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

reuters.com

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

#51

Post by rightbyte »

blahyawnblah wrote: post #36
chasil wrote: post #19

Earlier 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

Octane on its own is an anti-knock additive. And ethanol actually makes your mileage go down because it is less energy dense.

How can adding octane be an anti-knock additive? Isn't the rating normalized too octane, so it can't bring the average under 100, ever?

Like, compared to even worse carbon chains than octane?

Edit: Never mind got the scale backwards. I'll keep the comment here to shame myself.

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

#52

Post by bryanlarsen »

igravious wrote: post #9

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.

Corn farmers are generally more Ducks Unlimited type environmentalists than Greenpeace type environmentalists.

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

#53

Post by jfengel »

cashsterling wrote: post #37

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…

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.

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

#55

Post by ch4s3 »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #30
hammock wrote: post #24

Earlier 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.

Mostly it pulls those people away from more economically productive activities. What might those farmers otherwise plant? What about the associated ag businesses? Surely they wouldn't evaporate. And the ethanol processing plants could probably make other distilled products for industrial use.

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

#57

Post by [deleted] »

hammock wrote: post #47
randomdata wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

[deleted]

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

#58

Post by randomdata »

hammock wrote: post #47
randomdata wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

That was not a quote. No citation is possible. Is there a reason for this bad faith participation?

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

#59

Post by ch4s3 »

jfengel wrote: post #53
cashsterling wrote: post #37

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…

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 isn't just Iowa[1], the Corn Belt across the upper Mid West is the Saudi Arabia of Corn.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_production_in_the_United_...

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

#60

Post by Supermancho »

cess11 wrote: post #18

"Corn is not a _food_. Corn is a _platform_." https://twunroll.com/article/1074810043495796736

The silly way they connect corn to bananas annoys me, which you could do for literally anything, corn -> fuel -> lights -> you ate near a light ergo CORN!

I don't see how this is anything but good. Having a single crop for so many things, makes the replicator go brrr. Yes it's a single point of failure, but it's efficient to use food production to scale everything else and it's not a dead-end if corn were to have problems (ie Interstellar)

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