Live data from Hacker News

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

reuters.com

171–180 of 264 posts

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

#171
post #76
post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corn farmers from Iowa. Where they hold the first caucus of the interminable election season. No American politician or political party can afford to offend corn farmers. We should count ourselves lucky that our gasoline is only 10% corn.

It is surprising how much politics and law can affect what is grown where. The US-Canada border cuts right across the prairies. Conditions are pretty much identical in northern North Dakota and southern Manitoba. Yet the border is clearly visible on some maps of agricultural yield: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:OatsYield.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:RyeYield.png

> politics and law

Money and corruption to be more precise.

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

#172
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> It's Probably losing it's place in the DNC primary, The rule has already passed. It can defy the rule and keep its early date, but then it will lose half its delegates under the rule. > Michigan which plants 2 million acres of corn will be 5th Fifth isn't second, and two million acres of corn in a state with a $473B GDP is not the same significance as thirteen million acres in a state with a $180B GDP > Iowa still…

Certainly all true, but I think it's still to be seen what kind of influence the Corn Belt will have in the DNC primaries, and what will happen with the RNC.

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

#173

As others mentioned, this is not a new finding. There is a lot of academic and industrial/economic analysis on this subject. Ethanol from corn was never a good idea economically for anyone other than corn farmers. It is also bad environmentally and places additional competitive demand on our food supply (choice and competition between corn going into food or fuel supply). Similar analysis has been done on other crop…

There is competitive demand with food supply but that is the point. If we did not have surplus corn produced, the USA would be very vulnerable to food disruptions. Because as we saw during COVID, business supply chains are only optimized to current demand without disaster. So if there is another channel to purchase corn it creates more demand and keeps excess production going at a price that is still possible to prod…

> If the USA suddenly had a food crisis, the ethanol production could be stopped.

Could it? 99% of corn grown (including that used for ethanol) isn’t the sweet corn for eatin. Would take a while to switch and I’m guessing there isn’t much excess capacity for turning it all into corn syrup and such.

COVID couldn’t even figure out how to redirect institutional toilet paper into consumer toilet paper. And that’s the same product!

The real buffer for a “food crisis” (whatever that is) is the amount of crop fed to livestock and food exported, not ethanol.

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

#174
post #170

The only way this gets resolved is when political parties stop pretending that Iowa is somehow representative of their voters and shift the primary schedule to put it farther behind other states. Democrats especially shouldn’t put up with Iowa considering how it hasn’t voted D anytime recently. Not to mention the completely FUBAR 2020 primary. Make GA or NH first contest. Then a lot less pressure for this losing etha…

> Make GA or NH first contest.

The DNC already voted to make SC first in 2024 (the early – pre-Super Tuesday – order in the new rule being SC => NH & NV => GA => MI)

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

#175
post #94
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> which is why the Democratic Party changed it under cover of starting with "a more diverse state" It wasn’t because they care about offending farmers or removing ethanol subsidies, it was so that Biden can lock down some early primary wins in 2024 with States with a higher percentage of black voters.

If absolute fairness were the reason for change ALL parties that primary would do so by some algorithm that's transparent. E.G. 5 Primary waves (Tuesdays/weeks/months) sorted by the 10 states with the least population to the most population. Why? It's a better rough approximation for a representative sample over an increasingly large window of voters than the current process, and still keeps any benefit of ramping up…

There’s some logistical issues as some States run the elections so the individual parties can’t pick their own primary dates (unless they pay for themselves which I think they’re loathe to do).

Assuming parties could pick the primary border, I think it’d be most advantageous to pick the States sorted by the absolute value of the win/loss percentage for a given state. That way highly contested States get an earlier say in the process and presumably a candidate that is more favorable in those markets comes out ahead earlier in the process.

