4 ms·

> one of the best places to grow crops in the world (#1 soy producer and one of the top corn) This makes me quite sad - the idea of one of the best places in t

> one of the best places to grow crops in the world (#1 soy producer and one of the top corn) This makes me quite sad - the idea of one of the best places in the world to grow crops being wasted on massive monocultures of these industrial crops.

tryptophan 7y ago
Not only that - we also subsidize these useless crops. For some reason we grow corn just to burn it in car fuel as an additive. Corn is so subsidized it also becomes cheaper to add high-fructose corn syrup to everything instead of sugar.
- henryfjordan 7y ago
  The carbon in that corn comes from the air. If we all burned corn fuel instead of oil found in the ground we'd be a lot better off in terms of emissions.
  - tasty_freeze 7y ago
    If we took the same amount of money which is used to subsidize corn and used it to fund research on batteries, solar cells, etc, or used the money to upgrade our power grid, or subsidized energy efficiency in homes, the money would have a far greater effect.
  - AngryData 7y ago
    Yeah but what if you account for the synthetic fertilizer which is produced primarily from natural gas? And if it isn't produced from natural gas it requires near 100x as much electricity, which still currently comes from fossil fuels. If we produced all our fertilizer without natural gas we would consume the current total world's energy production.
    - philipkglass 7y ago
      That is incorrect. World ammonia production in 2016 was 175 million tonnes. Producing that much ammonia -- the basis for all synthetic nitrogen fertilizers -- requires about 31 million tonnes of hydrogen. At present this hydrogen is indeed mostly made from natural gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_production As of 2011, it required 50 kilowatt hours to produce a kilogram of hydrogen by electrolysis of water, or 50 megawatt hours per tonne: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/doe-technical-targets-hydrogen-production-electrolysis https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/doe-technical-targets-... That comes out to a total of 1550,000,000 megawatt hours, e.g. 1550 terawatt hours, to make 31 million tonnes of hydrogen. World electricity consumption in 2016 was 20,863 terawatt hours: https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/ https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/ Producing the world's synthetic fertilizer starting from electricity instead of natural gas would require about a 7.4% increase in world electricity production: (20863+1550) / 20863 = 1.074. It is true that this would benefit the climate only if the extra electricity generation were based on low-emissions sources like hydroelectricity, wind, nuclear, or solar. On the larger point, I think that corn-to-biofuel is a very poor use of money, land, and indirect fossil fuel inputs.
- lettergram 7y ago
  Most of the corn in Illinois goes to feed, stuff that can’t go to feed is turned to ethanol. 2% goes to human consumption directly. Also soy and corn is far from useless, these are considered two of the worlds staple crops. You’d likely starve to death without farming: wheat, corn, and soy. Even if you don’t eat it directly it what enables food to be affordable.
  - eecc 7y ago
    Ah yes, the famous corn fed to cows that then bloat because they can't digest it and need antibiotics to survive. Brilliant.
    - xnyan 7y ago
      It's the cheapest way to do it. Not saying it's the best way, but in studying history I've noticed that cheapest (particularly in food) tends to win in terms of production. It's a real problem but I don't see how a snarky comment comes off as anything but rude or uninformative.
      - eecc 7y ago
        I guess it's only cheap because the corn is subsidized, and the societal cost of all that junk food is too finely dispersed to notice.
- brlewis 7y ago
  I think surplus food production capacity is a good thing to subsidize in case of unexpected, sudden supply decreases. Relying on market forces to respond to such events would be too slow. That said, maybe there's a better implementation than the current one.

tryptophan 7y ago

Not only that - we also subsidize these useless crops. For some reason we grow corn just to burn it in car fuel as an additive. Corn is so subsidized it also becomes cheaper to add high-fructose corn syrup to everything instead of sugar.

henryfjordan 7y ago
The carbon in that corn comes from the air. If we all burned corn fuel instead of oil found in the ground we'd be a lot better off in terms of emissions.
- tasty_freeze 7y ago
  If we took the same amount of money which is used to subsidize corn and used it to fund research on batteries, solar cells, etc, or used the money to upgrade our power grid, or subsidized energy efficiency in homes, the money would have a far greater effect.
- AngryData 7y ago
  Yeah but what if you account for the synthetic fertilizer which is produced primarily from natural gas? And if it isn't produced from natural gas it requires near 100x as much electricity, which still currently comes from fossil fuels. If we produced all our fertilizer without natural gas we would consume the current total world's energy production.
  - philipkglass 7y ago
    That is incorrect. World ammonia production in 2016 was 175 million tonnes. Producing that much ammonia -- the basis for all synthetic nitrogen fertilizers -- requires about 31 million tonnes of hydrogen. At present this hydrogen is indeed mostly made from natural gas. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_production https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ammonia_production As of 2011, it required 50 kilowatt hours to produce a kilogram of hydrogen by electrolysis of water, or 50 megawatt hours per tonne: https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/doe-technical-targets-hydrogen-production-electrolysis https://www.energy.gov/eere/fuelcells/doe-technical-targets-... That comes out to a total of 1550,000,000 megawatt hours, e.g. 1550 terawatt hours, to make 31 million tonnes of hydrogen. World electricity consumption in 2016 was 20,863 terawatt hours: https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/ https://www.iea.org/statistics/electricity/ Producing the world's synthetic fertilizer starting from electricity instead of natural gas would require about a 7.4% increase in world electricity production: (20863+1550) / 20863 = 1.074. It is true that this would benefit the climate only if the extra electricity generation were based on low-emissions sources like hydroelectricity, wind, nuclear, or solar. On the larger point, I think that corn-to-biofuel is a very poor use of money, land, and indirect fossil fuel inputs.
lettergram 7y ago
Most of the corn in Illinois goes to feed, stuff that can’t go to feed is turned to ethanol. 2% goes to human consumption directly. Also soy and corn is far from useless, these are considered two of the worlds staple crops. You’d likely starve to death without farming: wheat, corn, and soy. Even if you don’t eat it directly it what enables food to be affordable.
- eecc 7y ago
  Ah yes, the famous corn fed to cows that then bloat because they can't digest it and need antibiotics to survive. Brilliant.
  - xnyan 7y ago
    It's the cheapest way to do it. Not saying it's the best way, but in studying history I've noticed that cheapest (particularly in food) tends to win in terms of production. It's a real problem but I don't see how a snarky comment comes off as anything but rude or uninformative.
    - eecc 7y ago
      I guess it's only cheap because the corn is subsidized, and the societal cost of all that junk food is too finely dispersed to notice.
brlewis 7y ago
I think surplus food production capacity is a good thing to subsidize in case of unexpected, sudden supply decreases. Relying on market forces to respond to such events would be too slow. That said, maybe there's a better implementation than the current one.