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Corn is a poor ethanol crop. Period. It should not ever be used for its ethanol purpose. There are better crops suited for that purpose but the infrastructure i
by kickout 6y ago
Corn is a poor ethanol crop. Period. It should not ever be used for its ethanol purpose. There are better crops suited for that purpose but the infrastructure in the US is set up for.....corn. Humans don't eat corn (or they eat a trivial percentage). 75% of the corn grown goes to feed animals (usually cattle) or cars (via ethanol).
Yea we need to grow less corn. But we can't outlaw it. You just removed the livelihood for the Midwest. The current economic incentive structure is to grow corn (there literally is no downside). A solution that changes that has to include benefits for farmers, landowners, consumers, and society. It's not going to be easy (or cheap).
https://thinkingagriculture.io/incentivizing-regenerative-agriculture/ https://thinkingagriculture.io/incentivizing-regenerative-ag...
- adrianN 6y agoBiofuels are a gigantic waste. At some point I did the math for Germany. If we took the land used for energy crops and instead covered it with solar panels, that would produce enough energy to basically cover Germany's energy needs (or a least a large part of them, depending on eg storage efficiencies).
- crowbahr 6y agoIt's not just an economic incentive structure though: It's subsidies that make it a priority crop instead of anything else. We could be making so many other things instead. A tax on ethanol & cattle feed would do more to shift things than making it illegal. Make it cheap to grow for humans, but allow other forms of food crop to have a fighting chance.