawn grass. It just sits there, requires a bunch of maintenance, and produces no economic output. It's often also mandatory: My county's minimal ratios mean 75% of my property has to be well maintained lawn

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#123

Post by throwaway_5633 »

scaramanga wrote: post #80
tzs wrote: post #40

> Why would growing corn for ethanol and burning it in an engine be any climate-friendlier than growing that same corn for food and burning an equivalent amount of gasoline in an engine? The carbon absorbed in the field wouldn’t change; neither would the carbon emitted from the car. If the only difference was that producing ethanol emitted much more carbon than producing gasoline, where were ethanol’s benefits? Where…

It's explained in the article. People aren't going to starve to fill their gas tank so you need to grow more corn to offset that used for biofuel. To do that can require destroying other carbon sinks (wetlands are the example given, sometimes dried and then burned) to turn them into fields. But in any case, carbon from the ground is used to fertilize the fields to grow the corn. For every unit of energy produced by c…

One of the things that concerns me most after studying agriculture for a couple of years is that people may definitely starve to fill other people’s gas tank. A lack of arable land is imminent and high income people at the gas pump, or eating meat (same economics) may well outspend those who don’t have enough food. Part of food inflation is attributed to biofuels. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethanol_fuel_in_Brazil

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#124

Post by passwordoops »

lazide wrote: post #46
jayd16 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, seems like they're forgetting the part where they need to bury the corn in bedrock to keep the carbon sequestered.

No they aren’t. Biofuels in use, keep atmospheric carbon neutral. Fossil fuels increase atmospheric carbon. Now, if we did make biofuels and reinject them into the ground, yes it would reduce atmospheric carbon. But neutral is strictly better than increasing, regardless yes?

"Biofuels in use, keep atmospheric carbon neutral."

No they do not. The accounting generally doesn't take into account the full emissions of agriculture, which for corn is particularly carbon intense. Not to mention the downstream pollution impacts of over fertilization, such as coastal dead zones

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#125

Post by foobarkey »

If the carbon has been stored 1 million years ago and you burn it the total net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases

If the carbon was stored last year and you burn it the net amount of carbon stays about the same YoY

Moving the transport sector over to the latter carbon or electrical would be a good direction in general

Disregarding spidy senses and mental gymnastics about people starving if they dont eat all that corn, I dont understand how we fail to see this as a net benefit and crap articles like that get produced

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#126

Post by rrobukef »

vintermann wrote: post #75
lazide wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forests are not long term carbon sinks. They flatline rather quickly. This is obvious to anyone who has spent much time in a forest, because if this wasn’t the case, forests would be sitting on thousands of feet of sequestered carbon. Instead of a few feet (typically) of non-mineral soil. Forests also (typically) go through cycles of burning. The highest rate of carbon sequestration is when a forest is in the 3-25 ye…

Sinks is about flows. The question is about reservoirs. Forests are a long term carbon reservoir. Yes, it's possible to regrow it and let it stay that way. But we don't do that if we regularly chop it down for wood pellets. If we regularly do that, then the carbon in it will spend more of its time in the atmosphere and cause trouble, even if it wasn't pumped from a fossil reservoir. This is why you can't ignore land…

I disagree, wood pellets are more expensive than oil for energy, especially if only counting the production cost of oil w/o the tax. So even the first time an old forest is cut, when the land changes, it already displaces oil use. At greater expense even, so demand would be reduce the amount energy produced further.

Furthermore Europe can also choose to replant non-forest land or replant permanently afterwards.

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#128

Post by cpursley »

Just wait until you learn about the crazy stuff like corn syrup, “fortified” highly processed white bread and sugary kids cereal they’ve pushed for the last 40 years. There’s a reason the farm bill tackles both ends: Farm subsidies and SNAP - American taxpayers are literally subsidizing the obesity health crisis.

Re: Big agriculture mislead the public about the benefits of biofuels

#130

Post by wffurr »

foobarkey wrote: post #125

If the carbon has been stored 1 million years ago and you burn it the total net amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases If the carbon was stored last year and you burn it the net amount of carbon stays about the same YoY Moving the transport sector over to the latter carbon or electrical would be a good direction in general Disregarding spidy senses and mental gymnastics about people starving if they dont eat all t…

>> If the carbon was stored last year and you burn it the net amount of carbon stays about the same YoY

The accounting for biofuels is not that simple in practice. They end up significantly more carbon intensive than using electricity and batteries or even hydrogen.

Post reply on HN