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

#176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

everybody is jumping down GP's throat here by focusing on the word "Biden". him saying they're doing it to lock in Biden (their mainstream/establishment frontrunner) in large early primaries in 2024 (the next election) is not really different from saying they're doing it to lock in their mainstream/establishment frontrunner in large early primaries in future elections to avoid the kind of "self destructive" interneci…

> him saying they’re doing it to lock in Biden (their mainstream/establishment frontrunner) in large early primaries in 2024 (the next election) is not really different from saying they’re doing it to lock in their mainstream/establishment frontrunner in large early primaries in future elections Yes, it is. Because it refers to specific geographic strengths that Biden had as a candidate, not strengths that are unifor…

oh my sweet summer child, The Democrats have been trying to reduce/eliminate the influence of Iowa and New Hampshire for many years. The reason it's not likely that primaries seasons would be changed solely for a particular candidate is that a party will need to "live with" the result for some time to come, they're not going to be able to rearrange it every election.

South Carolina Democrats, black and white, are much more toward the center of the overall electorate, which is where the national campaigns shift their focus after running left and right in their respective D and R primaries. It is not Biden's specific strength that matters, because it was also the reason "Super Tuesday" was created many years ago to benefit the establishment candidate (Walter Mondale at the time)* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Tuesday#1984:_Beginnings...

And black voters are (or have been) reliably Democrat, which benefits all Democrat candidates, not particular to do with Biden (or Bill Clinton) though they did enjoy outsized black support. Saying the first primary is being moved "to make the electorate look like America" is designed to shut up the Left, who would scream bloody murder if they said "putting this state first is an establishment move because SC is not so left wing" It takes an "establishment move" to change the primaries because the state parties have to change it in the local places with cooperation or opposition from the other party in those states.

* a much younger Biden was a candidate back then too but when, as an English coalminer's great-grandson, Biden's support was centered in the UK so nobody in the US was doing him huge political favors)**

**this is a tongue-in-cheek reference to Biden plagiarizing Niel Kinnock's speech which knocked him out of the 1992 race https://archive.ph/idkaA

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

#177
post #138
post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are not the same gasoline. Ethanol is high octane and so you mix it with a much worse grade of gasoline and get the same octane. E0 advocates attribute to lack of ethanol what is really just the better grade of gas.

Ethanol absorbs water which doesn’t always play nicely with seals and fuel lines, or at least that’s the commonly held belief.

That’s an issue if you’re running E100. Gas+ethanol blends will dramatically reduce ethanol’s hygroscopicity.

But if water is getting into your fuel (focus on fixing that, not your fuel choice), isn’t it better if the ethanol can carry it through the engine instead of just accumulating as a separate layer?

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

#178
post #121
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Corn has been the platform for civilization(s) in the Americas since agriculture was invented in Mesoamerica.

Arguably civilisation and market are orthogonal so the marketisation and commodification under capitalism means there's very little civilisation as well.

I have know idea what this string of words means in context. Agricultural products, especially staple grains are all commodities, definitionally: "a raw material or primary agricultural product that can be bought and sold, such as copper or coffee." In the Inca store house system for example, potatoes were the central commodity, and all types of foods stuffs were made from the freeze dried potatoes. In MesoAmerica corn was used for food, drink, animal feed, and so on.

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

#179

I 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.

We're doing it to pump corn prices. Also energy independence from pre fracking days.

Which pumps agricultural land values. Great news for retiring farmers.

Cutting corn/food prices would bankrupt some overextended corporate/new entrant farmers (and their lenders), but it’s not like the fields would become unharvested.

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

#180
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ethanol is great for gas stations too. Your tank doesn’t go as far so you need to visit them more often. Dunno how the complaints about ethanol = bad because it’s hygroscopic really are. Yeah, 100% ethanol will pull in atmospheric h2o, but in a gasoline+ethanol mix? If anything, a small bit of ethanol helps “break the phase” and at least runs any moisture through your engine instead of a separate layer which is surel…

Ethanol gas is terrible for most car engines and fuel systems.

source: trust me bro
Post reply on HN